Sinclair will lead teen team on Euro tour
Seven players between ages of 15 and 19 on 22-woman roster preparing for overseas matches
TORONTO — 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 top-ranked 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.
With 255 national appearances to her credit, the 33-year-old 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. She was part of the recent Algarve Cup squad but did not see game time.
The other teenagers are 15-yearold Jordyn Huitema, 18-year-olds Gabrielle Carle, Sarah Stratigakis and Deanne Rose and 19-year-olds Marie Levasseur and Jessie Fleming.
The average age of the squad is 22.4, compared to 25.4 for the Olympics.
“We’ve made some changes to our roster since last year, adding some new players and saying goodbye to others, so this two-game series will be a real test of how our squad comes together against Tier 1 competition,” said Herdman.
“We’re confident this squad will be competitive against these two teams, but it’s a young team that’s still building the experience, game smarts and physicality required to be a genuine No. 1 contender. We are starting to fill the experience void left by our retired veterans and will use these matches to keep providing our youth with opportunities.”
Adriana Leon, whose last game for Canada was at the 2015 World Cup, gets a recall. The 24-year-old Boston Breakers forward was invited to an evaluation camp in January but did not go to the Algarve Cup.
Leon takes the place of 20-year-old Alex Lamontaigne, the lone Algarve Cup team member not on the squad. Lamontaigne won her first two caps at the Portugal competition.
Veteran goalkeeper Erin McLeod, who plays her club soccer in Sweden for FC Rosengard, has been invited to train for a few days with the national team in Europe games but is not on the roster. McLeod has not played for Canada since February 2016 due to a knee injury.