Canadian fullback/midfielder Ashley Lawrence has signed a deal with French powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain.

Sinclair, to no one’s surprise, was announced as Canada’s top player on Thursday. And she accepted the award with the grace of the average Canadian, by wanting to talk about her team more than she wanted to talk about herself.

Why was Canada’s women’s national team coach so angry? Because Christine Sinclair, who moved into the No. 2 spot on the all-time women’s international scoring list in 2016, wasn’t on the shortlist for The Best FIFA Women’s Player Award. (Herdman was also skipped over in the coach-of-the-year selections).

Before the first half of Sunday’s group-stage match between Canada and Japan at the U-20 Women’s World Cup was over, the FIFA international feed commentator had already resorted to coming up with consolatory terms for the team in red.

Two games in, and Canada has two losses and a goal differential of -7.

Spain had five goals. Canada had one shot on goal.

Really, it came down to Venezuela burying its chances, while the best Canadian attempts went off the woodwork.

We notice more interest from our readers when we try to tackle a big topic over the course of several stories — and issue 10 of Plastic Pitch fits that bill. The MLS standings are always clogged, and 12 of 20 teams (60 per cent) make the playoffs. The No. 1 seed rarely goes on to win MLS Cup. Does …

The fact that such impressive performances were turned in by youngsters — from fullback Ashley Lawrence to midfielder Jessie Fleming to Beckie to Rose — bodes well for a program that, just four years before, was starved for young talent.

But some perspective — while watching the Canadian women’s team lose the Olympic semifinal sucks,this wasn’t nearly as bad as it was four years ago. There was no controversy around this 2-0 loss to Germany as there was in that infamous extra-time semifinal loss to the United States. There’s no referee to blame.