WOMEN’S SOCCER THE RIO DEAL
Bronze medallist Canada’s top team
TORONTO John Herdman wants a different label. He’s sick of being an underdog.
“Let’s stop pretending we’re the old Canada that wins the odd game,” Canada’s women’s soccer coach told Postmedia News.
Few expected Herdman’s side to repeat as Olympic bronze medallists in Rio de Janeiro. On the other hand, great things were expected of the Toronto Blue Jays, the Toronto Raptors and the Calgary Stampeders, and they didn’t win a championship. But the women again produced the unexpected, captivating TV viewers and skeptical pundits who’d all but written off Canada two months before the Games, when the team fell 2-0 to Brazil in Toronto.
Perhaps that’s why the women’s national team was voted Postmedia’s team of the year for 2016.
“It’s almost like, at times, the country will tune in when it’s relevant,” Herdman said. “It was never as bad as it looked. It was just a 2-nil defeat, which you take sometimes. Over a four-year period, the team had been progressing, adding new players, new strengths. I don’t think we were ever worried. From my perspective, it was frustrating because in Toronto, we didn’t deliver.”
It might have been frustrating, but it also might have been necessary. Despite claiming bronze four years earlier in London, Canada arrived in Rio lacking experience — to say nothing of reputation.
“The people who don’t believe you watch the team once a year and then they make an assessment,” Herdman said. “I always like to push back and say, ‘What are you basing your opinions on as a football nation — one match?’
“This is the challenge with the women’s game in Canada. The game is only ever in the spotlight once or twice a year. That’s not to say there wasn’t still progress required … but it’s a team that was showing signs of pace, greater creativity, greater control in midfield, more organization and more flexibility than the London team.”
That much was clear when Canada topped its Rio Olympic group, earning them a berth against France — again — in the quarterfinal. For Herdman, it was a chance to measure his team’s progress from what he called a “horror show in London.” Canada was battered by France in the bronze-medal game four years ago before an injury-time goal gave them a 1-0 win.
“You can’t fight lions with lions,” Herdman said, referring to the size and strength of Europe’s powerhouse teams.
“Our production line hasn’t produced that. Maybe we’ve produced the athletes, but not the technical giftedness. What we said we would do by the time we got to Rio was be the most organized and tactically flexible and adaptable team … We were able to change four times (against France).”
It led to a much more evenly played match that, again, finished 1-0 in favour of Canada — evidence that perhaps the gap between Europe’s big soccer nations and the Great White North has narrowed.
Although a 2-0 semifinal setback to Germany tempered celebrations days later, Canada bounced back to stun the host nation and repeat as bronze medallists.
“We said we’d try to win that tournament by being more adaptable than any other team,” Herdman said. “Going into this next four years, we think we’ve set a precedent. The next four years — with the type of group we have — we can spend more time on the field building on-field chemistry that can develop. We know we have to be more creative … On the other side, teams can’t break us down.”
Herdman wants Canada to be more than a hard team to beat. Can they be more than stingy?
“We need players like Janine Beckie, Christine Sinclair, Jessie Fleming and Sophie Schmidt to work together to find ways to break down teams,” Herdman said. “We’re moving towards bringing creativity experts into our environment.”
The effects of that could extend Sinclair’s career. At 33, the 12-time Canadian player of the year could benefit from having more inventive players around her.
“They see and read the game at a similar level to (Sinclair),” Herdman said. “This is the first time where there’s a group of players with that sort of ability that can elevate (Sinclair’s) game — not in a Canadian grit way, but in a level of technical excellence.”
When you add in the pace and youth of Deanne Rose, 17, and Ashley Lawrence, 21, you begin to believe Herdman — especially when you consider Kadeisha Buchanan, 21, could become the best defender in the world.
“You come back out of an Olympics and there’s a period where you need to reflect and get off the daily grind and start to look at what the next four years look like,” Herdman said. “Our four-year plan is completed now. We have a plan to bridge the gap and take us from No. 4 in the world to No. 1.”