The Canadian women’s soccer team clinched their spot in the 2024 Paris Olympic games as they look to defend their gold medal title.
The team beat Jamaica 4-1 on aggregate by first earning a 2-0 victory at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica ,but it was at home where their dreams were solidified with a 2-1 victory on Tuesday.
Forward Jordyn Huitema who scored the go-ahead goal said winning this game is just the first step of the ultimate objective.
“It’s something we dream of, it’s exactly why we did all of this work and put in all of this effort to be exactly where we are now,” she said.
“Now it’s back to the process to get us where we need to be, we’ve done it before and we know what it takes to do it, so we just have to do it again,” Huitema said.
Canada was coming off a disappointing finish at this summer’s Women’s World Cup in New Zealand and Australia after failing to make it out of the group stage.
For head coach Bev Priestman it was something that hasn’t left her mind since. She said coming back from that is what this team was built for.
“I think I’ve been on a journey now with a group of players who’ve had the ultimate high, probably had the ultimate low,” Priestman said. “And then I saw them come out swinging.
“The bit that inspires me about the group is character, fight, hard work, working for the person next to you, probably that was what was lacking at times in that World Cup,” she said. “Everybody’s put a real shift in, players and staff, to do whatever we could to turn this around.”
Canada came out firing, but it was Jamaica that struck first scoring on a free kick.
Despite that, the home crowd fans did not turn down the volume. The crowd of 29,212, which set a new record for a men’s or women’s national team game in Ontario, was sent into a frenzy after the equalizing goal by forward Cloe Lacasse.
Priestman said the crowd was used in their favour.
“I thought the crowd tonight were unbelievable, they kept pushing,” she said. “In some hairy moments it was the crowd that got us going again.”
Lacasse agreed with Priestman on the motivation the team received from the Canadian soccer faithfuls.
“We knew that Jamaica was going to come out with absolutely everything so we didn’t just have to match that, we had to top it,” Lacasse said. “Getting that home crowd, sold-out BMO [Field], it definitely was the 12th man, like Bev said, and it gave us that extra boost until the very end of the game.”
Sitting comfortably with their spot, Priestman will be using this time in between now and July 26, 2024, wisely.
“Whatever games we have coming up, it’s now about preparing for that moment,” she said.