Canada, U.S. renew rivalry

After facing opponents ranked 50th or worse at the CONCACAF W Gold Cup, Olympic champion Canada renews its rivalry with the second-ranked United States on Wednesday in the tournament semifinal in San Diego.

“You have to respect, obviously, the quality that they’ve got,” Canada coach Bev Priestman said. “And it’s the test that we need.

“You think where we want to be July 25th (the start of the women’s football tournament at the Paris Olympics), it’s going to take these tests along the way like we’ve had with Brazil and other top nations that really stretched us. We want to be stretched.”

The early semifinal at Snapdragon Stadium sees No. 11 Brazil take on No. 35 Mexico. Brazil has held the upper hand in the past with a 14-2-1 career record against the Mexicans.

While the 10th-ranked Canadians dispatched the Americans 1-0 in the Tokyo Olympics semifinal in August 2021, their career record against the U.S. is 4-53-7. Still the 18 meetings since 2011 have featured three ties, six one-goal wins for the U.S. and one one-goal win for Canada.

The Americans have won the two meetings since Tokyo, 1-0 in the CONCACAF W final in July 2022 and 2-0 in the SheBelieves Cup in February 2023.

Priestman just wants her players to be themselves Wednesday. “Us at our best, giving our best on a good day, we can beat the States,” she said. “That’s all I’m going to ask of the group — is to take our identity, our strengths into this game. Go and deliver them. Go and be as brave as you were (in Tokyo) … We do that, we win the game.”

The U.S. is currently a team in transition, upset 2-0 by Mexico in the group stage.

The other semifinal sees No. 11 Brazil take on No. 35 Mexico