Women's Soccer: Five 'young guns' join their idols on Canada's national team Sunday

Ottawasun.com
September 4, 2018
Don Campbell

Maya Antoine was an 11-year-old girl sitting on the couch at home in Vaughan, eyes glued to every televised moment of the Canadian national women’s team’s march to Olympic bronze in London in 2012. She was focused on every move by Canada captain Christine Sinclair.

Fast forward slightly more than six years. Antoine, now a brilliant 17-year-old young woman, and likely headed to Vanderbilt University, is one of Canada’s young guns who will take to the pitch at TD Place Sunday afternoon to make her National Team debut, along side the legendary Sinclair.

Antoine will be one of five teenagers in the Canadian lineup for the friendly meeting that matches up the Canadians, ranked fifth in the world, against one of their chief rivals, seventh-ranked Brazil.  This will be Canada’s final tuneup before the October CONCACAF qualifier in Texas for the opportunity to advance to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France in 2019.

“That was really the first time I became more aware of (the National Team) watching the 2012 Olympics,” says Antoine, while enjoying some celebrity status on Parliament Hill this week. “It’s all pretty crazy.”

“I think every girl in Canada has that dream to play for the national team. But getting there has been a real journey for all of us. It’s a real honour now to play for the team.”

Antoine grew up playing her minor soccer at various levels with the Vaughan Soccer Club before her talents took her to the highest levels and now to playing with and against the best in the world.

In her spare time, she’s been doing a little coaching back in Vaughan with girls born in 2008 and ’09 and there’s no disputing who they idolize.

“Watching them, it’s almost scary how good they are,” said Antoine. “But they will ask ‘have you played with Christine Sinclair?’ and all I could say then was that yes, I met her once.

“But now I’m playing with her.”

Deanne Rose’s story is similar, but she was 13 watching the 2012 Olympics at home in Alliston and she advanced a little quicker, to where she she scored a goal in the bronze medal game in the 2016 Rio games to help beat host Brazil 2-1.

It seems those Rio 2012 changed the lives of many young girls across the country.

“I just became a huge fan of (Sinclair),” said Rose. “I never though I would someday play with her.

“At the start, I was nervous … maybe a little star-struck. Even now, after three years, you still get a little that way.”

Heading to the qualifier in October, Canadian coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller has selected a squad that blends both experience and youth, and Julia Grosso, Jordyn Huitema and Jayde Riviere join Antoine and Rose to make up the teenage quintet.

The lineup Ottawa fans will see also features two-time Olympic bronze medallists Sinclair, Sophie Schmidt, Desiree Scott and Diana Matheson, as well as London 2012 bronze-medallist and goalkeeper Erin McLeod, who missed Rio 2016 with an injury.

Then there’s eight more from the core of that Rio team: Janine Beckie, Kadeisha Buchanan, Allysha Chapman, Jessie Fleming, Stephanie Labbé, Ashley Lawrence, Nichelle Prince and Rebecca Quinn.

National team veterans Lindsay Agnew, Sabrina D’Angelo, Adriana Leon and Shannon Woeller complete the roster.

But the one thing that never gets mentioned around the team is age.

Not if you’re 17 or just-turned-35 as in the case of Sinclair.

“They (the veterans) can tease us about being young,” joked Rose. “But we can’t tease them about being old.”

“And if we ever say something about us getting old, they just laugh at us.”

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Goals never get old for Sinclair

Christine Sinclair was still three months shy of her 17th birthday when she scored her first goal with the Canadian National Women’s Soccer Team.

She scored it in the 8th minute of her second game ever for Canada in a game on March 14, 2000 at the Algarve Cup in Portugal.

A remarkable 18 seasons later, Sinclair’s numbers now read 268 appearances with Canada, 275 of them starts, and most importantly 173 goals in a National Team jersey. This leaves her 11 goals from tying retired American legend Abby Wambach, or better yet, 12 goals from becoming the highest goal-scorer in world soccer history, either male of female.

And that might just be a record that will never be broken.

Christine Sinclair Kevin King / Postmedia

Sinclair will look to inch closer to the record of 184 by Wambach Saturday at TD Place in a friendly against Brazil with the likelihood she will shatter the mark some time in 2019.

“As long as Canada keeps me around, I’ll keep scoring goals,” said Sinclair. “(The record) only comes to mind when people talk about it. It’s never been a goal of mine. But if it happens, great.”

Listing all of Sinclair’s accomplishments is old hat: two Olympic bronze medals, one CONCAF championship, two NWSL championships, two USL W-League titles, two WPS championships and two NCAA championships at Portland State.

Just as remarkable, of maybe more so, that on the international stage Sinclair has averaged .64 goals per appearance and, by factoring in her 53 career assists, she has averaged .84 points per National Team appearance.

Internationally, she has done everything short of a clean sheet.

Oh, and all the while being an ambassador for women’s soccer, while giving young girls something to dream about.

“We all remember when we were the young ones in the stands,” said the now 35-year-old superstar. “This is our last game before the rest of our season kicks off and it’s an opportunity to test ourselves against one of the best teams in the world. So it’s very important.”

The coaching staff even snuck in a quick video session showing the last 10 minutes of the 2-1 win for Olympic bronze in 2016 in Brazil over the host team.

Many on the current team lived the moment. The rest just watched in amazement from afar.

“We definitely fought for that one,” said Sinclair. “It’s a great to see the joy on our faces