Rhian Wilkinson's Official Website

SOCCER MEDIA REPORTS:

CANADA ALREADY TALKING A GOOD QUARTER FINAL

By Ed Willes, The Province 13th August, 2008

Over the years, the American women's soccer team has treated their Canadian counterparts the way a pit bull treats a chew toy, and now the two rivals -- and they're rivals in the way a nail is rival to a hammer -- face each other in the quarterfinals of the Olympic soccer tournament in Shanghai on Friday (CBC, 3 a.m.).

Given their history, it doesn't appear to be the optimal matchup for the Canadians. But that's not the way they see it. You can tell them, the Americans are the No. 1-ranked team in the world; that before Beijing they'd lost exactly one game in the previous three Olympics; and, that heading into the Games, they hadn't lost in 22 outings this season. And the Canucks will still look you in the eye and say, in all sincerity, so what.

That just means we're due.

"They're obviously one of the best teams in the world, but I don't think they're playing as well right now as they have in the past," says skipper Christine Sinclair, who's from Burnaby.

"We like to think we've got them at a pretty good time. Obviously, it would be ideal to knock them out of the Olympics, and not allow them a chance to win a medal."

I mean, to listen to the Canadians, you almost feel sorry for the Yanks. Now, we're about to find out if their time really has come.

The national team concluded the round-robin portion of its Olympic tournament on Tuesday in Beijing with an uneven performance in a 2-1 loss to Sweden, the No. 3 team in the world, but their ticket to the quarterfinals had been booked earlier in the evening when Germany knocked off North Korea 1-0. The Canadians finished the round-robin with a 1-1-1 record, scoring four goals while allowing four and head into the playoff round as the eighth-ranked team.

Along the way there were high points -- a 1-1 draw against the host Chinese, in which they controlled much of the play -- and lowlights -- the 2-1 final against the Swedes was flattering. But the Canadians also came to Beijing with one objective in mind, and now that they're two wins away from the gold-medal match, they're not making any apologies.

"Being in the Olympics for the first time is really hard," says head coach Evan Pellerud. "I told my players about going to Atlanta, [where he coached Norway in the 1996 Games] but it doesn't really matter. You have to be here and experience all the distractions around you.

"I'm very pleased with our performance over the first three games. They've probably never played better soccer in their lives. To make the quarterfinals is a huge accomplishment."

And now the Americans better watch out for this buzzsaw.

"Obviously, we've become rivals because we've played them so many times," says defender Rhian Wilkinson. "We haven't beaten or tied them since I've been on the team [beginning in 2003]. So it's always the match we look forward to. We think, 'This is it. This is the time.'"

The Canadians, in fact, seem to have narrowed the chasm between the two sides this season. In April, at the CONCACAF Olympic qualifier in Mexico, they lost in the final to the Americans in a shootout. In June, they dropped a 1-0 decision on a late goal in the Peace Cup in South Korea

The Americans are also without star Abby Wambach, who broke her left leg in a friendly against Brazil three weeks before the Olympics. And if that wasn't enough, the defending Olympic gold medallists were defeated 2-0 by Norway in their first game of the round-robin before rebounding with a 1-0 win over Japan and a 4-0 thumping of New Zealand on Tuesday.

So maybe they should be worried.

A bit.

"We're a growing program," says Wilkinson. "We're better funded and the country is behind us. We really don't have any excuses. It's time we start contending and we've been doing that [internationally]. But every now and then [the Americans] give us a good spanking and remind us we have a little way to go."

But that beating can't go on