For sure, it’s an embarrassing own goal — but keepers have to be the most mentally tough players on the pitch and, in some bizarre way, we can argue that giving up a goal like that in a friendly will actually be good for Sheridan down the road; that it will only force her to understand that you’ve got to forget the bad goals and remain in the moment.

There may be no harder game in Canadian soccer to analyze that Saturday's match at BC Place which saw our women's national side beat Mexico 3-2 on the strength of a Janine Beckie brace.

The number of players in NWSL who have their contracts subsidized by the Canadian Soccer Association continues to shrink.

Eddies general manager Jay Ball confirmed Thursday that the team, still months away from training camp, has broken a new record for season tickets sold in a season. Edmonton plays in one of the NASL’s smallest facilities — Clarke Field holds 4,500, and crowds were usually under 3,000 for games last season — but the fact that season ticket holders are renewing, and the team is attracting new subscribers, shows just how distant Edmonton is from the mess in the United States.

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.

Maybe now, it’s time to believe in the work coach John Herdman and the women have put into this push for the podium. A gritty 1-0 quarter-final win over France wasn’t always pretty, there were some scares, but we know this — Canada can be called not just a medal threat, but a gold-medal threat.

Despite having defender Shelina Zadorsky sent off in the 18th minute, despite a penalty miss, the Canadian national women’s team opened the Olympic soccer tournament with a 2-0 win over the world No. 5-ranked Australians in Sao Paulo.

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.

When Erin McLeod went down with a career-threatening injury, Canada’s most-assured position — goalkeeper — became the biggest question mark heading into the 2016 Olympics. Who will emerge as Canada’s No. 1 choice heading into the Rio Games?

“With Sabrina and the recovery on her injury, she’s in great hands,” said Herdman. “She’s got good medical care around her, she’s going to be working around the clock to fit the return-to-play plan, which has her arriving back on the pitch in around the July 20 mark. That’s an eight-week turnaround since (the injury), which is tight. She’s young, it’s not the hand that she’s fractured before, so there’s an anticipation she’ll turn around well as long as we manager her carefully..”