In a game that will be known for Christine Sinclair making her 200th appearance for her country, Canada’s women’s national team put out what was probably their top performance of 2013.
Canada looked comfortable from start to finish and was rarely troubled by Scotland on a hot, humid night in Brasilia, Brazil. In the end, Canada came away as 2-0 winners in their Torneio Internacional de Futebol Feminino opener on Thursday.
Adriana Leon got Canada off on the right foot within the first 10 minutes with a volley into the corner and from there the rest was an assured performance by a team that’s looking to head into 2014 with momentum.
“They were fantastic tonight,” said head coach John Herdman. “A really solid night tonight and I’m proud of the players. A month and a half of work and they came through. If this was the first round of the World Cup, I’m sure Canada would be happy.”
It was supposed to be Sinclair’s day but nobody told Scottish goalkeeper Gemma Fay, as she dove to her right to deny a penalty kick that Sinclair had won right on the stroke of halftime.
“I’ve missed a few. It happens,” Sinclair said with a smile. “I think it’s my third or fourth miss with the national team. [Herdman] said, ‘You didn’t want to score with a penalty anyway, you wanted a real goal.’”
Sinclair would have her revenge 13 minutes into the second half when she was played in on the left side and had plenty of time to put the ball past Fay, who was one-on-one against Sinclair. The goal was Sinclair’s 147th at the senior level.
Next up for Canada is a game against Chile on Sunday.
