RHIAN SOCCER JOURNALS           

CANADA STARTS WITH A TIE      17th September 2011

We tied the United States 1-1 tonight. It felt very good to play in front of 16,191 fans at the Livestrong stadium in Kansas City, and to get this tie under our belts. We have rid ourselves of some of the World Cup demons. However, I think we could have done better.

Please don't get me wrong. We are very pleased with the result of the match and our performance, but there is definitely room for us to improve. We feel we could have done better, and that is exciting.

This was the first match in a long time in which we played the United Stats evenly. They had some good chances, but I think we missed even better chances. We have done well playing against the United States in the past, but I have never felt so pleased with our own performance.

We went toe to toe with the Americans who remain the highest ranked team in the world. They fielded their World Cu team minus one player. And, excitingly, we get to play them again in less than a week's time. We have another chance to show what we can do.

I thought that our midfield players were awesome tonight. Defensively, I think we played quite well and kept our shape. But, our job is definitely made far easier by our hard working mid field players.

Of course, overall, the whole team played well - defence, mids, but also our forwards. They worked their tails off tonight.