TEXAS TANGO
Canada tries not to get ahead of itself as CONCACAF Women’s Championship gets underway in Lone Star country,
Kenneth Heiner-Moller can envision a situation at the CONCACAF Women’s Championship where his Canadian team comes away with a win but leaves the game feeling disappointed.
The stakes in this Texas-based tournament are high. The top three teams in the 13-day competition — which kicked off on Thursday night with Group A matches between the United States and Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago and Panama — will secure spots in next June’s Women’s World Cup in France.
But the disparity in CONCACAF, the governing body for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, is apparent: the Canadians, ranked fifth in the world according to FIFA, will face No. 34 Costa Rica, No. 64 Jamaica and No. 88 Cuba in Group B. Canada has a combined 19-0-0 record against the three countries, outscoring the trio 90-6.
Anything less than World Cup qualification would be considered disastrous, but Canada will not be motivated by what it needs to do; Heiner-Moller wants his team to be motivated by its own potential.
“No matter if we’re playing Mexico or the U.S or if we play Jamaica or Cuba, we need to play to our standards and our standards only,” he said. “That’s what we compare ourselves against so we might come out of a game winning 2-0 but we’ll be furious because we didn’t perform at our best.”
This is the most high-profile tournament for Heiner-Moller since taking the reins from John Herdman in January. The team has a 4-3-0 record under the new coach, between competing in the Algarve Cup in March and three international friendlies over the spring and summer.
Canada convened for camp two weeks ago to give the players and staff time, in part, to lay out what they want this tournament to look like on the field, and set those motivating standards.
Heiner-Moller also needed to ensure each of his 20 players was match ready: With just two days between games in the group stage, he will need to switch up his players.
“We can’t put new players in every single time because the rhythm would just disappear out of our game, but we need to rotate,” he said.
Heiner-Moller believes the team’s flexibility has improved since he took over, both when it comes to changing personnel — he hasn’t employ the same starting lineup in any of his seven games in charge — and changing formations.
“We’ve been looking at different players in different structures and our structures have been changing throughout this year,” he said. “I think we’re very adaptable, very good in changing structure and finding a way to change the game if it doesn’t go our way.”
The players are also exploring partnerships with the players they intersect most closely with on the field, encouraged by Heiner-Moller to have honest, very direct conversations, both on the pitch and off, about their strengths and weaknesses, in order to understand where they need to compensate for, and where they can rely on, one another. Getting to the point can pay dividends, he said.
“I think we look dynamic in a lot of the movement we have on the side, in the centre, because we are pretty blunt and direct and honest,” he said.