What If?

                Following a game, the last thing you want to do as a player or coach is ask yourself the question, What If? What if I tried a bit harder? What if I made this pass instead of that pass? What if I made a substitution earlier or later in the match? Through 76 minutes of the Soccer Semi-Final match between Canadian players were able to hold their head up proudly and say they gave EVERYTHING they had to pull off an iconic upset and buck a trend of losing versus Team USA.

It had been 11 years since the Americans had suffered defeat to Canada and a brave Canadian team had matched the American talent with sheer will. The American’s played an impressive game, controlling possession and repeatedly asked questions of the Canadian Defence. And right when it seemed like the Canadian back-line would break, Christine Sinclair would rise to the occasion, doing so literally twice as she rose above American defenders to nod a header behind keeper Hope Solo. It was a performance for the ages, one that will be talked about for years to come and that will truly inspire thousands of young girls in this country to join soccer and hope to emulate the performance. The Canadian Women were resolute, stifling, and resilient. It would have been easy to be deflated following the Americans knotted the game back up at 1 following a corner kick that wound up in the goal with defence that can be described as disheartening. Following a stunning strike by Megan Rapinoe to make it 2-all, it took all of 3 minutes for Sinclair to peg back and put Canada ahead again. Then....... What if?

The Canadian players did nothing to deserve the events of the following 4 minutes. Unjustified, unfortunate and an injustice. Norwegian Referee Christina Pedersen made a call you will rarely see, a 6 second delay of game on keeper Erin Mcleod. That led to an indirect free-kick inside the box which in turn led to a handball in the box. Abby Wambach stepped up and converted a spot kick to tie it once again. Now there’s no guarantee that Canada would have held on for the next 10 minutes and prevail with a 3-2 victory, but they weren’t even given that chance. The opportunity was taken from them in Manchester and inside the ‘The Theatre of Dreams’, their dreams had turned into a nightmare through no fault of their own. The ref had a variety of options, most notably to give Mcleod her first warning for time wasting. Also the time that was wasted could have easily been put onto added time following the 90 minutes, after all, it is called ADDED time. Instead she chose to penalise Canada in harsh fashion and crafting an opening for the Americans to crawl back into the game. And credit to the Americans for capitalizing, despite the officiating advantage, it’s still their duty to step up and finish it. But up until that point, it took a brilliant strike from Rapinoe from 20+ yards and a fortunate bounce on a corner kick for the Americans to find the net. Canada earned every goal and was forcing Team USA to earn their goals, and genuine scoring chances were coming few and far between for USA. It was the referee that gifted them an opening to tie the game and robbed Canada of a final berth.

Perhaps moments in football like this are best summed up by Sir Alex Ferguson: Football bloody hell

27 players gave everything they had, and even amidst controversy, they played on and gave us a fantastic showcase and while Team USA celebrates Alex Morgan’s 120^th minute header winner, Canada is left asking themselves......... What if?