“They have a real fighting spirit, like the Canadians.” And, Herdman says the Aussies can burn you with plenty of scoring threats around the park.

The third-place match is usually the most-criticized game of any World Cup, women or men. The argument: Why make the semifinal losers stick around for another game, when third place isn’t regarded as that big a deal in World Cups? But, England’s win over Germany showed us the other side of the debate; that the game can mean a heck of a lot to the players involved...

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

Canadian midfielder Desiree Scott has earned “Destroyer” as a nickname because of her aggressive nature. She will be a big part of Canada’s national team at the upcoming Women’s World Cup.

At the 15-minute mark, the Canadian team got bad news — and a bad omen. Striker Nichelle Prince had to leave Saturday’s U-20 Women’s World Cup quarter-final due to injury.

It was a great move. I just felt like I wanted to try this out and see what the better fit was for me. I felt like, up here, my role was a bit bigger. I just fit in better. I knew that within the first camp where I was here, talking to Andrew (coach Andrew Olivieri) about it all. Obviously, it’s a tough switch. The American program was great to me. I have nothing bad to say about the way that they run their programs. But I just fit in better here and I feel very happy with my decision.

It’s a long shot that 47,784 or more spectators will show up at Commonwealth on Saturday for the Canada-Germany quarter-final. But we know it will be the comparison that will be used by so many members of the Edmonton and the national media.

That was the situation for me on Friday night. And it was a refreshing reminder of why I love this game so damn much. As I watched Germany and China contest one of the most incredible matches in the history of the U-20 Women’s World Cup at Commonwealth Stadium, I had the Canada-Finland feed up on my laptop, seeing if our national side could recover from its opening game loss.

After seeing the Germans and Americans square off in the Group B opener at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, I can tell Canadian fans this much. Now that Canada has lost its opener (1-0 to Ghana at BMO Field), the best it can realistically hope for out of Group A is to scrap its way into second place. And that will mean, unless the world turns topsy-turvy, Canada would face the Germans.

To CONCACAF, it doesn’t matter if it’s Canada who gets the job done, or another of the countries from North America, Central America and the Caribbean.