How do you replace Christine Sinclair?
That’s one of the big questions facing the Canadian women’s team as it prepares to compete in the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup.
Scheduled from Feb. 20 to March 10, the Gold Cup is the first competition for Canada since Sinclair announced her national team retirement in December after more than two decades of international service.
The Canadians will compete in Group C at the Gold Cup and will play all of its group-stage matches in Houston. The reigning Olympic champions will face El Salvador on Feb. 22, Paraguay on Feb. 25 and Costa Rica on Feb. 28. The top two nations in each of the three round-robin groups — as well as the two best third-place teams overall — advance to the knockout round.
Canada is No. 10 in the current FIFA rankings, well ahead of Costa Rica (No. 43), Paraguay (No. 50) and El Salvador (No. 104), so the expectation is that it should easily qualify for the quarter-finals.
With Sinclair out of the picture, it’ll be up to the squad’s core of veterans to step up and fill the leadership gap. One such player is Jessie Fleming, the 25-year-old midfielder from London, Ont., who has 19 goals in 123 caps since making her debut for Canada in 2013.
Fleming only has four years of club soccer under her belt, having waited to graduate from UCLA before turning pro in 2020 when she signed with English club Chelsea. The London-based side recently sold her to the Portland Thorns ahead of the 2024 NWSL season which kicks off next month.
Slight of build and soft spoken, Fleming is the type of player who can turn a game on its head with her immaculate distribution or a well-timed run in the final third of the pitch. But as a young professional, she’s still trying to find her voice as a leader within the Canadian team. It’s something she’s keen to work on during the Gold Cup, especially in the aftermath of Sinclair’s retirement.
“I see myself as a leader in some regards. I’ll always work very hard for my teammates and give my best on the pitch. But there are so many different parts of my game that I would like to continue to develop and that’s definitely one of them,” Fleming told Sportsnet.
The Gold Cup truly marks a new era in the history of a Canadian team that has won three consecutive Olympic medals, including gold in Tokyo in 2021. Not since the 2000 Algarve Cup, where Sinclair earned the first of her team-record 331 caps as a 16-year-old, has Canada gone into a major international competition without the legendary forward from Burnaby, B.C.
Although Sinclair is no longer with the Canadian side, she still casts a huge shadow over this team, such is the extent of her legacy. But Canada has to find a way to move on without its iconic former captain and begin a new chapter in the women’s team program.
“I think it’ll feel more real once the games start. But I also think we’ve known for a while that Christine was going to retire, so we’ve had the opportunity to prepare, Fleming offered.
“I fully trust the group of players we have here, and I think we have a lot of experience when you look at our team. There’s a lot of leaders in this group so I don’t think anyone is worried. Christine retiring was inevitable, so it’s good that we’ve had enough time before a big tournament to adapt without her and adapt in terms of personalities and our leadership.”
If Sinclair’s example was anything to go by, wearing the captain’s armband means becoming the face of the Canadian women’s team.
But coach Bev Priestman isn’t in any rush to put that kind of pressure on one player. Instead, she’ll be looking to several veterans to fill the void left by Sinclair.
“I think for me I want to take any pressure away from filling Christine’s shoes and more put attention on that there’s a group of players with very good experiences, medals around their necks, unique qualities who all are going to contribute to help a leader move forward,” Priestman explained.
Priestman is spoiled for choice in that regard, even with the retirement of Sinclair and midfielder Sophie Schmidt (second all-time for Canada with 226 caps). Fleming is just one of several players who’ve made over 100 appearances for the Canadian team over the years.
In the aftermath of Canada’s first-round exit at last summer’s FIFA World Cup, Priestman noted there has been a natural transformation inside the team’s locker room. Players knew that Sinclair and Schmidt were in the final stages of their receptive international careers and began to slowly assert themselves more.
“Whenever you have a veteran group around, not by design but just by nature, people kind of take that backseat a little bit more. But what I started to see at the back end of last year was people grabbing the reins a little bit and this team becoming leader filled and I think that’s going to be critical based on the age of the team. To be successful we’re going to need a leader-filled team on the pitch as well as off the pitch,” Priestman offered.
As the top two seeds, Canada and the United States should meet in the Gold Cup finals on March 10 in San Diego if all goes according to plan. Historically the neighbouring countries have dominated Concacaf competitions. While Jamaica and Mexico haven’t necessarily closed the gap, they have both made advances in recent years.
Mexico’s developmental system has grown by leaps and bounds thanks to the launching of its domestic league in 2016, while Jamaica won its first-ever World Cup game and advanced to the round of 16 last summer.
What’s more, South American nations Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay have been invited to compete at the Gold Cup, making the Concacaf event more competitive than ever.
“When I look at this tournament, I also see Brazil and Colombia as unbelievably talented teams and two teams that are difficult to play against,” Fleming said.
“I think that’s why this Gold Cup is so exciting because typically in a Concacaf tournament it is us eyeing the U.S. Whereas now it feels like there’s a few more really good teams in the mix. When you look at the World Cup results that Jamaica had, Mexico has some good momentum right now with the success of their domestic league, so I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s just us and the U.S.”