USWNT beats Canada to win CONCACAF Olympic qualifier final

Christine Sinclair scored a magnificent goal as Canada booked a place in the Rio Olympic women’s soccer tournament with a 3-1 win over Costa Rica in a semi-final at the CONCACAF qualifying tournament in Houston on Friday.

The closest Canada has come to beating the Americans (other than the semifinal game at London 2012) was in May of 2014 when Kadeisha Buchanan scored her first career worldwide goal.

Canada pushed for the clinching goal and finally got it in the 85th minute from Deanne Rose.

The United States has not lost a CONCACAF Qualifying match ever with a 17-0-1 record – but that one tie was 1-1 draw with Canada in the 2008 qualifying championship game. Keeping a clean sheet early on will be key, especially against the likes of Crystal Dunn and Alex Morgan on the USA attack.

Carli Lloyd, as usual, scored, this time for the 86th time for the team to make it 3-0 in the 43rd minute with a nutmeg header. Captain Becky Sauerbrunn, celebrating her 100th cap by carving open the Canadian defence with her accurate passing, sent a ball into the box that goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe came out for but was beaten by Horan, who headed it in. It rubs off on the veteran players and alters the attitude heading into a game that really is all for pride with passage to the Olympics already secured for both sides.

Canada, the 11th ranked team in the world arrived with a team that changed its direction if for nothing else than this tournament.

“Any team that plays them has a very similar record”, Herdman said prior to the game. Solo has the most starts by a WNT goalkeeper with 182 and with 143 goalkeeper wins is the all-time leader in wins for a goalkeeper in USA history.

Following the meeting in London, the rivalry was fueled a bit by Canadian-born Sydney Leroux’s presence on the US national team.

Afterward, Trinidad and Tobago coach Richard Hood praised his team for the effort, but admitted they were simply outmatched by the World Cup champions. “I hope she does play the young players [Sunday] but I think they’ll be going back to the tried and tested and give Canada the respect for a game like this”. “They owned that game”, Canada coach John Herdman said.

The United States was set to play Trinidad and Tobago in the late match at BBVA Compass Stadium for the tournament’s second Olympic berth this summer.

Minutes after halftime, Sinclair repeated her celebration at the opposite end when she took advantage of another calamitous mistake from the Costa Rican defence.

Team Canada players Desiree Scott, back, Sophie Schmidt, Kadeisha Buchanan, front, and Josee Belanger, right, stretch as they prepare for practice, in Houston, TX, on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016.

“‘That’s honestly the most stressful game in a four-year cycle every time”, she said. Now we have some really good opponents to face coming up on Sunday against Canada and then in our domestic tournament against top-five opponents.

In a little less than 48 hours, either Team Canada or the US will be lifting and kissing the championship as the 2016 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying champion. “We’ll try to move the ball more around them and not get into that blood match that we tend to do against Canada”. Seven have played 270 or more minutes, led by Morgan (308), Klingenberg (294), Lloyd (290), Brian (287), Heath (270), Sauerbrunn (270) and Solo (270). But she said it did not belong to the new blood in the side.