For the generation of Canadian players that burst onto the scene a decade ago and climbed the mountain to the Olympic podium last summer, there are still headlines to be made and hearts to be won.
Christine Sinclair is -- almost as a matter of routine, by this point -- nominated for FIFA Women's Player of the Year (though it's tough to imagine she'll win, after inexplicably finishing outside the top three in voting for her career-defining 2012 performance).
Melissa Tancredi, after taking a year off to go to school and prepare for a rapidly-approaching post-playing life, will be playing in the NWSL and returning to the women's national team setup next summer, head coach John Herdman revealed earlier this month. And Kara Lang's comeback from forced retirement continues positively, as she'll be on the bench (though not on the roster) as Canada plays a friendly against South Korea in Edmonton on Wednesday, as a means of reintegrating her into the team.
But while Wednesday's game will give fans at a surely-chilly Commonwealth Stadium a chance to see their Olympic heroes up close and personal (even as we approach the point where we're closer to Canada 2015 than to London 2012), the real groundwork for the program's future will be getting put down in much more temperate climes.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The CONCACAF Women's U-17 Championship gets underway in Montego Bay, Jamaica on Wednesday, with the tournament serving as the qualifying competition for next spring's U-17 Women's World Cup. Canada has been drawn into a group with Guatemala (Oct. 31), Trinidad & Tobago (Nov. 2) and the United States (Nov. 4), and will need to reach the final of the eight-team tournament to reach the World Cup.
And while the safe money is on Canada to reach the semifinals, the days of coasting to the finals of such competitions are long gone. While Canada and the U.S. are still the region's dominant squads, Mexico (Canada's potential opponent in the semifinal) has shown itself fully capable of big victories on the women's side in recent years. So qualification for the U-17 WWC, while likely, is by no means automatic anymore.
Back in 2002, when the FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship (the precursor to the U-20 WWC) was held in Canada, 19-year-old Sinclair and 15-year-old Lang grabbed the tournament by the throat, scoring 13 goals between them and leading the host nation into the final at Commonwealth Stadium, where more than 47,000 fans watched a heartbreaking 1-0 extra-time loss to, who else, the United States.
Eleven years later, with the senior national team playing at Commonwealth once more, Sinclair and Lang (despite not playing for more than three years) are still the centerpieces of the women's program -- but who will follow them? Who will be the next players to barrel their way into the senior team and make their presence felt?
One good bet would be 18-year-old Kadeisha Buchanan, who won't be in Edmonton due to school commitments (as is the case with many potential members of this CanWNT team) but who has already entrenched herself as part of the senior team mix. Defender Sura Yekka, just 16, will be making her first appearance on the CanWNT roster in Edmonton, after impressing Herdman et. al. earlier this year.
Whatever potential those two may possess, though, it's tough to imagine a pair of defenders having the same explosive impact on a team as, say, a pair of attack-minded players like Sinclair and Lang would.
There are attack-minded players coming through the Canadian system who, again, are missing the Edmonton game due to school commitments. Summer Clarke, an 18-year-old freshman from Richmond, B.C., is the top scorer for Louisiana State University, with eight goals in 18 games, while 21-year-old Nkem Ezurike of Lower Sackville, N.S. is leading the way at the University of Michigan, with 10 goals in 17 games.
Both Clarke and Ezurike have had success with the Under-17 team as well; Clarke scored a goal in the 2012 U-17 Women's World Cup, while Ezurike scored two of Canada's three goals at the 2008 tournament. With Sinclair and Tancredi both in their 30s, the senior team is aching for new blood to step up and fill a soon-to-be-growing goal-scoring void. Clarke, Ezurike and Adriana Leon -- who will be with Canada for Wednesday's friendly -- are three promising candidates in that regard.
While Canadian fans should fully enjoy seeing Olympic heroes Sinclair, Diana Matheson, Desiree Scott and all the rest in action on Wednesday, and anticipate the return of beloved stars Tancredi and Lang, the long-term picture of the program's health is actually going to be getting painted elsewhere -- by players like Clarke and Ezurike, and by whichever promising youngsters step up for the U-17 squad down in Montego Bay.
Because with Herdman now locked in until 2020, Canadians fans will need to get accustomed to the idea that Canada's squad at the senior World Cups in 2015 and 2019 will, necessarily, look much different than the squad that through determination, guile and good fortune, saw the flag rise in 2012. That, of course, means that the final results could also look quite different (though it's too early to reasonably guess at how different).
For the time being, Herdman and the program find themselves at a crossroads -- wanting and needing to stay competitive, while trying to foster the development of that next generation of stars.
All that can be done, as the old cliche goes, is to take things one game at a time. And that next game goes Wednesday night, 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on Sportsnet One.
It may not be a game that we'll still be talking about a decade from now -- but if this generation of players has proven anything, it's that they'll be up for giving the hometown fans a show.
.