From playground to World Cup
Teammates since age 9, Canada’s Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence share sisterly bond
Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence are more than just teammates.
They first started playing soccer together in Brampton at age 9; now, a decade later, they’ll be representing Canada — together — at their first senior Women’s World Cup.
So teammates isn’t the most accurate descriptor. They’re more like sisters; playing on the same team since childhood, as Buchanan and Lawrence have, can forge family ties. “It’s been so long,” Lawrence says. “It’s really good to have someone by your side throughout this journey. Someone to go to, besides on the soccer field. Off the field, I can go to her about anything.”
After years of friendship the two, who share a similar sense of humour, can finish each other’s sentences.
“It’s obviously super cool . . . we know each other so well and we know each other’s ups and downs and struggles. It’s cool seeing her making it with me,” Buchanan said.
Canada plays its first match of the month-long tournament this evening against China in Edmonton.
Acentral defender and central midfielder respectively, Buchanan, 19, and Lawrence, 19, have done “pretty much everything together, soccerwise” since they met at Brams United Girls Soccer Club in Brampton at the under-nine level.
Barring a couple seasons spent apart — they both transferred to Erin Mills Soccer Club at different points and Lawrence was called up to the provincial program a year before Buchanan — the two have hardly stepped on the field without one another.
Joe Nucifora, who coached both girls for three years at the Bramptonarea club starting in 2008, remembers seeing something special in both players at an early age.
“Both of them played 90 minutes for me every game,” he says. “I never took them off.”
Buchanan, a striker at the time, was the team’s leading scorer for the three seasons she was coached by Nucifora. A quiet kid who didn’t say much, Nucifora said it was Buchanan’s athleticism and ability to read the game that set her apart.
“Technically, she wasn’t yet all that strong; she made up for it in pure grit and determination,” Nucifora says. “As she got older, she refined her technical ability.”
Lawrence, on the other hand, was probably the most technically gifted player in her age group at the time, he said.
“Ashley led by example on the field,” he recalls. “Whenever you needed something done she would just do it; you could always count on her.”
Although he moved on from the team after three seasons, Nucifora worked intermittently with girls as they climbed through Ontario’s provincial program and to the National Training Centre in Vaughan.
“They’re great human beings, they’re great people,” he says. “That makes it even better.” When it came time for the women to choose a university, separation was not an option, said Nikki IzzoBrown, the head coach at West Virginia University, where Buchanan and Lawrence will return as juniors in the fall.
“You find players want to stick together a lot early on, but then kids split up,” she said. “This one was true. There was no question; they weren’t going to break that up.”
Thankfully, recruiting Buchanan and Lawrence as a duo was a nobrainer for Izzo-Brown. “You’d have to be really an idiot not to take both of them, so we were all for it.”
Buchanan, the reigning Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, has the body of a 27-year-old woman but is a kid at heart. In the lead up to the World Cup, she was more excited about being in a video game then on a stamp.
Though they’re both soft-spoken and can by shy, Lawrence is more reserved and old beyond her years.
Their differences balance each other out, Izzo-Brown said. “It just sort of works.”
Though they both made their debut for Canada’s senior team on the same day more than two years ago, Buchanan is the more established of the two Canadian players. With 35 appearances to her name, compared to Lawrence’s 18, Buchanan is expected to be a stalwart in the heart of the Canadian defence during this summer’s tournament.
Still, those who know Lawrence best expect the attacking midfielder will also rack up the minutes during the competition.
Izzo-Brown sees her connection with Buchanan as a possible strength for Coach John Herdman’s team.
“They most absolutely know where each other’s going to be and what they’re capable of doing,” she says. “There’s no question that they have a special relationship on the field, because they’ve grown up together on the field.”
And, no matter what, they both have each other. It’s a gift, Lawrence said, especially given they’re the youngest two players on the team aside from 17-year-old London, Ont. native Jessie Fleming.
“It’s absolutely surreal to be officially called to the roster. Throughout this journey we’ve talked about our aspirations through soccer. We both knew that one day we wanted to represent our country but didn’t think it would happen so quickly,” she says. “It’s a huge honour; I’m just so proud of us.”