Let's be honest -- it's not always easy being a fan of Canadian soccer. In fact, most of the time, it's pretty difficult. Dispiriting. Disappointing. You get the idea.
But Friday night... well, it's one of those nights that makes the whole ridiculous endeavour worthwhile.
Whether you watched the game on television or online, or had the privilege of being in the stadium to see it first-hand we all know we just bore witness to something special.
Sure, there's no guarantee that Little Red will find their way into the knockout round of this U20 Women's World Cup. They've still got a very difficult task ahead of them against North Korea, the nation that's knocked Canada out of the last two women's youth World Cups.
But this situation is so much more than could have been hoped for at halftime against Finland on Friday. Down 2-0 and seemingly dead in the water -- with the always-cynical Voyageurs in the south end of BMO Field grimly assuming another winless, goalless U20 FIFA World Cup in Canada might be in the cards -- the Canadians showed remarkable resilience in the second half.
Head coach Andrew Olivieri, who'd been criticized (i.e. by me) for his player selection and tactics in the tournament-opening 1-0 loss to Ghana, pulled off what turned out to be a brilliant double substitution at halftime, bringing on Janine Beckie and Valerie Sanderson, both of whom scored within the opening five minutes to knot the game at two.
Those goals came as part of a 20-minute sequence of attacking football that, quite honestly, hasn't been seen by any Canadian team, at any level, of either gender, in quite some time. Now, sure, Finland is no women's soccer powerhouse -- but you can only play the opponent that's put in front of you; and in the second half, Canada played them very, very well.
Nichelle Prince -- who will, unquestionably, be getting a call from senior coach John Herdman in the not-too-distant future -- was rewarded for her hard work throughout the game with the dramatic winner later in the second half, sending the 16,000+ in attendance (legit figure, for what it's worth) into hysterics (in a good way).
Canadian goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan, as expected, bounced back from the one-goal loss to Ghana, while a strong performance from Ashley Lawrence had much to do with the team's buoyed fortunes.
After a solid contingent of Ghana fans caused much consternation during Tuesday's Canada-Ghana showdown, the same Ghanaians were back on hand and lending their vocal support to the Canadians on this night (one would hope so, considering that the vast majority of them presumably live in Canada). And while the flying of a small Ghanaian flag alongside a larger Canadian flag in the Voyageurs section caused some dissatisfaction from at least a couple of long-time supporters, who'd flown thousands of kilometres to watch the game (hi Ben and Jeff!), the simple fact -- from my vantage point -- is that nearly any effort to win over new supporters to the Canadian program is a valuable one.
We have no idea if any of the Ghana supporters -- who, again, almost certainly live and work in the Greater Toronto Area -- will come out to, say, the men's national team's game against Jamaica in September. But they might. At the very least, they'll have a positive impression of the Canadian program and Canadian supporters when the day is done. And that's far more important to growing support in this country than upholding some faux-sacred notion of "purity" around what should and shouldn't be done in a supporters section.
Again, just my two cents on a foolishly esoteric issue that should really be of no consequence to anyone after such a thrilling evening.
Ultimately, whatever becomes of this team, in the short or long term, they gave us one performance that reminds us why -- despite all the heartache, all the disappointment, all the nonsense -- supporting Canadian soccer is, every once in a while, a pretty fun thing to be doing.