Cantave fires Canada’s Women’s U-17 team to an opening match victory

Canada’s Women’s U-17 team opened the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Trinidad and Tobago with a slim 1:0 victory over Ghana on Monday. After a slow opening to the match the young Canucks came out flying to start in the second half and were reward for their efforts as Haisha Cantave converted a 53rd minute corner kick for the lone goal of the match. The Group D match was played in extremely humid conditions at the Larry Gomes Stadium in Arima, Trinidad.

“I thought our players were very disciplined and organized throughout the match,” said head coach Bryan Rosenfeld. “We were under a lot of pressure at times from a Ghana side that put up a very good game. We need to do a better job of keeping the ball and passing.”

Ghana outshot Canada 10 – 0 in what was a mostly forgettable first half for the Canadians. The shot differential was due in large part to Ghana’s willingness to shoot from distance with few of the long rang efforts troubling Sabrina D’Angelo in the Canadian goal. The shots that did find the target were well handled by D’Angelo who was excellent throughout the match.

The best chance of the first half fell to Ghana on a bizarre play in the 18th minute. The Korean referee whistled D’Angelo for holding the ball for more than six seconds in the Canadian box awarding Ghana a free kick 16 yards from goal. Ghana played the indirect kick across the top of the 18 yard box but Canada’s defenders were alert to the danger and reacted quickly to charge down the shot.

Ghana was able to build on the incident and enjoyed its best spell of the game in the minutes following D’Angelo’s foul. The Canadian defence held firm while under pressure from a succession of corners and the danger passed.

Canada’s best chance of the first half came in the 25th minute as Kylie Davis found space down the left to hit an excellent cross into the box but the Ghanaian goalkeeper stepped in to collect the cross just in front of the onrushing Kinley McNicoll.

Head coach Rosenfeld made a single half time change replacing Davis with Jade Kovacevic.

The young Canucks started the second half brightly and looked a completely different team than the one that had been outplayed in the first. Second half substitute Kovacevic was looking to get on the ball whenever possible and she was involved in the build-up to the Canadian goal. Her diagonal ball played in Cantave who won a corner on the right. Chantale Campbell whipped in a sharp cross which was flicked into the goal at the near post by Cantave. The goal will have been exceptionally rewarding for Canada as the coaching staff had worked on that particular corner routine all week in training.

“It was good to see that we were able to execute off the corner,” said Rosenfeld. “We do a lot of work with set pieces as everybody does at this level. We did well to maintain our discipline after the goal and we were able to keep the Ghana team from getting the equalizer.”

Canada played its best soccer of the game for the opening 25 minutes of the second half before it settled into a defensive posture to kill off the match. Canadian fans’ hearts were in their throats in the 80th minute as a hard back pass from Setterlund squeaked under D’Angelo’s foot before rolling harmlessly wide for a corner.

For this opening match, coach Bryan Rosenfeld’s starting XI featured Sabrina D’Angelo in goal, Ally Courtnall, Nicole Setterlund, Alison Clarke, and Vanessa Kovacs right to left in defence, Kinley McNicoll, Diamond Simpson, Chantale Campbell, and Abigail Raymer across the midfield and Kylie Davis and Haisha Cantave up front at forward.

In the other Group D match on Monday Brazil defeated Republic of Ireland 2:1. Canada will now move on to face Republic of Ireland in its next match on Thursday 9 September. Ghana and Brazil will also square off on that same day. An announced attendance of 1,881 took in the match at the Larry Gomes Stadium.