Daniel Worthington, the coach of the Canadian U-20 women’s team, treated Sunday’s CONCACAF final like a glorified friendly. He used two 15-year-olds and three 16-year-olds in the 1-0 loss to the United States. Lysianne Proulx, born in 1999, got the start in goal, and it was her second-half errant pass that led to the Americans’ winning tally. Canada’s approach to …

Canada booked its spot in next year’s U-20 Women’s World Cup, but the team sure didn’t make things easy on itself.

BC Place offers the advantage of playing on artificial turf. Friday’s game likely has killed the “Canada-will-always-want-to-play-men’s-games-on-grass” argument dead. Now, saying “but they have to play on grass” will be like admitting to people that you own rap-metal records. It’s a dated argument.

Canadian national-team coach Benito Floro re-affirmed his belief in Kyle Bekker, but said that the return of veteran midfielders Atiba Hutchinson and Will Johnson meant that there was no room at the inn for Jonathan Osorio. Osorio, who was played more minutes in MLS this season than any other Canadian player, was left off the roster for Canada’s two-game World …

But, as more and more North American Soccer League players get the calls to play for their countries, that league should also be subject to the same scheduling scrutiny. In fact, you could argue that NASL teams are less equipped than the MLS teams are when it comes to dealing with games on international dates.

The Canadian team that will face Belize in their two-legged World Cup qualifier will have just nine MLS players on board. Coach Benito Floro’s 22-man roster features just nine MLS-signed players. We use the term “MLS-signed” because two of those nine, Montreal Impact keeper Maxime Crepeau and midfielder Kyle Bekker are, for all intents and purposes, reserve players plying their …

"I think we played a very good game," coach Benito Floro said after the match. "We proposed that we would be serious in this game and to play Dominica with a lot of respect. We developed a strong pressing game, and at the same time we have had at least 12 or 13 scoring chances. Unfortunately we only scored once from open play and the penalty. The result was not correspondent with the play but it was good."

Trying to predict the aftermath of Tuesday’s FIFA arrests is like trying to gather up all the buckshot that’s been sprayed out of a cannon.

The Edmonton Aviators may have been a blip in the history of the Canadian soccer. But two of their alumni will make a return to Commonwealth Stadium — where the Aviators played their one and only home season schedule, back in 2004 — when the Canadian women’s team opens the World Cup against China on June 6.

“There are two things in which we can focus. First, we are going to play Dominica on a pitch similar to this one tonight in these conditions so it has been a good test. Considering that Puerto Rico is a young team but with three or four good players, we consider this game is a good practice to play against Dominica. We have a lot of respect for Dominica because the most important thing is to win the qualification game.”