Lea Schueller of Germany in action with Vanessa Gilles of Canada in the women's soccer quarter-final on Aug. 3, 2024.Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters
There are a few rules in soccer that you should know never to break. On Saturday, the Canadian women’s team broke one of the biggest – don’t go to penalties against Germany.
It ended as it so often does against the Teutons – in a comprehensive penalty defeat (4-2) after a goalless match. The winning goal was scored by the German goalkeeper.
While the Germans mobbed the field, the Canadians stood around stunned. They seemed unprepared to go through the rituals of grief that are familiar to all top-level soccer players. Maybe they’re just out of practice at the Olympics.
Three Canadians had their shots easily saved – though one snuck in. That’s the mark of a nervous team. It was the first time over two roiling weeks that Canada revealed its anxiety.
Afterward, the Canadians were put through an experience that they haven’t felt for a long time at a Games – being forced to talk about how hard it is to go home, while the team that just sent you there whoops it up on their way through the mixed zone.
Mostly, the Canadians seemed tired.
“I just need a break,” said team captain Jessie Fleming, sounding a lot older than 26.
Fleming missed most of the match after suffering an injury. She would have been the first person on the list to take penalties.
“I can’t quite find the tears. I think I shed them all this week,” said Vanessa Gilles, Canada’s best player at these Games. “Proud of the team with how we stuck together.”
What will make it so hard to accept is that for much of the match, things played out just as Canada would have liked.
Germany came out the aggressor, but that sort of wait-and-see approach has become a Canadian signature here. At the 60-minute mark, Canada turned it on – as they had against France and Colombia.
There were too many good Canadian chances to recount, but one stuck out. In the 71st minute, Adriana Leon broke in alone on the German ‘keeper in a farmer’s field worth of space. She had a good three or four seconds to consider where to put the ball – too long, as it turned out. Leon planted her shot in the ‘keeper’s outstretched leg.
That was the first initiation you had that maybe this wasn’t going to be Canada’s night.
“That’s by far the most clear chances that we’ve ever created against a team of that calibre,” said veteran Janine Beckie.
Beckie said it like it was a good thing, but it wasn’t. Too many times, Canada wasted sure things.
Germany had its chances as well, but not so numerous, nor as promising as Canada’s.
Still, Canada pressed. They pressed Germany in the last half hour, and then in the half hour of added extra time. It felt like just a matter of time before Germany’s inability to clear its own decks would kill them. But then it got to penalties.
In Tokyo, penalties were good to Canada. The players didn’t play particularly well through much of the knockout round in Japan. What they did was hang on.
In the entirety of those elimination games, Canada did not score a goal from open play. It still won a gold medal.
That approach clearly informed their tactics here. Canada was going to win by not trying too hard to win. So maybe Germany didn’t beat Canada on Friday. Maybe they Tokyo’d them.
Afterward, the players alluded offhandedly to the controversy that surrounded them here after a drone spying incident that made international news. Most said it brought them closer together.
They’ll need that togetherness because this isn’t over. There will still be an independent Canadian investigation of spying as a holistic practice in the Canadian national program. Depending on how things go over the next few months, FIFA will undoubtedly take an interest. There is a world in which the women’s team’s next fight isn’t wining more medals. It’s trying to hang on to the ones it already has.
But that’s for tomorrow. On Saturday, it was too soon to think about what happens next, and too late to rescue what was starting to look like a signature Canadian Olympic moment (the good kind this time).
“Like nothing I’ve ever experienced in sport,” Beckie said about how she would describe the turmoil in and around the team. “It’s been really heavy, and emotional on a whole different level.”
What will you do now?
“Turn my phone off.”
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