Soccer: I fell in love with the girls

Soccer: I fell in love with the girls
A chance promo spot led me to the best sports experience I've had this year, and it didn't feature a single athelete making a dime.

Last night, while I walked through the shadow of the valley of baseball stoppage fear, I had one of those totally magical and unexpected sports experiences.

After I watched Esteban Loaiza finish spinning his complete game win over Roger Clemens and those hated Yankees, I was getting ready to turn off the TV when Sportsnet ran a promo for the FIFA U-19 World Championships semifinal between Brazil and Canada.

"So," I thought, "I'll bite."

Boy, am I glad that I did.

Wow what a game! The passion and intensity displayed in this clash (and believe me that is exactly the right word for this one), was outstanding.

Canada had rolled into the semis on a 13-game undefeated streak. After a 3-2 squeaker to open the tournament, they had largely dominated their opposition. Canada was led by the tournament's top scorer, Christine Sinclair, who had scored 10 goals coming in.

On the other side was Brazil. They had won their group, and while they had not been as dominant, they rolled in as easily the toughest test the Canadians had faced. Led by the sublime Marta, the Brazilians marched into Commonwealth stadium in Edmonton filled with confidence.

Right off the bat I was excited. Apparently, the Brazilian girls had been telling anyone who would listen that the Canadian girls were a bunch of thugs. "We play with our feet," they had sniffed. The Canadian girls had fired back that the Brazilian team would perhaps be more at home playing in bathing suits, since they had been doing all that diving anyway.

As any good sports fan knows a great sporting event needs a couple of things, one of which is great players on either side. With Marta and Sinclair, we were covered on that account. Another though, and no less important, is a healthy amount of bad blood (I call this the "Nords-Habs theorem"), and it looked like these two groups of teenagers had a healthy dislike for each other from the get go.

This edge was clear right off the bat. Straight away the two teams slammed and battered each other. The Brazilians obviously knew that the Canadians were planning on a physical game and they decided to show their northern rivals that they were not going to be intimidated. So every header, every loose ball, invariably ended with a yellow or red shirt (and often more than one of each) sprawled on the ground.

The play itself came in fits and starts, but the quality was there right at the beginning as both teams exchanged good opportunities in the opening 10 minutes. Canada played a traditional British style of long-ball game, while the Brazilian girls used the mesmerizing ball control that is the hallmark of their country.

was interesting to see how the two styles exposed each other. The Canadians had the edge for much of the first half as their long probing volleys constantly caused trouble for the generally smaller Brazilians. This, ultimately, resulted in the corner kick that lead to the opening goal off a brilliant diving header by Clare Rustad.

However, as the game progressed, and the Brazilians ball control opened more and more holes in the Canadians defense the girls resorted to hoofing the ball aimlessly towards the Brazilian side.

On the other hand, while the Brazilians had all sorts of time on the ball, they rarely were able to threaten the Canadian net directly. When they did finally score it came at the end of an absolutely brilliant individual effort from Marta. She danced through three Canadians, before letting loose with a drive that McLeod could not quite handle.

After the goal the play became even more physical. I've seen some gritty battles in my time, but this was from another world. Girls slammed into each other with reckless abandon, two stretchers came on to carry off players -- one of whom would return, neither of which, thankfully, was seriously hurt. With every passing second the level of intensity and ill will raised another notch.

The partisan crowd began to boo Finish referee Anri Hanninen, who seemed unwilling to show the yellow card for anything less than a forearm shiver. Once for each team, a striker was knocked off the ball in the penalty area with no call, though personally, I think Hanninen got it right.

Regulation settled nothing, so the game was headed towards overtime and the pursuit of the golden goal. The Canadians seemed to have found some of their lost momentum, and early on a shoulder charge from Daiane sent Sinclair clattering to the ground. The referee pointed to the penalty spot. The crowd roared.

Then things got really weird, which as any true sports fan knows, means -- "interesting."

The Brazilians went nuts, they surrounded Hanninen, who, backpedaling and yelling, refused to produce a yellow card. Meanwhile, behind this, the greatest psych-out I have ever seen in team sports was taking place.

Sinclair waited patiently to take the penalty kick. Two Brazilian players walked up to the astonished Sinclair and bumped her repeatedly. Hanninen rushed over to shoo them away. Then one of the Brazilian entourage, a man that nobody could seem to identify, walked on to the pitch, yelling at Hanninen. As Hanninen turned, another Brazilian player had words with Sinclair and "brushed" past her by accident, on purpose.

