Canada coach Bev Priestman wants more than just Olympic gold

Winning the gold medal at last summer’s Tokyo Olympics was a landmark moment for the Canadian women’s soccer team.

But coach Bev Priestman doesn’t want it to be a one-off. Rather, she envisions it as the start of something truly special where Canada can regularly compete with the elite nations in the world.

“I think now there’s a line in the sand where yes, that Olympic medal happened, but actually I want to move beyond the medal. We have to set that new vision and tweak some things that will help us longer term as a team,” Priestman said.

With three consecutive podium finishes, Canada has shown that it can make noise at the Olympics. But success at the FIFA World Cup has been much harder to come by for the Canadians, who have bowed out at the group stage four times and only once advanced to the semifinals in their seven appearances.

Next year’s World Cup, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, presents Canada with another chance to prove itself on the sport’s biggest stage. To that end, Priestman is using this month’s Arnold Clark Cup in England to give her players a taste of what to expect at the 2023 World Cup, provided they get through this summer’s Concacaf qualifiers.

Canada announces squad for the 2022 Arnold Clark Cup#CANWNT https://t.co/p3Zr8xUEqE pic.twitter.com/k3cA214ppi

— Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team (@CANWNT) February 7, 2022

Canada, No. 6 in the current FIFA rankings, will face No. 8 England (Thursday in Middlesbrough), No. 3 Germany (Sunday in Norwich), and No. 9 Spain (Feb. 23 in Wolverhampton) in a round-robin competition that brings together four of the best teams in the women’s game.

This is a big year for the reigning Olympic champions, who will compete at this summer’s Concacaf Championship in Mexico, where both World Cup berths and spots at the 2024 Paris Olympics are at stake. As such, the Arnold Clark Cup is a hugely important competition, as it allows Canada to test itself against top-level competition in preparation for the Concacaf qualifiers.

“If you really want to put yourself out there then you enter this tournament. We want to be competing with the best continuously. The safe thing to do would be to go play some weaker opposition. But we want to keep moving forward,” Priestman stated.

“To be honest, this camp and beyond is the start of a new journey, so the message is we’ve climbed one mountain but we’re going to have to go climb a completely different mountain. The qualifiers and the World Cup are very, very different to what you need to compete at an Olympic Games, so for us it’s a start of a new journey.”

Seven teams in, 25 to go.
The field for the #FIFAWWC 2023 has started to take shape.#BeyondGreatness pic.twitter.com/nkvyi0oVXt

— FIFA Women’s World Cup (@FIFAWWC) February 7, 2022

Next year’s World Cup will expand from 24 to 32 nations, and will feature at least 11 European teams, three more than competed at the 2019 World Cup. Seven of the eight quarterfinalists in France three years ago were from Europe. Historically, Canada has struggled against teams from Europe, posting just a single victory in its previous eight matches against European nations at the World Cup dating back to 2007.

To that end, Priestman has challenged her players not to view the Arnold Clark Cup as an exhibition tournament, but rather as a chance to grow and develop while facing three top European teams.

“Three massively difficult games which will give us great competition and a chance to assess us against European opposition… You’re probably going to get two [European teams] in your group, and as we know from the last World Cup, seven of the eight in the knockout rounds were from Europe. So, we have to get experience playing European teams,” Priestman offered.

One developing player who Priestman will be keen to watch at the Arnold Clark Cup is midfielder Julia Grosso, who scored the winner in Canada’s shootout victory over Sweden to capture gold in Tokyo.

Grosso, a 21-year-old from Vancouver, played the last four years at the University of Texas at Austin before signing with Italian club Juventus in December. She made her national team debut in 2017 as a teenager under John Herdman. Since then, Grossi has earned 31 caps, but hasn’t yet cracked the first 11, making only 11 starts, despite being one of Canada’s brightest prospects.

The Arnold Clark Cup marks Grosso’s first time with Canada since joining Juventus, and Priestman wants to see how quickly she can adjust to the national team setup compared to when she was still playing college soccer.

“What I always found with players coming from the NCAA is it took them a while when we were in camp to get up to speed with full-time professional players. I know that move [to Juventus] is only going to help Julia — mindset wise, physically, technically, tactically,” Priestman said.

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John Molinaro is one of the leading soccer journalists in Canada, having covered the game for over 20 years for several media outlets, including Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is currently the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic, a website dedicated to in-depth coverage of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer.

Canada coach Bev Priestman wants more than just Olympic gold
Source: Healthy Lifestyle