American and Canadian Women 90 Minutes from London

Mexico and the US will play Canada and Costa Rica for a chance at the Olympics

By Kara McDermott

The CONCACAF Women’s Olympic qualifying tournament returns to action Friday with matches that will stamp a passport and put the podium in reach for two teams. The winners of the semi-final matches will each receive berths to the Olympic Games in 2012.

Canada and Costa Rica played their last game on Monday, giving them an extra day of rest than the US and Mexico. When asked if this scheduling aspect could affect the game, Canadian coach John Herdman called it a “major advantage,” US coach Pia Sundhage said “that’s tough,” and star US forward Abby Wambach replied, “Nah.”

Wambach’s confidence aside, she made sure to bring the team together after the final whistle against Mexico before greeting fans or moving to the locker room to remind them that the most important game was the one they will play tomorrow against Costa Rica, “You can’t ever fall asleep, you have to stay focused.”

The US is a heavy favorite in their semi-final, but Costa Rica will still provide a challenge. Despite going down five goals in their match against Canada, they are the only team in this tournament to steal the shut-out from the winning team with a world-class 89th minute goal.

Costa Rica cannot afford to have a slow start. The US has clocked the fastest goals in the tournament, and in all three group play games has tallied multiple goals within the first ten minutes of play, an effective tactic in crippling the confidence of their opposition.

Following the first match, host country Canada plays an even more exciting match against Mexico. Possessing more speed and ability to possess than their other opponents thus far, Mexico has the ability to always make CONCACAF tournaments interesting, and has done so over their history by knocking either the US or Canada out of past qualifying events, the former in the 2011 World Cup qualifiers and the latter in the 2004 Olympic qualifiers.

This year, Mexican coach Leonardo Cuellar acknowledges that his team is the underdog, but issued a friendly reminder to Canada:

”To use a popular sports saying: the games, you have to play them. On paper we’re behind, but you need to play the game in the end. They may prefer to have a little more rhythm playing against better opponents while we’ve been able to play against the best team in the world. That may loosen us up a little bit and make our players come out and be very aggressive.”

Mexico and Canada have each qualified for one Olympic Games. Mexico knocked Canada out of qualifying in 2004, and Canada returned the favor in 2008. Both of these semi-final games had a score line of just one goal (2-1 in 2004, 1-0 in 2008).

The US has qualified for the Olympics every year since the women’s side began in 1996. Costa Rica has never qualified, but has advanced to the semi-finals in the Olympic qualifying tournament each time, eventually coming in fourth place in both 2004 and 2008.

The US game against Costa Rica will be played at 5:00, Canada and Mexico will follow at 8:00 p.m. PST.