Where the Canadians were at this time, I have no idea, but in the future, if my star player is about to take a potentially game winning kick, and the other team is using the sort of mental warfare the CIA normally reserves for shoe bombers, I'm standing between her and them.

Finally, things seemed to calm down enough for Sinclair to take the penalty. Just after Hanninen placed the ball on the spot though, Marta raced forward to get into Sinclair's face one last time. Hanninen again had to intervene.

Despite looking as cool as possible through this storm Sinclair, must have been unnerved. The tournament's leading scorer pushed the ball not nearly wide enough and Giselle dove to get her hand on it. To add insult to injury, after taking the shot, two Brazilians slammed into Sinclair knocking her to the ground and gave her a Portuguese version of "in yo' face."

The nasty tone continued as twice the Canadians sent Brazilian strikers tumbling in the box, but no penalties were called. This brought the pitch invader back a second time and he was chased off.

The Canadians then had a glorious chance right before full time, but a cross went just behind a wide open Kara Lang, and the game ended even.

So it came to penalty kicks.

Marta lined up first for Brazil, facing the Mohawked McLeod. McLeod made up for her earlier gaffe, guessing right and stopping the star's drive. McLeod then leapt up and tugging at her jersey raced towards the crowd.

Candace-Marie Chapman was up next, but Giselle equaled her opposite punching the ball away. She then bettered McLeod by performing a samba style dance as her teammates mobbed her.

Next, Kelly was up. She fooled McLeod but her chip hit the post and bounced out. A frustrated Kelly sank to her knees and pounded the turf repeatedly until her teammates dragged her away (I am not making this up).

Then Sinclair came forward, free of the "mass psyche," she calmly slotted home her penalty to make it 1-0 for Canada.

Brazil -- Ariana -- Goal.

Canada -- Vermeulen -- Goal.

Brazil -- Daiane -- Goal.

At 2-2, Kara Lang came up for Canada. Giselle had dug the ball out of the net following the Daiane goal. She walked out towards Lang, pointed at her and then rolled the ball to Lang -- well wide. At this point I burst out laughing. The level of gamesmanship that had been on display in the last 30 minutes was almost impossible to believe. If you had put all of this into a screenplay, every executive in town would pass on it for being too unrealistic.

However, it got even better.

As Lang stood and stared at the keeper, Giselle pounded her chest with her fist and nodded defiantly at the 15-year-old striker. Lang went left, Giselle guessed correctly, but the ball rolled past her outstretched fingers, off the post, and into the net. Canada had the lead, 3-2.

The crowd went nuts; Lang pointed at Giselle and pumped her fist, leapt in the air, and pumped her fist at the Brazilian keeper again.

By this point I was a wet dishrag.

Next Daniela, the Brazilian team captain, and centre fullback stepped forward. The girl looks like she was hewn out of solid granite. Daniela pounded her chest three times and then slammed the ball past McLeod to make it 3-3.

Finally, Sasha Andrews was on the spot for Canada. With the Brazilian girls, arms linked together, willing her to miss, Andrews, whose solid play from the back was key to the Canadians getting to the penalties, calmly slipped the ball past Giselle and into the back of the cage to give Canada a 4-3 lead.

Bedlam.

The Canadian players and fans went nuts. Andrews (a local girl -- how perfect is that?) sprinted across the field. Her teammates mobbed her as she defiantly turned towards the Brazilian bench. The Brazilians sat, devastated, tears rolling down their cheeks. It was then, that I suddenly remembered how young all these girls are, and what an incredible accomplishment they had made by getting to this stage.

As the Canadians jogged around the field holding a flag attached to a hockey stick, the Brazilians slowly moved towards half, almost aimlessly, to wait for the handshakes.

Despite all the intensity and emotion and perhaps, unsportsmanlike conduct, at the end all these proud young athletes would shake hands and share hugs. Reassuringly to my sense of fair play, both coaches were nothing but complimentary to their opponents after the game).

Feeling drained from the raw emotion, I turned off the TV and stumbled up towards bed where even though it was well past 1:00 a.m., I couldn't fall asleep for over an hour.

That night I dreamed, not of baseball, but of the rhythmic perfection of soccer.


By Conor McCreery