The squad had an early start this morning, as the sleep alarm went off at 6:30am.  This was far earlier than we soccer players are used to.  Those swimmers and cyclists may be tough enough to get up at this ungodly hour every morning, but for us such an early start was definitely a struggle.

The early rise was necessary however, since kickoff in our second pool game, this time against Argentina, was scheduled at 10:00 am. The only upside of such an early start was that the first half of the match was a bit cooler than we suffered against Costa Rica.

 The game wasn’t a pretty one by any means, and rather disjointed and far too close. But, I think we did what we had to do, to earn the tournament points and gain a spot in the semi-finals. 

Argentina started strong and they were physical, but we had the majority of the chances in the first half.  Their keeper did well to stop Sincy on a header off of a corner by Sophie, and an Argentinean  defender made a great last ditch tackle on CJ who would have been clear on goal. 

We came out stronger in the second half, and scored within the first few minutes.  Sincy fought through a couple Argentina players, whom I think were aiming for her shins more than for the ball, and managed to break forward.  She slipped a beautiful ball from the left side in behind a defender, to find CJ who finished the movement with one deft touch for the goal. Very nice!

We didn’t manage to put another goal in, and the finish was not as comfortable as we probably should have made it.  We definitely have room to grow in tis area! We earned the win in large part thanks to Rochelle Beanlands, who earned her first cap in goal for Canada.  As Karina mentioned, keepers often earn their first camp against much weaker teams. But, this game was no walk in the park, and she should be proud of her performance!

We now get down to recovering and preparing for our next and last pool game against Brazil, who have the same points and goal differential that we do. With only a day in between each group game there is not much time to spare, let alone prepare!