The Canadians and Brazilians finished tied atop their qualifying group after the teams played to a 0-0 stalemate Saturday. But Brazil won a coin toss and got the top spot in the group. So, the Canadians will face the Colombians, who won their group.

The Canadian national women’s team will play a schedule of high-profile friendlies ahead of the World Cup, in the stadiums that will be selected to host games for the 2015 event.

But, because so many of the Fury’s players, including Outerbridge, have NCAA commitments, only one member of the Ottawa team that lost the W-League championship game to Atlanta is part of the roster that new Canadian women’s coach John Herdman will utilize in friendlies Sept. 17 and 22 against the United States.

After winning 15 straight games this season, the Ottawa Fury chose the wrong time to come apart. The Fury could not punctuate what could have been a dream season, as it was crushed 6-1 by the Atlanta Silverbacks in the W-League final in Seattle.

Win or lose on Sunday, the Ottawa Fury is Canada’s team of the year. In any sport. Oh, surely, when the Canadian Press gets votes from sports editors across the country for its Team of the Year, the Fury might only get a nod from someone in the nation’s capital and will be widely ignored by everyone else. But, when 2011 comes to a close, the Fury deserve to rank with any of the hockey teams that traditionally dominate that vote.

To say that the Ottawa Fury are the favourites to take the W-League Central Conference championship this weekend would actually be a bit of an understatement. The Fury is coming off a perfect 12-0-0 season as the club hosts the Toronto Lady Lynx, the No. 4 seed in the conference, on Saturday. On Sunday, the winner faces the victor of the other semifinal between Laval and Quebec City.

Mallory Outerbridge is making a massive statement. Will Canadian national women’s team coach Carolina Morace be listening? Outerbridge hopes to break into the Canadian national women’s team lineup when the side will vie for a spot at the 2012 Olympics at the CONCACAF qualifiers, to be held in Vancouver beginning in late January.

Canada’’s national women’s team drew Switzerland 1-1 in a World Cup warmup match Sunday in Rome. But you’d need to be a decent detective to find out about the game — or be fluent in German. Only the Swiss federation put up a match summary on its site (in German). The Canadian Soccer Association had match stats up, but no report of any kind.

These are signs that the women’s game isn’t getting stronger; in fact, we may be seeing the same trend that we’ve seen with women’s hockey. After a surge in interest in the 2000s, the game is shrinking rather than growing.

What is disturbing to average Canadian soccer fan (and taxpayer) is that, if the matter is taken to the lawyers, that Morace would be the second women’s coach in a row brought in front of arbitrator.