Canadians cry foul over officiating that handed US victory
They lingered out on the hallowed ground of Old Trafford. As if they didn't want to leave. As if they felt they'd earned the right to stay. Burnaby's Christine Sinclair sat on the ground, too tired and too angry to budge. Midfielder Sophie Schmidt couldn't be bothered to hide her tears. They all looked dazed, disoriented, disbelieving, like victims who'd stumbled out of an auto wreck. "I just don't think any of us could believe what happened,'' murmured a misty-eyed Melissa Tancredi. "Honestly. That's why we didn't leave, probably. I just didn't want to leave because I couldn't believe that's what happened. That was our game. That was our win to have. We put it all out there on the field.
"And it was just ... taken away." Conspiracy theorists, queue up. In what was undoubtedly one of the most compelling sporting events in recent Canadian history - and arguably the greatest women's match ever played, particularly given the stakes - John Herdman's gallant group were knocked out of gold-medal contention 4-3 deep into added extra time by the U.S. "Beaten" would be inaccurate wording. The No.-1 ranked Americans, the poster gals for the women's game, were the beneficiaries of virtually every call from Norwegian referee Christiana Pedersen. Coincidence? Not from a Canadian viewpoint. Sour grapes? Nope. Not in this case. At least not in any sort of balanced viewpoint.
"We outplayed the Americans the whole game, and we've never done that,'' said keeper Erin McLeod. "[The refereeing] was one-sided the whole way. This is heartbreaking. We feel we got robbed.'' An Alex Morgan header in the 123rd minute, mere seconds from penalties, killed off the Canadian gold-medal aspirations that seemed so tantalizingly close after taking the lead. Now they must play for bronze on Thurs-day, versus France, in Coventry. But this will be hard to shake. "To play the way we did ... we feel like the ref took it away from us,'' stewed skipper Christine Sinclair. No adjectives could describe Sinclair's three-goal performance, two off headers and the first an incisive finish off a Tancredi layoff. "We didn't feel like we lost. It's a shame that in a game like that, which is so important, the ref decided the result before it started.'' The Canadians were furious, and rightly so, with two critical sequences. First, a missed handball that clearly struck the arm of American mid-fielder Megan Rapinoe at one end of the pitch, followed by a rarely-if-ever called delay of game on McLeod for not playing the ball within six seconds. That led to an indirect free kick inside the area, about 12 yards out -and that led to a subsequent hand ball call levied on central defender Marie-Eve Nault (which was, glory be, spotted! ).
McLeod acknowledged she'd received a warning from a linesman at the start of the second half not to dawdle. "She said, 'Don't delay the play too much,' but it wasn't like a real warning. She said I held the ball for 10 seconds. She obviously counted the time when I was on the ground.'' A sarcastic semi-smile. "An interesting call.'' When asked if she'd held the ball 10 seconds, as accused, McLeod, unblinking, replied bluntly: "Nowhere near. "I think the referee was very one-sided. I was stunned when it happened, when I got the indirect free kick.'' SINCLAIR VALIANT IN LOSS
MANCHESTER - Result aside, officiating eccentricities notwithstanding, what was witnessed at Old Trafford on Monday represents one of the great, courageous Canadian Olympic efforts of all time. And in it, one of those singular, searing individual performances that won't fade from memory for a long, long while. "Maybe it's something that in a few months I'll be able to think about,'' said a downcast Christine Sinclair, as she made her way through the mixed zone and onto the team bus. "Right now, all I see is a loss. In semifinal games and finals, your big players are expected to step up. And I tried to do that tonight.'' That agonizing 11-year albatross against the Americans remains.
Not that the lady with the captain's armband didn't do everything in her power to overturn that rotten run. In the hothouse environment of an Olympic semifinal, she hit for three goals, Nos. 141 through 143 of her international career, to propel Canada so agonizingly close to the gold-medal match Thursday at Wembley.
