Sinclair scored her 15th goal of the season on Monday as Canada beat Colombia 1-0 in a pre-Olympic friendly held in Switzerland. What’s notable is that the most goals Sinclair has registered in a calendar year for Canada is 16. She is now only one away from tying the record.

“We’re one goal away from the potential gold medalist, and I think that’s a reality,” he explained. ?“In January, we were four goals away. We’ll try to bridge that gap in the next few weeks.”

But the feel-good last-gasp goal shouldn’t completely mask what was a frustrating performance by the Canadian team in front of the home fans in Moncton.

An estimated crowd of around 500 gathered Thursday in the Vancouver suburbs to see hometown hero Christine Sinclair scored a late chip-shot goal to give the Canadian women’s team a 1-1 draw with the Vancouver Whitecaps women’s side.

This Thursday, the Canadian women will take on the Vancouver Whitecaps’ women’s team in an exhibition match that is not only open to the public, but admission is, well, free.

Herdman is now encouraging his players to play possession football when appropriate – but also not to shirk away from playing a more direct style against superior technical sides.

As press conferences go, the announcement of Canada’s 2015 Women’s World Cup host cities was about as anticlimactic as they get.

Right after the Canadian national women’s team was drawn into an Olympic group with World Cup champs Japan and World Cup third-place finisher Sweden, Herdman told reporters via a conference call that he didn’t think Big Red was in the Group of Death

After beating Brazil last week in a friendly in Massachussets, the Canadian national women’s team fell 3-1 away to Sweden Saturday in another pre-Olympic tuneup.

Karina LeBlanc became the first goalkeeper in Canadian national-team history to reach 100 caps, and Christine Sinclair scored career goals 132 and 133 as the Canadian women’s team beat Brazil 2-1 Saturday in Foxboro, Mass.