Lack of finish creates Canada - New Zealand draw, sloppiness almost led to loss

It turns out that New Zealand's a little harder to beat than Canadian head coach John Herdman anticipated. The eighth-ranked Canadian women's soccer team was heavily favoured heading into Thursday night's clash with the 17th-ranked Ferns, Herdman's old team, but they only managed to come away with a 0-0 draw, and they easily could have lost. In his pre-match press conference Wednesday, Herdman was full of confidence, saying "Very clearly, we're a better team," "Canada should win this game," and "We know what they're going to throw at us now." Some of that was true, and the match largely played out as the offensive affair that was expected. However, the utter lack of finish on offence and the frequently-sloppy play on defence meant that Canada was somewhat lucky to exit this one with a 0-0 draw, which is particularly disconcerting when you consider that their opening 1-0 win over China carried a lot of questions too.

Things actually got off to a decent start for the Canadian women, as they controlled much of the first few minutes of play despite rain and hail, but the appearance of lightning in the fifth minute led to a substantial delay, and Canada appeared somewhat rusty after they returned. The Canadians created a couple of quick chances after play resumed, but the finish wasn't there at all, and New Zealand wound up with one of the best chances of the match in the 10th minute, forcing keeper Erin McLeod to make an incredible save and punch the ball over the crossbar. It was a similar pattern for most of the match; Canada controlled much of the play, holding 59 per cent of the possession by FIFA's statistics and creating 10 shot attempts to New Zealand's five (six on-target to one), but the Canadian players just couldn't get much on their final shots, and there were numerous Canadian defensive miscues that just about led to goals for the Kiwis.

The most notable of those was off a penalty handed out to New Zealand in the 31st minute following a poor tackle by Canadian defender Allysha Chapman. There was a little dispute over the penalty, but Chapman appeared to get enough of attacker Hannah Wilkinson for it to be a reasonable call, certainly in the same realm as the one Canada was awarded against China Saturday. Fortunately for Canada, New Zealand's Amber Hearn drilled the penalty off the crossbar and the rebound was cleared. It was one of several substantial chances New Zealand had on the day, though, most of them generated by defensive errors by the Canadians.

There's a lot for Canada to work on coming out of this. They had numerous offensive chances that were spoiled thanks to poor finishing. Midfielder Sophie Schmidt created a lot off of several free kicks, particularly a 71st-minute strike from outside the box that went off the bar, and striker Melissa Tancredi had some glorious chances, especially a 76th-minute run after a through ball from Christine Sinclair. Striker Jonelle Filigno also created a lot off several of her runs. There wasn't much on several of the final shots, though, and that's why this result wasn't just an unlucky one for Canada.

The draw is one thing, but a loss would have been even worse, and Canada very easily could have come away with that. Given the defensive breakdowns, including the early penalty, some second-half misplays from Lauren Sesselmann (who also struggled in the Canadians' opener), and several loose balls in the Canadian box (especially in the 74th and 89th minutes), Canada was rather fortunate to get out of this with a point. That's not a good result for a game against the lowest-ranked opponent in your group in front of a home crowd. Former Canadian defender Christine Latham made that clear on Fox Sports' post-match coverage, saying this was far less than what she expected from her old team.

"I'm actually quite disappointed," Latham said. "I didn't think that they played again their best soccer. They've been in reisdency for almost a year. John Herdman talked about they were the most prepared team coming into this World Cup. I thought it was sloppy. There wase a lot of bad fouls around their box which gave opportunitities to New Zealand on free kicks. I didn't think they were that dangerous on the attack. They were very disconnected. I didn't think Filigno, Tancredi and Sinclair were playing with each other like they should be in the last third of the field."

It's hard to disagree with any of that. Canada may have controlled the possession Thursday and created more chances, but this is still a highly disappointing result for the team. This is a game that they should have won, and instead, they came perilously close to losing it. Given that this was against New Zealand, noted filming site of the Lord of the Rings movies, this felt a lot like the Battle of Helm's Deep; Canada sent wave after wave of attackers against the defences, but never did quite enough to fully penetrate them. Of course, this didn't wind up as disastrously for the Canadians as it did for Saruman's Uruk-hai, but it still was a potentially-costly draw. Canada's lucky to still be in first place in Group A after this (thanks to China beating the Netherlands in the day's other match), and they could still finish first overall with a good result against the Dutch in their final group match Monday, but they're much less secure than they would have been with a victory, and they'll have a lot of work to do if they want to make any sort of run in the knockout stages.