Now, in the world of Canadian soccer fatalism, there will be those who treat this win like a loss; they’ll point to the tough draw. They’ll say Canada would have done better with a second- or third-place finish in the group. But that’s an anti-football mentality. It’s against everything we should hold dear about sport — you shouldn’t try to win by gaming the system, you should try to get to the top by beating all comers.

But, even though Canada didn’t look overmatched by the world’s No. 3-ranked women’s soccer nation, a series of key mistakes allowed the French to claim a 1-0 win.

“Same old Canada, we’re not scoring,” Herdman admitted. “When we get great opportunities. we’ve got to take them."

“We had to show the evolution of Canada, that we were a different Canada. No matter who the opponent was, we could never let up. It was a huge opportunity, so we didn’t become complacent. We had to work through different formations, and different partnerships were formed.”

When Canada Soccer tweeted out the starting XI for Sunday’s Olympic qualifying match, it was like a flashback to the early ‘50s. Had Canadian national women’s team coach John Herdman connected with his inner Magical Magyar? The 2-4-4 formation shown on the team sheet would have made Gusztav Sebes proud.

Flattered by the success of the Olympic bronze medal in 2012, the Canadian women’s national team may have been as glittery as fool’s gold to casual sports fans. But, really, with the team’s offensive issues and lack of stars in the primes of their careers, was elimination at the quarter-final pretty much inevitable?

Montreal is an event town. And that was shown to be true during the Women’s World Cup, where attendances were small for early games not involving the likes of Canada or the United States. But, when the games grew in importance, so did the crowds at Olympic Stadium

But, despite what he’s seen from Buchanan and Lawrence, Herdman is concerned that there simply aren’t enough Canadian youngsters who will be technically able to keep up with the improving standards of play in the international game.

Yankey, who plays for Arsenal, gave England the 1-0 win over Canada in the final. The two sides will meet again for a friendly April 7 in Rotherham, England.

Seven players who have yet to play a senior “A” match for the women’s national team have been named to what has to be called an experimental Canadian roster ahead of the Yongchuan Cup.