CARSON, Calif. -- Our go-go girls still have a way to go.
They're still a goal or so away from being able to manufacture a medal.
Well, a real one.
FIFA put them on a podium and draped bronze medals around their necks here yesterday. But, while they looked exactly the same as the bronze medals the Americans earned by beating them in the third-place game at the Women's World Cup, only some of the Canadians wore them for more than the time it took to climb off the podium.
"We're all pretty proud of how far we've come," said Kara Lang, the 16-year-old who played great. "I'll keep it. It's something to take away from here."
Christine Sinclair, who scored Canada's only goal in the 3-1 loss, said it doesn't mean much now, but she'll take it home.
"It'll go on a wall somewhere and I'm sure it'll bring back memories.''
Charmaine Hooper didn't have hers around her neck, had no idea what she did with it and less interest.
"What am I going to do with that?'' she said.
Fourth is fourth. Out of the medals is out of the medals, even if they give you a medal.
You're as good as the results say you are and Canada is still not up there with the U.S. or with the two nations who go for the gold today, Germany and Sweden. That's the bottom line of what we watched in the medal round of USA 2003.
THEY'RE SO CLOSE ...
But they're so close they can taste it.
"At the next World Cup, maybe even the Olympics next year, it'll be a different story,'' said Hooper, the 35-year-old captain, who played a massive game out of position for Even Pellerud again.
There was chaos around her with a make-shift group of defenders, including Sasha Andrews, who was given her first start of the tournament and made a mess out of it.
"This is going to be the best team in the world one of these days,'' said Hooper.
"It's over. We lost. But it's been a great ride. These girls are a bunch of battlers. They have fight, desire and heart.
"I hate to say 'shoulda, woulda, coulda' but if we had Candace Chapman and Breanna Boyd, we probably would have been in the World Cup final. I think that's true,'' she said of the injured players.
The Canadians, this day, weren't exactly playing to take the game to the defending champions, a team which had only lost two of 23 World Cup games in their history.
After a couple close calls, U.S. veteran Christine Lilly, one of the five '91ers who have been on all four U.S. World Cup teams, found the back of the net from 22 yards in the 22nd minute out after the Canadians couldn't clear a loose ball.
But all of a sudden stuff started to happen.
Sixteen-year-old Kara Lang, busting her butt from the beginning, hit the post and brought the medics out to work on keeper Briana Scurry, whom she'd taken out in the process.
And then in the 38th minute, Christine Latham threaded a pass through a pair of defenders for Christine Sinclair to calmly deposit behind Scurry to tie it 1-1.
"I just kept running. It was a perfect pass,'' said Sinclair of her third World Cup goal. Latham also had three, Lang and Hooper two each.
The Canadians had six shots on goal to a pair by the Americans and a 2-1 edge in corner kicks in the first half.
In the third, Kristina Kiss couldn't keep the ball from going over the by-line and the Americans, who had scored 10 of 12 goals on set pieces in the tournament, made it 11 of 14 when Shannon Boxx headed one home inside the far post.
Canada came oh-so-close when Sinclair headed one off the crossbar. But Andrews gave the game away when she turned the ball over in the box and Tiffeny Milbrett, who came off the bench, scored the insurance marker ten minutes from time.
In the end the shots on goal were 7-7, the corner kicks 4-4 and the Americans had the ball 59% of the time.
Pellerud said the Americans deserved to win the game. But he raved about some of the performances from his players.
"I've never seen such a committed soccer player in my life,'' said Pellerud of Hooper. "Again she was fantastic. And Kara Lang had a fantastic game. She had no respect against whoever she was going against, no matter what their name was.
THREE YOUNG MONSTERS
"We had three young monsters up front,'' he said of Sinclair, Lang and Latham. "As a team unit, they were too young. They're going to grow and give us more consistent performances.''
There were few tears,
"It was a little disappointing, that's for sure,'' said Lang. "But we fought our hardest. We played physical and we know they don't like that. This was the most amazing experience I ever had. It gave me an idea of what we can accomplish, what I can accomplish.''
Sinclair said at the end of the day there's only one conclusion anyone in the world can reach when they look at what this Canadian team did at this World Cup.
"All we need is experience. This team isn't done. We're just getting going.''
