Jordyn Huitema’s Canadian soccer squad secured bronze at the 2019 Algarve Cup with a 6-5 penalty-kicks win over Sweden.
The national women’s teams squared off Wednesday morning at the Estádio Algarve in São João da Venda, Portugal.
After seeing significant minutes in the first two games of the tournament, Huitema didn’t get on the field for this one.
Her offensive prowess might have been useful in another match where Canada struggled to finish. The team only scored one goal in three matches.
But head coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller, flipped the script in his post-game comments.
Yes, he admitted that his team struggled to score.
At the same time, they only surrendered one goal in the tournament.
“I think there’s a lot of positives to take out of this tournament,” he noted. “Today, it’s the fourth clean sheet in a row. We saw everyone in action, all 23 players, that explains a lot about our depth.
“This match was awesome, playing against Sweden who is a top team and the amount of pressure we put on them defensively and offensively is pretty amazing.
“If we can play like this for an entire tournament, it’s looking good, but we need to do better to find the back of the net and we will be working on that as we prepare to face England in April.”
Canada is in Manchester April 5 to face England in a friendly match.
Canada kicks off the FIFA Women’s World Cup June 10 when they face Cameroon at Stade de la Mosson in Montpellier, France.
They travel to Grenoble for their second group stage match June 15 against New Zealand at Stade des alpes.
Canada concludes the group phase June 20 in Reims, taking on Netherlands at Stade August-Velaune.