By Amy Tennery
(Reuters) – A row between Canada’s women’s soccer team and their governing body hangs over the SheBelieves Cup as the Olympic champions kick off their 2023 season against world champions the United States on Thursday before facing Brazil and Japan.
With the Women’s World Cup less than six months away, the annual round-robin SheBelieves Cup held in the U.S. will be a crucial proving ground with all four contenders in the mini tournament bound for Australia and New Zealand this year.
After planning to go on strike over pay equity concerns, Canada’s players said they would return to training this week because of the threat of facing legal action from Canada Soccer.
The governing body said the players were not in a position to strike legally under Ontario law.
“To be clear. We are being forced back to work for the short term,” Canada captain Christine Sinclair wrote on social media. “This is not over.”
Their match against the U.S. in Orlando, Florida, will be dripping with bad blood – the Americans are hungry for revenge after Canada knocked them out in the semi-finals of the Olympic tournament in Tokyo in 2021.
The U.S. have won the last three SheBelieves Cup tournaments and five of the seven played since it started in 2016.
“This tournament is always a big tournament for us,” said forward Alex Morgan, who led the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in scoring last year.
The 33-year-old is expected to be a critical part of the U.S. bid to win an unprecedented third consecutive World Cup.
“Playing great teams back-to-back is always a good test for us,” she added. “It’s really important for us to want to win this tournament and to continue to kind of prove to ourselves we belong at the top.”
Brazil closed out 2022 by ending Canada’s five-game winning streak with a 2-1 stoppage time upset and are eager to harness that momentum after finishing second at the SheBelieves Cup two years ago.
With former NWSL Championship MVP forward Debinha on the roster, they get their year started on Thursday against Japan, who closed out last year with a demoralising 4-0 loss to England and 1-0 defeat against Spain in friendlies.
Japan, the 2011 world champions, finished fourth in their previous SheBelieves campaign three years ago.
The tournament kicks off on Thursday and will take place in Orlando, Florida, Nashville, Tennessee, and Frisco, Texas.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Ken Ferris)
