Canada Women’s Soccer Team Qualifies

Photo Credit Soccer Canada

The long extended wait is finally over and along the road there were many naysayers who were skeptical that they would manage such a level of success.

It’s true that everyone will question game time decisions made by the coaching staff pondering why certain players failed to get in the starting rotation but that’s easy from a distance.

For Team Canada to even qualify for the Olympic Games you should remember that this is only the fifth-consecutive time managing such a feat.

They did so after playing a full match defeating Jamaica in a two-match series in the 2023 Concacaf W Olympic Play-In. 

Managing a win playing in unfamiliar territory saw them manage to pull out a 2:0 in Jamaica only to follow this up by a home game in Toronto with a 2:1 winning the series 4-1 on aggregate. Nichelle Prince and Adriana Leon scored on Friday before Cloé Lacasse and Jordyn Huitema scored on Tuesday.

Canada is only the fifth nation to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and advance, joining the hosts France, Concacaf champions USA, and CONMEBOL’s top-two nations Brazil and Colombia. 

There are an additional seven nations that have yet to qualify making up the field of 12 nations who will compete next year that has Canada entering as the current Olympic champions from 2021.

Bev Priestman, Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team Head Coach.“It feels unbelievable to get back to the Olympic Games where we belong and we feel incredible, I thought the crowd tonight was unbelievable and they kept pushing. There were some hairy moments, but it was the crowd that got us going again.”

Canadian forward Cloé Lacasse who scored the first goal mentioned “What a feeling, a sold-out crowd and we get to do this in front of our home fans and I think everyone is ecstatic now that we have qualified for the Olympic Games and we get to defend that Gold Medal.”

Jordyn Huitema, who also scored a goal in the Toronto win mentioned “Coming from the first match with a 2-0 lead was great, but we knew we still had to get the job done in the second leg and that’s exactly what we did in front of our home crowd and now we are heading to Paris and back to the Olympic Games to hopefully make history once again.”

Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team played in front of 29,212 fans which was their largest home crowd since the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015. 

This was the largest crowd ever for Canada Soccer’s National Teams in the province of Ontario surpassing the one set last March that saw the Men’s National Team qualify for the FIFA World Cup on 27 March 2022.

CANADA SOCCER’S WOMEN’S NATIONAL TEAM

Canada are Olympic champions (Tokyo in 2021), two-time bronze medal winners (2012 and 2016), and two-time Concacaf champions (1998 and 2010). In all, 

Canada has participated in eight consecutive editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ (1995 to 2023) and four consecutive editions of the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament (2008 to 2021). At Tokyo 2020, 

Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team became the first Canadian team to win three consecutive medals at the Summer Olympic Games and just the third nation in the world to win three medals in women’s soccer.