“Everyone’s just happy. That’s the most important thing. But the coaches told us we can’t get overconfident,” said captain Nana Attakora. “We still have a game on Monday and if we lose that game, this game is meaningless.”

“In tournaments like this it’s important for a team to start well,” said Canadian head coach Tony Fonseca. “I think the way they faced this game was a certain level of stress coming into the first game. I think they faced it with being a little bit nervous for our taste.”

“I’m glad we played the game,” said Stephen Hart who was less than happy with the game overall. “The first half, we did OK for about the opening 30 minutes of the game and then it was a matter of keeping proper possession of the ball and basically giving them the chances that they had.”

“We’ve got to look at ourselves first — the management team,” said Canadian coach John Herdman. “What we could have done better — whether it was the selections, the order of the substitutions — some of the tactics where we could have played things quicker or made a bigger impact with certain things. But I can’t fault the players’ effort.”

Sinclair scored twice and Melissa Tancredi added a third as the Canadians brought the 22,954 predominantly Canadian fans to their feet with a hectic 3-1 win over Mexico. Veronica Perez scored Mexico’s lone goal.

“We play at home so rarely that it’s really special when you get in front of the home crowd so I’m obviously going to miss that but I’ll be with the team throughout everything,” said Matheson.

“I think the first 10 minutes we knew St. Kitts was a fast team and they work hard,” midfielder Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault said. “Sometimes we had a couple of problems but those games happen. We just have to keep our head up and be prepared for the next round.”

In the most dominating game in the history of the men’s program, Canada easily beat tiny St. Lucia 7-0. Simeon Jackson led the way with a first-half hat trick with Olivier Occean and Iain Hume contributing two goals each respectively.