VANCOUVER — History says not to worry.
Canada’s national women’s soccer team has won 16 and tied one in 18 “A” matches, all-time, against Mexico.
There is little reason, therefore, to suppose that Friday night’s semifinal of the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament at BC Place Stadium will end any other way than with the Canadians booking passage to London for the Games of the XXX Olympiad.
But there is another kind of history at work here: a history of coming up short in the biggest of matches that has hounded Canadian national soccer teams of both genders for ... well, forever.
That one loss to Mexico? It kept Canada out of the 2004 Olympics.
So go ahead and worry a little.
It isn’t the fault of the women of Team Canada — who are far better positioned than the men to start pulling our nation’s sorry international soccer record out of the pit of despair — but it’s bothersome all the same: They have one game, win or stay home, in which to qualify for London, and they have encountered no test so far in this tournament that could give them any idea what it will be like to face an opponent that will fight back.
Friday at B.C. Place Stadium, when the sublime Christine Sinclair and her mates line up against Mexico (8 p.m., Sportsnet Pacific), they’ll be seeing one for the first time in this home-field qualifier which, in every other respect, has been all set up for a Canadian celebration.
“First of all, to use a popular sports phrase, the game is yet to [be played],” said Mexico’s articulate coach Leonardo Cuellar, after his team lost 4-0 Tuesday night to the juggernaut U.S. team, a result which, in this lopsided tournament, qualified as a nail-biter.
“Canada is sixth in the world, we are 21st, so on paper we are behind,” Cuellar said. “But you need to play the game, in the end. “They may also feel a little pressure, being at home. They may have preferred to have a little more rhythm, playing against better opponents, while we’ve been able to play against the best team in the world. That may loosen us up a little bit, and make our players come out and be very aggressive.”
It’s not out of the question. They already know, after nearly 8,000 fans turned up to a non-Canadian game Tuesday, that they’ll have a large and noisy Mexican contingent in the stands.
“I know we are away, but you saw the crowd,” said Cuellar, “so don’t be surprised if we have more Mexicans than Canadians on Friday.”
The all-powerful Americans have cruised through their pool, taking no prisoners and making no apologies, crushing Guatemala and the Dominican Republic by a combined 27-0 before encountering some resistance from Mexico.
So the competition, to date, has not been what you would call stirring.
Unbeaten Canada’s 5-1 victory Monday over Costa Rica — which will play the U.S. in the other semifinal — is the only game in the whole tournament in which the losing team has scored even a single goal, and that only happened because the Canucks got sloppy late.
Everything else has been a shutout, and the four semifinalists have beaten the also-rans by a combined score of 51-0.
The Americans, for the first time in the tournament, seemed less than interested in running up the score on the opposition Tuesday, although part of that may have been the Mexicans showing enough skill and will to make the U.S. side at least a little wary.
Another part may have been that U.S. scoring machine Abby Wambach looked only mildly engaged, knocked to the turf a couple of times, jogging her way to the 61st minute, when she was replaced by substitute Megan Rapinoe.
The Swedish-born U.S. coach Pia Sundhage shrugged off Wambach’s apparently indifferent play and substitution with: “There are two more games ... hopefully. Playing on the [artificial] turf is pretty tough, and going forward we need a fresh Abby Wambach.”
Cuellar said that whatever happens in his team’s semifinal against the Canadians, there isn’t any doubt that the Americans are supreme.
“They are the best team in the world. Japan won the [2011 World Cup], they got a good momentum, but overall, and statistics are very clear, U.S. are simply the best,” he said.
“The way they play, the way they stretch the field, the way they make you chase the ball, the way they treat the ball, is outstanding. And it shows the hundreds and thousands of hours that they have spent together, doing all these things.
“But we have a very competitive game, the pace was strong, there was fight out there on the field, and that’s what I expect now against Canada.”
The Mexicans gave up two early goals to the U.S., and couldn’t penetrate the staunch U.S. defence, leaving the Americans’ glamour-girl goalkeeper Hope Solo enough spare time to do her nails.
That will have to change Friday, said Cuellar.
“We need to be more concerned about possession of the ball. Canada has changed their style under the new coach [John Herdman], they also put a lot of numbers going forward, they are very aggressive, they have some outstanding players, so we need to play better than we did today to go to the Olympics.”
The Canadians, whose 2011 women’s World Cup experience was a disaster, failed to qualify for the first three Olympic soccer tournaments in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens. They made it to Beijing four years ago, but lost 2-1 to the U.S. in the quarter-finals.
They are aching to take the next step this summer in London. But first, they have to get there.
So far, so good? Maybe. It’s hard to tell.
On Twitter: Twitter.com/rcamcole
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