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SOCCER MEDIA REPORTS:

From a Globe and Mail Report

WOMEN SHOW MEN'S TEAM HOW IT'S DONE by Cathal Kelly

7th September 2007

Call it another key absence at the highest levels of Canadian soccer.

National senior women's manager Even Pellerud will have to cool his heels in the dressing room during Canada's first match at the women's World Cup this coming Wednesday, the result of a suspension dating back to the Gold Cup nearly a year ago.

Proving that FIFA isn't any better organized than our own hallowed soccer institutions, Pellerud found out about his ejection in a Norwegian newspaper. Good thing Pellerud is one of 37 people in Canada who read Norwegian.

It's a disappointment for the manager, who will miss the key contest in ninth-ranked Canada's group stages against, you guessed it, Norway. If Canada can sneak by the fourth-best team in the world, we'll know this tournament is on.

But it speaks to the strength of the women's team that the decision has provoked no panic in the Canadian camp. This is a squad that meets obstacles by lowering its collective head and running through them. It has to be. The women's World Cup has been lost in the recent turmoil surrounding the leadership of the Canadian Soccer Association. Before that, it was merely ignored.

But unlike our men's squads, the women rarely seem to need a helping hand to keep them turned in the right direction. They have thrived on a diet of public apathy.

The lead-up to their big tournament was a disaster. The CSA couldn't attract a corporate sponsor and, as a result, tune-up matches on home ground were forgotten. (Discount clothing chain Winners stepped in at the last minute to underwrite the squad.) As a result, the women were forced to wander the globe looking for matches.

When they travelled to China for a recent warm-up tournament, they found the air so choked with pollution, many lost a significant chunk of their aerobic capacity in a few days. Now they will act as guinea pigs for other Canadian athletes ahead of next year's Olympics in China.

Few Canadians know anything about them, despite the fact that they have qualified for all five women's World Cups. In the last one, they were only narrowly deflected from a berth in the final by Sweden.

The closest thing Canada has to a household name is forward Christine Sinclair. In a few years, the 23-year -old forward will become this country's all-time leading scorer. Last year, she was a finalist for world player of the year. Sinclair is no pirouetting showboat. She's a grinder with a nose for the net. A profile on FIFA's website compares her to Der Bomber, Gerd Mueller. The German legend lacked any discernible soccer skills, but still managed to score 1,500 career goals, fourth all-time.

Sinclair is certainly gifted, but she displays her talents in a most Canadian way, without flourish or embellishment. Watching her drive her way through a defence, one is reminded a little of England's Wayne Rooney. Unlike Rooney though, Sinclair doesn't break her feet at every challenge.

Two weeks from now, if the ball falls right a few times, she may be the toast of this nation. You can get on the bandwagon early and impress friends by dropping her name over the weekend.

Two years from now, a new women's league will be launched in the U.S. The lead investor is Phil Anschutz's AEG group, the same people who peeled out a kajillion simoleans to bring David Beckham to the finest trainers' tables in the U.S. A league launched after the 1999 World Cup, the one with the bra, was a dismal failure, folding after three seasons. But it struggled for the same reasons that Major League Soccer scuffled through for its first years – poor organization, an "American" approach to marketing and parks filled with Astroturf and football hash marks. The new league will bring the experience of MLS and a lineup of soccer-specific stadiums to the fore.

Toronto and Vancouver, home of the Whitecaps, aren't included in the initial seven teams. But if the league finds its feet, it will also find its way into Canada. That would only be partial payback for a group of committed athletes who have struggled in obscurity for too long. Let's hope that September is only the beginning of their national coming out party.