LEAVING THE LEAF
Melissa Tancredi is one of three Canadians playing their last game with the women’s national team,
Rhian Wilkinson, Marie-Eve Nault and Melissa Tancredi will share a retirement date Saturday, but the Canadian stalwarts took three very different paths to ending their careers with the women’s national soccer team.
For Wilkinson, it wasn’t a decision at all. The 34-year-old defender, who has made 180 appearances for her country since 2003, planned to retire in 2012 but decided she couldn’t give up the opportunity to continue playing for coach John Herdman.
“I call it a gift,” Wilkinson said about that final quadrennial. “(Herdman) gave me a four-year gift of being able to work under him and with this team. They were some of the best years of my career.”
They led to a second consecutive Olympic bronze medal last summer, an accomplishment that will be celebrated alongside the retirements during a friendly match with Mexico on Saturday in Vancouver.
Nault, also 34, knew that the Rio Games were likely her last, as well. She had been in and out of the national team following her 2004 debut, earning 70 caps and a starring, if unexpected, role at the London 2012 Olympics. Nault was an alternate in Brazil.
She applied for a job at a regional training centre in her hometown of Trois-Rivieres, Que., last spring, knowing that, if hired, her soccer career would be over by fall. She started the position in November.
“I’ll miss the girls, but at the same time I was ready to step away from the game and do something else,” she said.
For Tancredi, another 2004 debutant, it was not so cut and dried. The striker went back and forth about retirement despite a chiropractic certification to fall back on. She knew it was time after the Olympics, but the “when” still eluded her. An hours-long conversation with Herdman helped the 35-year-old realize Saturday’s occasion, her 125th senior appearance in Canadian red, would be a fitting end.
The striker’s emotions bubbled again as she returned to camp this week.
“I thought I was over the crying part but I feel like it’s happening again,” she laughed.
All three are consistent on one thing: Their careers, which spanned the most successful period this country has seen, came at the most interesting time imaginable for the women’s game, both in Canada and abroad.
“When I joined, women paid to play,” Wilkinson said. “They were completely unknown. (Former Canadian striker) Charmaine Hooper was on that team (and) was at the level of (American star) Mia Hamm, and I hadn’t heard of her until I made the national team.”
Fast forward a dozen years, when England knocked Canada out of the Women’s World Cup, the game was played before 54,000 fans at BC Place. More than 21,000 people are expected for Saturday’s friendly.
It’s easy to forget the impact when you’re in it, Nault said. In 2012, while shielded by the Olympic bubble, the Canadian team knew little of the hearts they captured during an emo- tional, controversial loss to the United States in the semifinals of that tournament and in the bronze-medal win over France.
Nault says it was the favourite moment of her international career, and it was a transformative one for the national program. The success has continued over the last five years. In addition to the second Olympic bronze, Canada is now No. 4 in FIFA’s world rankings, the first time the program has cracked the top five.
“It just proves that people are paying attention to this team, people care about this team, people feel like they were part of this,” she said.
From the bench in Brazil, Wilkinson, now coaching with Canada Soc- cer, was assured she was leaving the squad in good hands.
“It’s really the hardest thing you can do, to put it in someone else’s hands. But I watched the next generation of players not just take the baton but sprint off with it. It just highlighted that, yes, this is the right decision.”
Ever the competitor, Wilkinson expects those youngsters to put on a show against No. 26 Mexico as the team works its way toward the top.
“Mexico is a strong team that always plays a full 90 (minutes) and they’re warriors out there, so we better match up and bring our A-game because the crowd that turns out deserves the best performance from us and deserves us winning the game.”