Toronto’s BMO Field, which wasn’t part of the 2015 Women’s World Cup bid but was brought into the 2014 U-20 Women’s World Cup as a replacement for Ottawa, will get Canada’s first two matches, Aug. 5 and Aug. 8, 2014. Montreal will host Canada’s third group-stage match, on Aug. 12, and Olympic Stadium will also get the final.

The city was named one of four hosts for the 2014 tourney. The announcement was made at BMO Field ahead of Canada’s sold-out women’s match Sunday against the United States. The other host cities are Edmonton, Montreal and Moncton.

National team coach John Herdman said he has visions of 60,000 fans, all decked in red, packing Commonwealth for the first two Canada matches. “In 2002, at that special tournament, you saw them as babies. Now, you will see them again as women.”

“We’ll see what it evolves into,” Abrams continued. “It’s also a process of learning about teams and the great players of the past. This phase of it is sort of a tribute to these players. They are important cultural figures for our time. There’s a beauty in their movements and in the colours that they wear and what it represents to us as we’re watching.”

As press conferences go, the announcement of Canada’s 2015 Women’s World Cup host cities was about as anticlimactic as they get.

“In essence, we need four very good training fields in each city,” said Montopoli. “They need to be at an international standard. There are many options, some can have grass or some can have artificial turf.”

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.