For Canada's soccer women, a new era dawns

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The kids are all right.

These Canadian kids, anyway -- all right enough to be coming home from these Olympic Games with a medal to match the one Canada earned four years ago in Coventry, England.

These bronze bookends couldn’t be more different, though.

London 2012 amounted to an end point for a Canadian group that after a decade punching on an international women’s soccer stage growing more and more skillful, more and more smarter, finally had something to show for its toil.

This one, a 2-1 win in Sao Paulo over hosts Brazil, looked like something else entirely: the arrival of a core group that outside our meat and potatoes of hockey, is going to anchor the country’s most high-profile team to watch over the next decade, a team that with a little bit of development should be a part of the world’s elite if not when the next World Cup arrives, then certainly not too long after.   

The future arrived on a bright Brazilian Friday, the 52nd minute of this match amounting to the moment where polish finally arrived to match all that spit required to reach the Olympic medals. It started when Jessie Fleming picked her head up on the right wing, the ball at her feet, and a defender in the familiar canary-yellow arriving to close her down. Fleming beat her on the dribble, beat another -- getting stuck-in is not part of these Brazilians’ game -- and found space to deliver a slide-rule pass to Deanne Rose.

Stop the film there. Fleming, an 18-year-old teenager from London, Ont., has been sensational at these Olympics, bossing the midfield from deep in her own end to the opposite box. She has the all-round game to suggest global stardom is ahead of her -- for now, that dribble and that pass is but a hint. Another came with Fleming’s sprawling block in added time to stifle Brazil’s last gasp, or any one of the bone-rattling challenges she’s added to her game since making her senior-team debut last year at the World Cup.

Rose is even younger, a 17-year-old predator in the making. The linkup play between Fleming and her older teammates, including Sinclair, has been intermittent at this tournament. But there was instant understanding on this move, Rose’s well-timed run behind a defender caught in no-woman’s-land just what Fleming demanded.

Okay, now we continue, and here it becomes a movie, and a three-hankie special at that. It’s Christine Sinclair open in the box. Of course. You knew it had to be this way. At 33, Sinclair is into her sunset years and as this tournament has gone on, her legs have been looking weary. In the spring she put her father to rest. In this Summer Games held in Brazilian winter, she’s been the lioness. One touch and she had control of Rose’s pass, and of course it was in the net, like the 164 other times she’s done that for Canada.

If Fleming to Rose to Sinclair amounted to this day’s back to the future moment, there was plenty more to suggest the best is yet to come.

Ashley Lawrence has done a reverse Gareth Bale on this Canadian team, at age 21 converting from the midfield to left back, where her pace, trickery and crossing ability have added a brand-new dimension to the side. Lawrence’s 24th-minute run left her defender, one Fabiana, in chase mode -- she later stomped on the Brazilian and wasn’t carded for it, adding injury to insult -- and she put the pass on a plate for Rose to finish.

On defence, 20-year-old Kadeisha Buchanan and 23-year-old Shelina Zadorsky look like pillars that’ll stay standing for a while. True, Zadorsky was turned on Brazil’s lone goal, and Buchanan’s red-line style can easily tilt to rash and reckless, but overall they had excellent tournaments.

Add Janine Beckie, turning 22 Saturday and with three goals in the tournament, but a substitute in this final. Add a pair of 21-year-olds alongside her on the bench in Rebecca Quinn and Nichelle Prince, ready to take their chance any day now.

For years now, the search for Sinclair’s complement gradually changed to a search for Sinclair’s successor. And here they are, wearing Olympic medals -- not just one but a whole posse of kids who with work and luck could well be ready to take on the world.