Comeback puts Canada’s ‘lasses’ in quarter-finals
Women’s soccer team draws with Sweden
As the ball spun off the twine, before it had even come to rest in the back of the net, John Herdman, prowling a patch of ground that he’d dreamt of as a lad, exploded into the air, like a lit Roman candle, and punched a defiant fist in celebration.
If he could’ve, he would’ve gladly hugged every single person, man, woman or child, inside St. James’ Park at that moment. And probably staked those of legal drinking age to a pint of Newcastle Brown, to boot.
He’d come home again — with all the joys and baggage that entails — and it had worked out.
His side had shown a tremendous amount of spunk, clawing something out of what for nearly half an hour appeared to be a lost cause, at the death, in the 84th minute.
“We had a script written for this game,’’ said Herdman, born and raised about 20 kilometres northwest of here in the steel town of Consett, still savouring a stirring comeback from a deuce down to 2-2 against Sweden to send his Canadian side through to Friday’s Olympic women’s soccer quarter-finals.
“For me, this game was personal. You’re in your hometown, on your home patch, you have your family here. I know the girls sensed that in Vancouver in the qualifiers back in January. I didn’t feel that. It’s not my hometown.
“I wanted to make sure we got something out of this game. They got to experience some of the Geordie culture and a few words we use ... it’s no longer girls, they’re lasses. They’re used to that now.’’
But for a couple of missed hand-ball calls, the Canadians might’ve even have earned the maximum three points.
“We’ve done something we haven’t been able to do in years,’’ said Melissa Tancredi, who latched onto a delightful swinging Christine Sinclair cross to power home a header late on and bring the Canadians even, “and that’s come back against a Tier 1 team. I think that’s really special for us.’’
So Canada’s through to the quarters (opponent and venue to be determined by later matches), by virtue of their most encouraging performance of these Games so far.
“It actually went really well in the first 20 minutes and we were down 2-0,’’ sighed midfield choreographer Diana Matheson. “But we were in Newcastle today, the home of our coach, he had the belief in us and we knew we were going to get a result.”
The match’s decisive moment occurred just before halftime. Dominant early on, the Canadians were reeling after two Swedish goals in short order, by the 16-minute mark, entirely changed the complexion of the match.
A short corner was crossed in for Lina Nilsson to sidefoot home, Rhian Wilkinson too late on the cover. Two minutes later, keeper Erin McLeod made a hash of a Nilsson cross, leaving Sofia Jakobssen the easiest of finishes.
It appeared distinctly dire at that point. But bursting down the flank in the 44th minute, right back Wilkinson played a nifty little one-two with Sinclair and the skipper’s dipping cross found Tancredi at the far post for a bundle-in. Life!
“That was great for us to score,’’ said Matheson. “We were really pushing to score and we were fortunate. Kind of the opposite of the Japan game, where they got that one at the end (of the half) to kill us. So it was nice to get that one. It put us back in the game.’’
“It was a weird first half,’’ echoed Sinclair. “It was one of the best halves we’ve played under John and we’re down 2-0. We knew we just needed one. So to get that goal late ... we knew then in the sec- ond half we wouldn’t have to force it; we could take our time and build up because we just needed one.’’
So much of the lead-in to kickoff had centred around Herdman and the return to his roots. Clearly, his players got caught up in the occasion, too, and used it as fuel.
“That’s ALL we talked about,’’ laughed Tancredi. “Even at our pre-meeting, he had the black-and-white on. That’s what we needed, though. He was like ‘You’re not going to lose on this pitch. I promise you that.’ And we didn’t. We got the win for him and for us and now we’re through.’’
As a gesture to their boss, and the locale, the “lasses” decked themselves out in their own black-and-whites during the warm-up.
“They wanted to endear themselves to the fans,’’ said Herdman proudly. “Sincy, if she’d scored, had the Alan Shearer celebration all set up. It’s one of those days, you’re on the touchline where you’ve seen coaches like Keegan, Pardew — top coaches — operating.
And it was just an honour to be anywhere near that football field. Seeing the team down go 2-0 isn’t too dissimilar to watching Newcastle some days. Neither was seeing the Geordie spirit to come back.’’ He paused, trying to process all that had happened in just a few short hours.
“Yeah, it’s been a decent day.’’