Canadian Christine Sinclair on verge of soccer history at CONCACAF qualifier

With eighth-ranked Canada facing No. 127 St. Kitts and Nevis, No. 26 Mexico and No. 51 Jamaica in group play at the eight-country tournament, Sinclair should get looks at goal. While Canada has never faced St. Kitts, Sinclair already has scored 11 goals against Jamaica and 16 against Mexico.

“You don’t really notice her too much until she puts it in the back of the net,” said Canada coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller. “But if you go to some of our sessions, you can see how hard she is working to be that unnoticeable player that puts a shift in, then all of a sudden turns up in the penalty area.”

Heiner-Moller says his skipper also drives the rest of the team, with 55 assists to her credit.

“If I score, I score. If I don’t, it means someone else is which makes me happy too,” Sinclair once said.

The top-ranked Americans are in the other group in Houston, alongside No. 37 Costa Rica, No. 53 Panama and No. 68 Haiti.

The top two teams from each pool advance to the semifinals in Carson, Calif., with the semifinal winners advancing to the Tokyo Olympics. The Canadian women are coming off back-to-back bronze medals at the 2012 and 2016 Games in London and Rio.

Canada is 7-0-0 all-time against Jamaica, holding a 48-1 edge in scoring. The Canadian women are 21-1-1 against Mexico and are unbeaten in 13 matches.

The lone loss was a costly one, however. The 2-1 defeat by Mexico in 2004 prevented Canada from attending the 2004 Athens Games.

Heiner-Moller says consistency is his team’s goal at this Olympic qualifier.

“No matter who we play, we need to play to Canadian standards. If we play St. Kitts in the first match, if we play the U.S. at some point during this tournament, it has to be our level of performance that we play to,” he said prior to the tournament.

“It’s so easy to play teams that you’re better than and then you drop to their level. You play what you have to and not what you can.”

The Canadian team did not play up to those standards in the later stages of 2019, seemingly still feeling a hangover from a disappointing round-of-16 exit at the hands of Sweden in last summer’s World Cup.

Canada suffered back-to-back 4-0 losses in Asia against Japan and Brazil in October and November, respectively, before bouncing back to beat New Zealand 3-0 in China three days after the Brazil loss.

Heiner-Moller was “furious” after the Japan defeat in Canada’s first outing since the World Cup in France.

“That was an attitude thing,” he said at the time. “It was World Cup blues. That was unacceptable. We can never show up and just expect things to happen. We need to fight for every single inch of the pitch and believe in the concepts and all that stuff.”

Sinclair scored goal No. 183 last time out in the Nov. 10 win over New Zealand.

St. Kitts was a surprise group winner in Caribbean qualifying with part-time coach Jene Baclawski, whose full-time gig is technical director of the South Texas Youth Football Association, fielding several Canadian-based players on the Sugar Girlz squad.

They include Kyra Dickinson, Brittney Lawrence, Kaleah Smith and the three Uddenberg sisters — 14-year-old Kayla, 17-year-old Cloey and 19-year-old Carley.

Canada has finished runner-up to the U.S. at the last three CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournaments.

Brazil, Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden have already qualified for Tokyo. Asian qualifying in February will produce two more teams to join host Japan.

Canada also missed out on the 2000 and 1996 Games, when the U.S. was the only representative of CONCACAF, which covers North and Central America and the Caribbean.

Canadian Christine Sinclair on verge of soccer history at CONCACAF qualifier

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