Redemption is sweet
Canada’s soccer women will bring home a bronze medal after beating France 1-0 Thursday
No Canadian since George Chuvalo has had so much heavy punishment inflicted while staying on his feet.
But ol’ George, bless him, can only wish he’d had a hammer to match five-footnuthin’ Diana Matheson’s in the big bouts.
“I freaked out,” admitted striker Melissa Tancredi. “I just ... freaked out. Because it was what, the 89th minute? The 90th minute? The 91st? Really? Oh my God, I don’t even know. Clearly, they’d just had four posts and one cleared off the line. I was going nuts when D put it in.
“What a game and what a time for her to score her first goal.”
So, yes, they are officially the Canadian story of the London Games, as much for the heartbreaking, undeserved 4-3 loss in the semifinals as for Thursday’s heart-palpitating, undeserved 1-0 victory in the third-place match.
Matheson slotted home the leftovers of a Sophie Schmidt shot that caromed off defender Sonia Bompastor and directly into the string-pulling midfielder’s path. The second the ball crossed the goalline — the French players collapsing in disbelief and despair — we had a new great Canadian Olympic moment to savour.
There isn’t better theatre to be found anywhere in London’s West End.
“We were always gonna go one of two ways,” said an ecstatic coach John Herdman afterwards. “We were gonna have a call for Herdman’s head, more moan and groan, the paranoia around, you know, ‘We need a new coach and a new program.’ But we’ve gone the other way now. This is about productive paranoia.
“We’re now at the top of the game. We finished third in the world. And that’s a massive achievement. So the job now is to stay there, get higher, get closer to the U.S.A. That’s what I’m asking, for all of Canada to get behind this team for World Cup 2015. We want to be in the final with the U.S.A. And win.”
Suddenly, a year removed from a disastrous finish at the 2011 World Cup — which included a 4-0 loss to France — anything seems possible.
France’s Francois Truffault-look-alike coach Bruno Bini described the bronze-medal score line, 1-0 Canada, as “deception.” And, in that, he was completely correct.
This was, in fact, a conjuror’s trick, ’keeper Erin McLeod and Matheson making a bronze medal appear out of nothing, the way Siegfried and Roy used to pull a Bengal tiger down out of the heavens, from thin air.
“I have no idea what happened,” admitted Matheson, Canada’s newest heroine.
“I think the ball came down on the left and I was just in the right spot at the right time. It felt like a dream. For the team, for the staff and for all the Canadians that have supported us — this tournament has been a fantastic experience for us. It’s been a great, great story. “
That ending, they hope, will trigger an unprecedented wave of interest in women’s soccer in our country.
“If I was a parent,” said Herdman, “in my front room with my kids, I’d be going nuts when that goal went in. The kids would be flying over the sofa and we’d all be jumping around. That’s one of them great moments families have together. I can see dads and moms out in the garden kicking balls around. And this group wanted to leave that legacy.
“It sounds corny but they said that, coming into this: Leaving a legacy for Canada.”
So many of these players have been through so much wearing Canadian colours, the odd ray of sunshine occasionally cutting through a pervading gloom. Thursday, though, was that moment, an epiphany, if you like; an authentic glimpse at the heights to which they can realistically aspire.
“I think so,” said Tancredi, who won’t play through to Rio 2016. “Because we’ve been through everything. Every single emotion for the past 10 years. We’ve been underdogs for 10 years, even through we’ve been ranked in the top 10 in the world. What a way to turn it around. We’re happy to do it for this country, for the sport.”
Perhaps in not quite the same manner, however.
Thursday, for virtually the entire second half, the path to the Canadian goal resembled traffic funnelling down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, the Canadians lashed to the mast as a French typhoon relentlessly raged around them. As wave after wave of French attackers washed down on them, there was a
grim gallantry to the bending Canadian resistance. Anyone looking for a definition of “desperate defending” need look no further.
Or it could be put down to a case of simple blind luck. Shots at goal were 25-4. “Uh, France was ... good,” joked Herdman.
“Football is cruel. The French walk out of this hitting the bar, hitting the post, Desi (Desiree Scott) clearing off the line. But it tells you something about these girls. They weren’t going to give that medal away today. And all credit to them. D Matheson could’ve been standing at the halfway line waiting to defend another attack. But she wasn’t. She was where she needed to be. It tells you this team has shifted. We’ve gone to another level.”
On the day, they were clearly second best in terms of technique, and miles behind territorially. The vast effort expended, the unchartered emotion invested during the U.S. marathon, had exacted a vicious toll. Almost from the outset, it was clear the Canadians were running on fumes and as the match ground on, the French began to gain more and more of a foothold until Herdman’s crew was hanging desperately on.
“We knew we deserved ... something,” said Tancredi. “And we knew we deserved to put the best effort we could out on that field. Even though we were gutted, done-zo in the tank.”
The man who has revitalized this program, the chatty Geordie from Consett, just outside Newcastle, was asked how he’d feel accepting the bronze medal later that night at Wembley Stadium, on his home soil.
“I think,” John Herdman replied, beaming like a Cheshire Cat, “I have a new home now.”
We’ve been underdogs for 10 years MELISSA TANCREDI