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SOCCER MEDIA REPORTS:

Neil's goal enough to dispatch the Dutch

Thursday, March 02, 2006
Mike Beamish, Vancouver Sun

After losing 1-0 to Canada in an international soccer friendly Wednesday at Thunderbird Stadium, head coach Vera Pauw of the Netherlands admits her team was flatter than the fare they serve at De Dutch Pannekoek House.

With half of the Dutch team arriving in Vancouver only two days before the women's World Cup tune-up game, Clockwork Orange was running behind and parked somewhere in another time zone.

The teams meet again Saturday at the University of Victoria's Centennial Stadium, and the Dutch, 17th in the world rankings, are trusting that better acclimation will help close the wide gap that was apparent against 13th-ranked Canada. Both teams hope to qualify for next year's World Cup in China.

"We can play better," Pauw said. "We'll see on Saturday whether the travel was a factor. We couldn't cope with the pressure in the second half. We didn't play to our potential. But that's all credit to Canada. Their opportunistic style is very hard to play against. It's very hard to operate against a strong team like that."

After dominating the first half but doing little to excite an expectant crowd of 3,162, Canada jumped all over the weary Dutch in the final 45 minutes as head coach Even Pellerud substituted freely with devastating results.

Kara Lang, Andrea Neil and Rhian Wilkinson, who anxiously bided their time on the sidelines throughout the first half, combined for the game's only goal in the 85th minute, though Canada was unlucky not to have been up by three at that point.

Wilkinson's corner kick was headed in the box by Lang and, in an ensuing scramble, Neil found the net behind 'keeper Marleen Wissink, who had stemmed the Canadian tide like the proverbial Dutch kid with her finger in the dike.

Neil performed similar heroics on the very same pitch as an undergraduate student at UBC and scored Canada's only goal in a 1-1 tie with the Dutch last April in Apeldoorn, Holland.

"I think they were content with the tie, so it's for us to dig deep and find the motivation to play beyond that," said Neil, of her 22nd goal in 110 career games for Canada.

Wilkinson didn't enter the game until the 83th minute, but the little dynamo made an immediate impression, and not just on the game's only goal. During injury time, Wilkinson's fleetness on the right flank nearly resulted in Canada's second goal, but her assist to Katie Thorlakson went for naught when the latter's point-blank shot was stopped.

"This team is 18 players deep, so when you're sitting on the bench for the whole first half, you want to make an impact when you get in," Wilkinson explained. "We were all extremely fired up when we got our chances. That's why we looked so fresh. All that adrenaline came out."