Canada to Play in Brazil Tournament

Canada has announced today its participation in the second annual Torneio Internacional Cidade de São Paulo, a women’s international football tournament from 6-19 December in São Paulo, Brazil. Canada, Mexico, Netherlands and host Brazil will take part in the four-team tournament, with each team playing four international matches over the course of the two weeks.

Canada, whose title sponsor is Winners and participating sponsor is Teck, is currently training in Cancún, Mexico. The Canadian team will take part in the 2010 CONCACAF Women’s World Cup Qualifier from 28 October to 8 November. The top two teams will automatically qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Germany 2011. The third-place team will advance to a two-leg playoff against the fifth-place team from Europe (either Italy or Switzerland).

Of course, these four international matches in Brazil will hopefully come after a successful qualification tournament in Mexico. Should Canada qualify, it will be Canada’s fifth-straight qualification for the FIFA Women’s World Cup (Sweden 1995, USA 1999, USA 2003 and China 2007 to date).The four new matches will bring Canada’s 2010 total up to 18 international matches.

In 2009, the four teams that took part in the inaugural tournament were Brazil, Mexico, China and Chile. Brazil finished first ahead of Mexico, winning 5:2 in the final with a hat trick scored by four-time FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year Marta.