There is no Canadian Olympic soccer gold without Christine Sinclair. The impact will resonate from coast to coast

Opinion

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This article was published 06/08/2021 (1306 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

YOKOHAMA, JAPAN—In the end, Christine Sinclair watched. It was the biggest match in Canadian soccer history on a suffocating night in Yokohama, and Canada had clawed back to level the match 1-1, and an Olympic gold medal was hanging in the air. But the 38-year-old Sinclair had been taken off in the 85th minute for 20-year-old Jordyn Huitema. Sinclair had carried this program for so long. It was, finally, up to everybody else.

That’s not how Canadian soccer is supposed to work, but time marches. Sinclair scored her record 187th career goal earlier in this tournament, but you could see that her burst isn’t there in the same way. She watched as extra time settled nothing. She watched as Canada survived to penalties.

She watched Sweden’s decorated captain and her friend Caroline Seger sail a penalty for gold over the bar. She watched Canadian goalkeeper Stephanie Labbé make yet another save.

And finally, Sinclair watched Julia Grosso, a 20-year-old substitute from Vancouver who plays at the University of Texas, with gold on the line. Grosso looked. She breathed, and told herself it was just another game. On the sideline, Sinclair had taken off the substitute’s pinny, because she had a feeling; the team had been practising PKs for the last 40 days, every day.

Grosso skimmed a hard low shot that hit iconic Swedish goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl’s arm and shot up into the top of the netting, and Canada’s women’s soccer team had won gold.

“It’s a feeling I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” said Canadian defender Kadeisha Buchanan.

And of everyone, of all the tumult and unrestrained joy, you had to follow Sinclair. She lay on the field, looking up at the night sky. She looked at Grosso and screamed “Julia Grosso!” so loud it echoed in the empty stadium, and then “You did it!” While her teammates celebrated, she walked over to get the ball. It was just lying there.

It was everyone’s night, but it was hers. Sweden took a 1-0 lead in the 34th minute on a goal from Stina Blackstenius. After that, the Swedes pressed so hard that Canada held on for the rest of the half like they were hanging off the roof of a car. This was not the U.S. game.

And the question for the rest of the match wasn’t just whether Canada could hold it to 1-0. It was where on earth they’d find a goal. Canada had only scored five goals in five games here. Sinclair isn’t 29 anymore. They started drifting defenders up the wings and defender Alyssa Chapman, pushing up the left wing, sent a cross into the box.

Part of Sinclair’s genius has always been seeing the play develop before anybody else; it’s her legs that have slowed, not the rest of her. She adjusted her path to meet the ball, and got there just before Sweden’s Amanda Ilestedt did. The penalty was called by VAR. Jessie Fleming, the stone-cold 23-year-old from London, Ont., scored her second penalty in two games. It was 1-1 in the 67th minute.

But Sinclair was subbed off. So many players were, on a night where it felt like 33 degrees Celsius, after the match had finally been moved to avoid the morning heat.

The Canadians defended like demons — Ashley Lawrence played a magnificent game — and fended off the Swedes, over and over. As the match went on Sweden pressed harder, and they came so close in the 117th minute. Canada could have lost this match more than once.

Two of the three players who scored in a mistake-marred round of PKs were teenagers when Canada lost the semifinal at London 2012: Fleming and Deanne Rose, 22. Canada has always needed Sinclair to score. It was someone else.

But Canada didn’t do this without her. This wasn’t the iconic U.S.-Canada Olympic semifinal from 2012, when Sinclair scored three in the greatest women’s game of all time. She can’t do that any more. But this game doesn’t even happen without Sinclair. This was her.

“I think this medal is impossible without that generation,” said Sophie Schmidt, a 2012 alum who was on this team as a potential injury alternate and de facto assistant coach. “Because so many of these girls were watching that game and from that were like, I want to do this, I want to be an Olympian, I want to win for Canada, put on that jersey.

“And I think without that moment and everything that happened in that tournament, this medal is impossible.”

Yeah.

“I mean, it feels incredible,” said 25-year-old midfielder Quinn, who became the first openly trans, non-binary Olympian in history to win a medal. “Sinc is someone I’ve looked up to for so long. I remember back in, oh my gosh, 2003, but I was watching the World Cup in the U.S. And you know, all of our veteran players, I think that’s something that was at the forefront of our mind as younger players on the team: We want to give it to them, you know? For some players (it’s) maybe their last go-around, hopefully not. So I think walking away with that medal is everything that we could have given them.”

“Yeah, she’s the GOAT, she’s the greatest of all time,” Buchanan said of Sinclair. “And more importantly she’s just a true captain and a true friend.”

“I just know she was like really proud of us, and I know she has our back regardless,” said Grosso. “So I just know she’s really happy and I wanted to, like, win this especially for her. Because she’s changed the game of soccer.

“(She’s meant) everything to me. Like, I’ve watched her since I literally could walk. So literally everything.”

It’s like she spawned a generation and they paid her back. Sinclair said she had decided she wouldn’t decide on her future out of joy or pain, whichever one came. But she looked back at her past.

“I mean, honestly, when I started playing with the national team we were losing to the U.S. 9-0,” said Sinclair, quietly. “And that was like the norm. And to be a part of this group now standing on the top of the podium, honestly, I never thought I’d be part of that group. I thought Canada was capable of it at some point, but man it’s happened fast. I have three Olympic medals. And yeah, after the World Cup in 2011 we were all broken and then (coach John Herdman) came and changed everything for us, changed the trajectory of this program. Yeah, I think a lot is owed to him.”

And to her. Without Sinclair there is no Canadian women’s soccer at this level, never.

You could imagine young players across Canada watching the semifinal and the final and gold and feeling something; you could imagine that maybe some of those kids will pursue the game and find themselves in the sport, and push and struggle and never quit until one day some of those kids wind up playing together, after years of triumphs and heartbreaks, for something that they could only dream of. Something like this.

And of course, you didn’t have to imagine that. Because that’s what this was. Canada won.

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur