About counting and chickens
Winning should be as easy as 1-2-3 for the Canadian girls at the Olympic qualifier in Costa Rica. But there's always an 'if' to be hatched - and this situation is no exception.
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
It should be automatic.
Kinda like the U.S. qualifying for baseball at the Olympics.
And that's the rub.
They didn't qualify.
Instead Stubby Clapp and the Canadians are going to be playing baseball in Athens with the Americans staying home.
Tomorrow in Estadio Eladio Rosabal Cordero in Heredia, Costa Rica, in a game you can watch live on SportsNet Pacific (5 p.m.) or delayed on SportsNet's other regional channels, Canada's women's soccer team begins play in Olympic qualifying.
This should be a slam dunk, four straight spankings by the northern girls.
One is Jamaica. Canada has played Jamaica three times. Three wins. And 25-0 in goals for/against. Jamaica is ranked No. 72 in the world.
Two is Panama. Canada has never played the Panamanians. They're ranked No. 63 in the world.
Three is Costa Rica. Three games. Three wins. And 11-0 in goals. Costa Rica is ranked No. 46 in the world.
That's the round-robin. Six and zero. And 36-0 in goals versus the teams in their pool.
Finish first and Canada plays the second- place team from the other pool where the Americans should dominate and where Mexico is expected to finish second and play Canada in the semifinal, which becomes a sudden-death, get-to-the-Olympics game.
Canada is 10-0 vs. Mexico with a 38-4 goals-for-against record. The last time Mexico and Canada played it was before 29,593 fans at Commonwealth Stadium on Labour Day Sunday. Canada won 8-0. Mexico is ranked No. 32 in the world.
If Canada and the U.S. qualify as expected they'd make a June 30 date against Mia Hamm and the Americans as an Olympic prep game at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.
"I understand how this appears with past games and past scores. And I believe we are the better team," said coach Evan Pellerud.
BETTER THAN BEFORE
The coach takes it beyond that.
"I think we're an even better team than we were before. I think we have a better team here than we took to the World Cup," he said of USA 2003 where 12th-ranked Canada upset China and went on to finish fourth.
But if it comes down to one game - a game against Mexico next Thursday, Pellerud says it's not a lock despite that 8-0 game you watched here last year.
"Mexico can beat Canada. We played a couple of games in Mexico last year that could have gone the other way if one thing or another had happened in those games."
While the theme for this team is to get Charmaine Hooper, the only woman to have played over 100 internationals for Canada, to an Olympics before she retires, Pellerud believes the Olympics are every bit as important a step in the long-term building of this team as the World Cup was last fall.
WORLD CUPS, GOLD MEDALS
He believes he can one day win a World Cup and/or Olympic gold medal with Christine Sinclair, Kara Lang and the gang, which first captivated the nation by reaching a golden goal scenario against the U.S. before a soldout Commonwealth Stadium in the ballistic event, which was the inaugural FIFA U-19 Women's World Championships here in 2002.
"Definitely," he says.
"I think it surely is a possibility. And it is our primary objective as a team. The year 2004 may be a little early for us to shake up the world but by 2007 and 2008 I am supremely confident that my team will achieve some rather sizable goals."
The team is stronger, he says, because it has better depth.
Pellerud has kept 16 players from the World Cup team, but Edmonton's Sasha Andrews, who made such a mess of the World Cup bronze-medal game at the back, isn't one of them. She's been replaced by Notre Dame's second-team NCAA All-American defender Melissa Tancredi of Hamilton, Ont.
Aysha Jamani of Calgary, Veronique Maranda of Saint-Lambert, Que., and Marie-Eve Nault of Trois-Rivieres, Que., are the other newcomers.
Pellerud has shored up his back end to the point he's looking at relocating Hopper again. The longtime striker was forced to the back because of injuries and weakness in that area and a front three of Sinclair, Lang and Christine Latham, which is first rate.
"I'm looking at Charmaine as an attacking midfielder," said Pellerud who went 0-3 with his team in a tournament in China involving Sweden and the U.S., when he was forced to play without Latham and Lang who are in Costa Rica and healthy again.
Pellerud has had his team in Costa Rica for over a week already, adjusting to conditions.
"It may look easy, but there's a lot at stake. We've done everything we can to insure the team performs at the highest level it can.
"Like the World Cup, the Olympics only comes along once every four years. There's no next year."
