Rhian Wilkinson's Official Website

RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

COSTA RICA COMPLICATIONS 6th April 2008

A Happy Birthday to D!!!

Well, as I am sure everyone has now heard, we won our game against Costa Rica Ticas this morning by 1-0. There was some confusion with media outlets, including the CBC, reporting the final score as 2:0 for Canada. However, the final score was 1:0 as reported on the CONCACAF website. The second goal was denied by the referee.

As the score reflects, this was far from a comfortable game for us. We did not take the Costa Ricans lightly. Nor were we looking past this game to the Olympic Qualifiers semi finals. These are two theories we have heard about our poor performance. The truth is that we played a poor game, and Costa Rica played well.

Reuters photo

We went into the lead early, with a goal from Tank, set up by Robyn and Randee. It was obviously, a goal that was very important for us.

Playing at 11:00am is a new experience for us, especially with the time change, which has made it seem even earlier. The Mexican sun was out in full force, and even the most tanned and acclimatized players on the team on the team soon started to burn

Something we are experiencing here in Mexico, and it is something we did not expect, is the effect on us of the dry, arid desert air. Anyone who has played a sport knows what I’m talking about when I say that we have been experiencing "cotton mouth.” This phenomenon is a hundred times worse here. You don’t feel as if you can get enough air in, and you start to gag on the dryness in your throat. Even communicating becomes hard. The cough that we all seem to have been experiencing after the games is part of the same symptoms. It sounds even worse than the dry coughs we always had after a game in China.

After our match, we stayed to watch most of the Mexico-US game. The States won 3-1. Part of the reason for this narrow score is the crowd. I have already mentioned that the crowd is amazing and they definitely become a twelfth player out on the field. Both games were held in front of an announced, sold out crowd of 22,280. Apparently, this is a record for a CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualification game.

Mexico played an inspired game against the States and we can expect the same next Wednesday. As Even said today, the stadium here in Juarez is the perfect soccer stadium, and the crowd is a perfect soccer crowd. They get behind their team and cheer their hearts out. But, they are never hostile, except during the national anthems when they feel the need to boo.

We are spending the evening in drinking gallons of water in an effort to re-hydrate and remove "cotton mouth," all the while eating D's birthday cake, yum yum. Even though we didn’t play well today, we can paraphrase Stein that a win is a win is a win. We now have two victories under our belts, so, Mexico, here we come.

Lineups:
Starters: McLeod, Gayle, Marton, Hermus, Chapman, Wilkinson, Matheson, Filigno, Schmidt, Sinclair and Tancredi.
Subs: Walsh, Lang and Robinson.