Knockout matches in the Round of 16 are so grueling, you never know how they will end up. For the Canada side, they had worked so hard and wanted so much in the Women’s World Cup.
Canada had its moments to be into the quarterfinals and still was pushing forward, but it turned out that Sweden ended with the 1-0 result in their favor at Parc des Princes in Paris, France on Monday night.
Sweden will next play Germany in the quarterfinals Friday at Roazhan Park in Rennes, France
For the Canadians, they were so close staying in the game and had chances to pull it out if the right things would happen. That seemed to be what was going on for the first 30 minutes, until Sweden took over some of the possession and tried to build an attack. After the first half, both sides were in a scoreless draw.
“We got one counter wrong,” Canada head coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller said. “That’s all you need to get wrong in these matches. The story in the game was going in our favor. We were getting closer and closer. We had these final passes that were not really on point. I was thinking that it would come. I’m disappointed with the result, but not the performance. I’m proud of this team.”
Sweden found the counter it needed in the 55th minute of play, Stina Blackstenius got a touch of the ball beating a Canadian defender and goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe for the game-winning goal. Which was assisted by Kasovere Asllani.
“Above all, I’m proud of these players,” Sweden head coach Peter Gerhardsson said. “There’s courage in trying to play your way out of situations. I did feel that we made use of that positively. Kosovere’s pass, Stina’s decisiveness, Hedvig’s save, there were a lot of heroes. towards the end of the match too.”
Canada kept pushing for the tying goal and had a great opportunity after there was a video reply that showed of a handball off Sweden’s Asllani.
Janine Beckie took the PK trying to bring the match to level put Sweden’s goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl made an amazing diving pushaway save keeping the score at 1-0.
“If they doubted, I can make penalty saves, that proved them wrong” Lindahl said. “I had to stretch fully and it worked. I was really happy, actually. It was pure joy. We’ve got a lot more energy because of that.”
The Canadians kept pushing in the final 30 minutes including about 8 minutes of stoppage time. All the way down to the final chances on a couple of corners. Which attempted shots were stopped and cleared away by Sweden.
Still, Canada has a lot to be proud about its World Cup run this year and its efforts into the Round of 16. A great group that deserved to go on further then where they ended up.
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