Buchanan named female athlete of the year
Heart of Olympique Lyonnais defence comfortable as a professional player
Kadeisha Buchanan continues to grow her impressive list of accomplishments playing for the top women's soccer club in the world.
In her four years with Olympique Lyonnais in France, the Toronto product has four UEFA Women's Champions League titles and is on the road to an unprecedented fifth championship.
Buchanan, 25, also has an Olympic bronze medal and helped the Canadian women's national team qualify for the upcoming Games in Tokyo, Japan.
For her efforts this year, Buchanan is the Postmedia Female Athlete of the Year.
“I think our success at Lyon comes with mentality and the strength of the team going into matches respecting our opponents,” Buchanan said on a recent return to Canada for the Christmas break. “That's a major key of this team being so successful and always winning, is to always respect your opponent.
“I think Lyon does that so well. It doesn't matter whether we're playing a bottom-league or the top-league team, we always try to do our best and just improve from the last game. We feel like every game we're trying to improve, every game there are always things to improve and touch upon for the next game. I think that's our mentality throughout the whole team to always get better and keep improving, so when you get into bigger games, we don't have bad habits. We're always trying to keep that high level of play.”
Olympique Lyonnais is the most successful team in the history of women's soccer in France and sets the standard for every other club in Europe. Lyon has won five-consecutive Champions League titles and seven in total to go with its 11 domestic championships.
Just being on the team is an accomplishment for Buchanan, but she has gone on to earn a starting role in the heart of the Lyon defence alongside legendary French captain Wendie Renard.
“Wendie is a fantastic leader, she's very genuine and true off the field and on the field, she is exactly the same way,” Buchanan said. “She's a true captain and what I pick up from her is just how she handles situations. She's a big name in Lyon and the club, she has a lot of responsibility, but she handles it super well and I really admire her for that. That's what I take from Wendie. We're two different type of centre backs, but the leadership is what I truly admire from Wendie.”
Apart from Renard, Lyon is loaded with international talent and has been home to Buchanan since 2017. Prior to playing in France, Buchanan played at West Virginia University where she was a nominee for the Best Female College Athlete ESPY Award.
“Coming to Lyon from college, I definitely gained lots of knowledge about the game and being a part of my national team for so long, I've improved there as well,” Buchanan said. “From the coaches on the national team and Lyon, I think they've both helped my game in general and improve the knowledge of the game when it comes to movement and passing. They played a big hand in that.
“I'm in my fourth year almost into my fifth year now at Lyon I feel pretty professional and I feel very comfortable as a professional. I've been doing this for a long time and now it just feels like normal life.”
Growing up in Toronto, it was not long before Buchanan caught the eye of Canada Soccer and played with the Under-17, Under-20 and Under-23 youth teams before making her senior national team debut at age 17. She played at the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup held in Canada and won the Young Player Award at the tournament.
Buchanan has been a stalwart on the national team defence since and was recently named Canada Soccer female player of the year for the third time. She played for Canada at the 2019 World Cup in France and will be on the Olympic roster next summer under new Canadian head coach Bev Priestman, who was an assistant at the 2016 Rio Olympics where Canada won bronze for the second-consecutive tournament, before leaving to coach in England.
“I think it's nice that Bev is coming back. We've obviously known her for a very long time and I think it's cool that there are not really any big changes,” Buchanan said. “She's our new head coach, but for us, she's not really a new coach. I don't think there is a lot of difference in that she's been here before and she knows the Canadian culture and she knows the environment so it'll be like she never left, so I'm very excited for that.
“I'm super excited for another major tournament and I'm really happy the Olympics are going to happen next year. I'm hoping we can have good results. I'm looking forward to improving and maybe we can get a better result.”
Canada qualified for the Olympics in February by finishing second to the United States at the Concacaf Qualifying tournament. The Games in Tokyo were then suspended for a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada is once again expected to challenge for a medal when the Olympics are scheduled to take place this upcoming summer, even though the team has not been together since qualifying.
“We've been doing a lot of checking in and seeing how everybody is doing, that's pretty much the only way we can be in-tune as a team,” Buchanan said. “For Canada, a few of the players have two bronze medals, I have one bronze, so we're looking to change that colour and get gold next year.”
The pandemic put a pause on Lyon's quest for another Champions League title in March, but when play resumed later in the summer, Buchanan and her club were able to withstand touch challenges from German club Bayern Munich, French rivals Paris Saint- Germain in the quarter and semifinal, and then defeated Wolfsburg of Germany 3-1 in the final.
Buchanan played every minute of the final and helped keep Wolfsburg's dynamic striking tandem of Pernille Harder of Denmark and Ewa Pajor of Poland in check. Harder, 28, became the world's most expensive female soccer player in September when she transferred from Wolfsburg to Chelsea in England.
“I think at the beginning of the whole pandemic it was very weird, coming home and being in quarantine, but knowing that later on, the season might not be fully cancelled so you had to be aware that we're still looking out for our well-being as an athlete and making sure we're doing our due diligence and making sure that we were ready to step back out on the field,” Buchanan said. “I think after the three months I was away from football and I was away from Lyon, we got back into the scheme of things, but it was difficult for sure.
“Right now, in France, things have gotten a little bit back to normal and feels like there isn't really a lot of COVID, other than taking the COVID test so many times a week just to be safe. I think in France, right now, we're rolling, the Champions League is on and in that sense, it feels pretty normal. But for sure earlier on in the year, it definitely felt weird.”
Having set the standard in Europe, other clubs are investing heavily in women's soccer to try to reel in Lyon, which is working hard to stay ahead of the competition. Lyon's dominance has been good for the development of the women's game worldwide.
“I think it's great that other clubs are starting to invest on the women's side, I don't see it as a threat to Lyon, but more of as an opportunity to improve and grow and get better,” Buchanan said. “You can't really settle. You have to be grateful of where you are and how you got there, but you always want to keep going and take another step on the field.
“We won a Champions League title this year, and next year it's not going to be easy to win again. Every year, we try to get better because we know that other clubs are investing in players, like Chelsea, who are putting a lot of money towards their players and getting better and that's really great for the league and for women's football.”
The commercial success of the women's Champions League along with the Women's World Cup is giving female soccer a higher profile around the world.
“Every year it gets harder and harder to win and other teams get stronger and stronger,” she said. “It's always cool when we do win. Every year we think when we have some players leave that it might never be like this again, but we always seem to come out on top.”