Canadians still searching for respect on the world stage
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Following their gold-medal performance at the Tokyo Olympics, the players on Canada’s women’s soccer team have peddled one narrative in particular: they don’t get the respect they deserve on the world stage.
As the team prepares for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, that belief hasn’t changed.
“I think no matter what we do as Canadians, we'll always be undermined or become the underdog somehow. People don't want to see us on top,” goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan told TSN in April.
The perception of being overlooked has become a source of motivation for the team over the past few years. The players see being underestimated as a badge of honour.
“As a team, man, we flourish as the underdogs,” Christine Sinclair said. “We love teams thinking that they're better than us. And we love proving them wrong.”
“I do think it's what drives the team in many ways,” head coach Bev Priestman said. “They thrive on that adversity. They're a resilient group, and when their back is against the wall, you see the best out of them.”
There is some credence to Canada’s Rodney Dangerfield-like mindset of “no respect.” Players seem to be constantly overlooked for various FIFA awards despite boasting world-class talent like Sheridan (NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year in 2022), Sinclair, Jessie Fleming and Ashley Lawrence.
In The Guardian’s most recent list of the top 100 footballers in the world, which is voted on annually by a panel of journalists, coaches and former players, only five Canadians made the list, with centre-back Kadeisha Buchanan being the highest at 46th.
Oddsmakers have Canada as the 10th-highest team to win the World Cup despite being ranked seventh in the world. They aren’t even the favourites to win their group, with FanDuel giving co-hosts Australia (ranked 10th) the nod to come out on top in Group B.
“We're often seen as an underdog and we know it, we feel it, but we use that as fuel to go in and win,” Lawrence said.
Amy Walsh, a former Canadian international who recorded more than 100 caps for her country from 2000 to 2009, believes other factors may be at play when it comes to a perceived lack of respect. She points to Canada’s reputation in soccer around the world as a contributing factor to the players’ belief.
“I think that discussion around whether Canada is truly a football nation plays into it,” said Walsh, who also features as a TSN soccer analyst. “Is that an inherent bias for why Canadians are overlooked? Are we more thought of as a hockey nation? Are we more thought of as being dominant in different sports, and that respect has to be earned?”
Walsh also highlights the Olympics, which don’t always carry as much weight in international soccer as the World Cup. The Olympics is a smaller tournament, with only 12 teams taking part, compared to 32 that will play in the upcoming edition of the World Cup.
Of those 12, there are three berths from UEFA. At the Tokyo Games, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden were the representatives from the European confederation. Powerhouses like Germany (the gold medallists in 2016), France and Spain did not qualify.
“It's a distilled and maybe lesser pool of teams and talent that you have to navigate in order to win a medal,” Walsh said. “It's the depth of the field that you have to compete against, but certainly those European heavyweights that Canada has had trouble with historically.”
While Walsh understands the players’ chip-on-their-shoulder mindset, especially when it comes to being snubbed for individual awards, she cautions against relying too much on the underdog mentality.
“I think what this team… needs to be careful with is manufacturing a narrative that might be disingenuous,” she said. “As the Olympic champions, do you have to still have that approach? I think that if you really dug down a little bit beyond the headlines, and you talk to big-name players of soccer nations in the world and the pundits, I think they would give Canada its credit.”
That was certainly the case earlier this year, when players from around the world publicly stood by Canadian players after they threatened job action over pay equity issues and budget cuts from Canada Soccer.
“We’re talking about the Olympic champions,” American Megan Rapinoe told TSN at the SheBelieves Cup in February. “That was so well deserved and such a huge step forward for them. To have their federation meet them this way after winning a world championship is just f---ing wild to me.”
It’s a shift that some Canadian players have noticed, even if the level of respect may not yet be universal.
“I think more and more, especially after the Olympics, I do think countries, at least the players, are giving us more respect,” Fleming said. “We're having to adapt to that kind of heightened expectation from different countries and coaches, even if maybe in the larger football community you could argue that the respect isn't there.”
While some of Canada’s players may still have misgivings about their treatment as Olympic champions, they also know that they’re almost two years removed from their gold-medal performance, and it’s time to move on.
“I think that the Olympics and winning the gold medal, we just know we have a ways to go,” Buchanan said. “I think a part of that is why we're so focused for the World Cup now. We have another opportunity to make Canada proud, for our names to be out there in the world again, and to earn more respect for ourselves and for Canada.”
“I think this program and Canada sports in general has always proved people wrong,” Sheridan said. “If they want to continue to be surprised, by all means, we'll shock them.”