The second issue of Plastic Pitch, out today, features a 16-page section on Canada's bid for the World Cup.

And now there's bad news on the injury front. And that comes from 27-year-old midfielder Selenia Iacchelli — the former University of Nebraska captain who overcame a series of injuries to work her way back into the senior national-team picture.

Born at the wrong time. Born under a bad sign. If Selenia Iacchelli had any luck at all, she might be as familiar to Canadian women’s soccer followers as Diana Matheson, Sophie Schmidt or Desiree Scott. But, Iacchelli had to wait till she was 27 years of age to break into the Canadian soccer mainstream. Her story is remarkable; filled withbroken limbs, career-path changes and a love of frozen yogurt...

“At this stage, we don’t have that depth of talent. My commitment is to put the best Canadian players in that league, and I can’t make that commitment at this point.”

“If you take a look at the NWSL right now, out of the Americans teams there, not all of them are in MLS markets. So, if it works for them, why wouldn’t it work in Canada? I don’t see it that way than an NWSL team has to be in the same city as an MLS team. What we want is committed, stable ownership, that ticks off all the boxes.”

But, coming out of her Portland Thorns’ 2-0 win in this past weekend’s NWSL championship, in which Sinclair scored the stoppage-time icing-on-the-cake goal, the question: Is it enough to keep her in the lead for the 2013 award? Sure, there’s still a lot of soccer to be played. Sinclair could score three or four vs. South Korea on a late October night and make this column moot.

Meanwhile, even though Alex Morgan — who scored the U.S. winner in that Olympic semifinal — plays for Portland, the Timbers are clearly Canada’s team. Christine Sinclair didn’t score in the Timbers come-from-behind 3-2 extra-time semifinal win over FC Kansas City, but Canada’s all-time leading scorer netted eight times for Timbers this season.

And, the Spirit has scored just 15 goals as a team this season. Matheson has eight goals and three assists. Work out the math: Matheson has been involved in 73 per cent of her team’s goals so far this season.

The Eddies and the Alberta Soccer Association announced a new Regional Performance Centre will be launched, and that centre will link to the Excel Program, which helps identify talent for the Canadian national program. Sergio Teixeira will be the FC Edmonton ladies’ coach, and 20 players from age 14-16 have been recruited to take part in the program.

“I expect some changes will be made, that’s par for the course,” said Herdman.