Concacaf title game gives USWNT chance to exact revenge on Canada for Olympics loss | Opinion

The losses are memorable, mostly because there are so few of them.

When the U.S. women lost to Canada in the semifinals at last summer’s Tokyo Games, it was only the fifth time in the team’s 30-year history that it did not make the final at an Olympics or World Cup. It also was the first loss to Canada in two decades.

So even if the team isn’t talking about it, as coach Vlatko Andonovski said Sunday, you know the players are thinking about it. Beating Canada in Monday’s final of the Concacaf championship, and making the reigning Olympic champions wait a little longer to secure a spot in Paris, won’t make that Tokyo loss sting any less, but it would bring a measure of satisfaction for a team that prides itself on being the world’s best.

The winner Monday qualifies for the Paris Olympics while the second- and third-place teams at the Concacaf championship will play in September 2023 for the confederation’s second Olympic spot.

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“The U.S. looks hungry,” Canada coach Bev Priestman said. “I think both teams will do anything to secure that Olympic spot.”

For much of the USWNT’s existence, it has had the run of Concacaf. Whatever competition it had came from Europe, Asia and occasionally Brazil, not from its regional neighbors.

But during the last decade, Canada has emerged as one of the world’s top teams. It finished third at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics before winning gold in Tokyo. It was ranked as high as No. 4, in 2016, and is now sixth in the world rankings. Christine Sinclair has scored more international goals than any other player, male or female.

“We don’t want to be a one-off team,” Priestman said. “We have to keep building, we have to keep being hungry and humble. We have to do our talking on the pitch, that’s the most important thing.”

And doing so involves continuing to hold its own against the Americans.

“I definitely think our confidence going into this match is at an all-time high,” midfielder Desiree Scott said. “Obviously, we have that confidence coming from the Tokyo Olympics. … The mental space of the squad is a confident one, and we’re really pumped for this final.”

Canada should be confident. It won the Olympics, and all but five players on its current roster were part of the Tokyo squad.

But many teams have thought they had finally gotten the upper hand on the USWNT only to find themselves humbled. The Americans, in addition to their prodigious physical skills, are also world-class grudge holders.

This current team might be different from the one that lost to Canada a year ago – only nine of the 23 were in Tokyo – but you can be sure that that loss grates on Sophia Smith and Midge Purce just as much as it does Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. Being part of the USWNT means upholding the team’s winning ways, and this is the younger players’ chance to show they are up to that task.

This team has also heard all the chatter about the ascendency of the European teams, and the suggestions that they are poised to overtake the USWNT. When ESPN released its list of the top 50 players in the world last month, the USWNT had the same number (six) as England and Spain, and Catarina Macario was the lone American in the top 10.

The U.S. women will have the chance to answer the doubters at next year’s World Cup, where they’ll be seeking their third consecutive title, but no doubt they wouldn’t mind giving everyone a preview of their response.

Tokyo might have marked Canada’s arrival as a world powerhouse, but it will take more than the loss there to the neighbors from the north to signal the USWNT’s decline.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour. 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: USWNT can avenge Olympic loss to Canada during Concacaf title game