Sinclair leads Canada squad on European tour

Captain Christine Sinclair will lead a 22-woman Canadian squad that features seven teenagers to Europe in April for a pair of testing matches against Germany and Sweden.

The European trip features a reunion of last summer’s medallists in Rio, where Germany won gold, Sweden silver and Canada bronze.

The fifth-ranked Canadian women play No. 6 Sweden on April 6 in Trelleborg and topranked Germany on April 9 in Erfurt.

“These are two big matches, you don’t often get the opportunity to play both the Olympic gold and silver medallist in back-to-back matches,” Herdman said in a statement. “Both teams are favourites for the European Championships later this summer and we know they will be in prime condition and getting ready to peak for the competition.

“The matches are going to be tough, but this is what we are looking for to test our current group and to identify our gaps in the build up to the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019.”

Herdman has picked 14 members of the 18-woman Rio Olympic team as well as two of the four alternates.

Diana Matheson is recovering from knee surgery while Melissa Tancredi and Rhian Wilkinson have retired.

Josee Belanger is still in the national team picture but is not currently with a pro team.

Marie-Eve Nault has retired while fellow Olympic alternate Kaylyn Kyle was released by her Orlando team in January.

With 255 national appearances to her credit, the 33-yearold Sinclair accounts for more than one-quarter of the 974 caps in Herdman’s squad. The European roster averages 44.23 caps per player compared to 71.2 per player for the Rio squad, whose 18 members had 1,295 combined caps.

Sinclair, Sophie Schmidt (159 caps), Desiree Scott (122), Kadeisha Buchanan (67) and Ashley Lawrence (50) account for 653 of the European roster’s caps (60.3 per cent).

Defender Hannah Taylor, 17, is the lone uncapped player selected.