Canada primed to qualify for Rio in women’s soccer
Less than eight months after exiting the World Cup on home soil, Canada is poised to book its ticket Friday to women’s soccer other major — the Olympics.
Costa Rica stands in the way in the CON CA CA F Women’ s Olympic Qualifying Championship semifinal. Ranked 34th in the world, the Ticas are seen as a team on the rise. Still, the 11th-ranked Canadians would seem a significant cut above.
The top-ranked U.S. will face No. 48 Trinidad & Tobago in the later semi final Friday at BB VA Compass Stadium. Both semifinal winners qualify for the Olympics, where Canada won bronze four years ago.
Coach John Herdman anticipates the Costa Ricans parking the bus in front of their goal.
“We’d expect them to probably throw a deep block out there and ask Canada to come and break us down,” he told the pre-match news conference. “We’ve had a lot of experience of that over the last three games — teams parking the bus and forcing us to be creative. So we’re in a good rhythm in that sense.”
If teams have parked the bus,
they have left the windows and doors open.
Eleven different Canadians scored during the pool stage as Canada thumped No. 89 Guyana 5-0, Trinidad and Tobago 6-0 and No. 76 Guatemala 10-0.
“That’s the exciting part,” Herdman said. “Everyone coming out of the World Cup hammered us because we couldn’t score. We were one of the best defensive teams in the tournament. We didn’t get enough credit for that, I don’t think, but you never do for defending.
“I think we’ve got a new threat there,” he said of his attack.
Canada scored four goals and conceded three in five games at the World Cup where it exited in a 2-1 quarter-final loss to England.
Costa Rica made its World Cup debut last summer tying Spain 1-1 and South Korea 2-2 before losing 1-0 to Brazil. The Ticas, who have never reached the Olympics, advanced to Friday’s semifinal by beating No. 108 Puerto Rico 9-0 and No. 26 Mexico 2-1 after an opening 5-0 loss to the U.S.