After all of the emotional high that came from Canada putting up such a strong fight against the best team in the world I had allowed myself to believe that they would beat France with relative ease and actually be a factor in this tournament. Sadly that is not to be. Maybe I was being a bit overly dramatic yesterday when I wondered to myself and all of twitter why I let myself actually believe in a Canadian Soccer team because like always they never seem to meet my expectations. Having taken some distance back from the match and gotten over the initial awful feeling that I had for almost the entire game against France I can say that I was wrong to comment that this made the Gold Cup feel like a happy memory. I am still proud of our countries women's team and I hope that they finish off strong against Nigeria and can then say that they represented this country well on the World Stage.
I think there was a fair bit of extra hype going around trying to convince us all that this team was capable of winning the Women's World Cup and it sounded so great that we all wanted to believe it to be true. The fact is though that it took them a great run of results to get to number 6 in the world and it would probably have taken an almost perfect performance from our ladies to beat any of the 5 teams remaining above them. Are they better then they showed against France, no doubt about that in my mind, but are they good enough to have been seriously considered as World Cup contenders, I am starting to doubt that.
The fact of the matter is that in the biggest game of many of these ladies careers they just did not have it. The back line once again looked questionable at best and were allowing shots from all over the field. At the same time the attack was completely unable to put anything on goal that actually threatened to go in. It is a terrible combination when you allow your opponents to test your keeper 10 times but you fail to test theirs even once. I almost feel that the final score of 4-0 was a bit kind to Canada based on the way that they played in the second half.
But now I want to move on. As a fan of Canadian soccer if I spent to long dwelling on all the bad games, the early exits, and the painful memories I would probably be suffering from some form of sports fan depression. It is the delusions that we allow ourselves as sports fans that keep us coming back for more almost as if we are all gluttons for punishment. It is the fans motto to believe that next year is always going to be our year no matter how bad we have been this year. Things are always going to turn around and will get better, if we did not believe that then we would probably all just stop watching since what is the point when you already think your team is doomed to lose. I will again be believing in this ladies team when the Olympics come around in 2012, same thing for the next World Cup in 2015. That is just how it works for me as a fan and to be honest a lot of the younger players on this team did just enough in this World Cup to give me a reason to have faith that they will use this experience to come back better and stronger next time. A defeat like this has to stay with you for the rest of your playing career because it is the kind of thing that can fuel you to greatness and as a delusional fan I think that this team can still be great.
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