Any potential crisis with the Canadian national women’s team has been put off for a little more than a year. The Canadian Soccer Association announced today, in a short press-release, that “Carolina Morace has agreed to remain in her role as head coach of Canada’s Women’s National Team through to the 2012 London Olympic Games. Morace will also continue in her role as the head coach of the Women’s U-20 National Team.”

Diana Matheson saved some blushes for the Canadian women’s national team, scoring an 87th minute winner as Canada beat Hungary 1-0 in Budapest Tuesday in a World Cup warmup match. Karina LeBlanc played the full 90 and got the clean sheet in goal for Canada.

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.

Carolina Morace has called teenage keeper Rachelle Beanlands to the Canadian women’s national team camp as a potential replacement for Stephanie Labbe. Beanlands who attended this past winter’s national U-18 camp in Brazil, backstopped the Ottawa Fury U-17 girls to the 2010 Super Y-League North American Championship. She will join keepers Erin McLeod and Karina LeBlanc in the camp.

The scramble for fitness has already been lost by striker Josee Belanger, who has scored five times in 11 appearances for the Canadian team. She indicated to Quebec media sources Friday that her injured ankle would not be ready in time for the World Cup. Midfielder Kelly Parker is also racing to be fit in time to meet Morace’s May 10 deadline. Parker has played just 10 minutes in two subsititute appearances for the Western New York Flash of the WPS, where she teams with Christine Sinclair and FIFA player of the year, Marta.

Sweden got an early goal, and some outstanding goalkeeping, and hung on to a 1-0 win over the Canadian women’s team Saturday in a Rome friendly. Swedish coach Thomas Dennerby started his “A” lineup, save for one position. He wanted to have a look at Sofia Lundgren, usually the No. 2 keeper in the set-up. She ended up being huge in the match, making a series of saves.

On Friday, the lottery phases ended — and tickets for the upcoming Women’s World Cup went on general sale. And the numbers are encouraging. According to FIFA, 515,000 tickets were sold through the first four phases of the ticket-selling process, before the tickets went up for general sale.

The Canadian women’s team got its second consecutive 1-0 win at the Cyprus Cup. This time, the victim was Italy. Reigning Canadian women’s U-20 player of the year Jonelle Filigno got the goal that puts Canada on top of its group, three points up on England and Scotland, and six up on the Italians. Filigno took a pass from Christine …

Now, the next part of the debate: Which cities will get the plum games — Canada’s home games, semifinals and final? FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association released the names of the seven “candidate” cities to host games. Toronto wasn’t on that list, as expected, because of the conflict between the WWC and the Pan Am Games. The seven cities: Halifax, Moncton, Montreal Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver.

When Christine Sinclair was asked in December about which players she thought had benefited the most from the possession-and-passing style of Canadian national women’s team coach Carolina Morace, she didn’t have to think long about the answer. Midfielder Diana Matheson. While Sinclair is no doubt the face of Canadian women’s soccer, Matheson has flourished as the distributor under Morace. She displayed her worth Wednesday in Canada’s 1-0 win over Scotland in the opener of the Cyprus Cup.