Olympic Heartbreak for Canadian Women Soccer squad
One of the biggest surprises of the London Games form a Canadian point of view was the fact that the women's soccer squad reached such a late stage of the competition.
When Team Canada met the American side in the semi finals stage of the event, all of Canada seemed to be behind these formidable sportswomen who had fought so hard to get to this point in their careers.
True, the odds were stacked against the Canucks, considering that they hadn't beaten their US counterparts in over 11 years.
Which makes their loss on the field so much more heartbreaking - because everyone agrees that the game should have been theirs.
Team Canada missed out on a silver or gold medal due to what they - and millions of others - consider to be an unfair ruling by the Norwegian referee, Christiana Pedersen, which ultimately led to a hairbreadth victory for Team USA.
Unfair Ref Ruling Leads to Defeat
The Canadian team came onto the Old Trafford pitch, home to Manchester United FC, ready to beat the best women soccer team in the world.
Captain Christine Sinclair played incredibly, scoring three goals for her team. Yet, the Americans fought back and the game went into extra time and penalty stage after American ace Abby Wambach tied the game 3-3.
And here is where the Canadians believe things got nasty.
The referee awarded the United States an indirect kick from the top of the penalty box, claiming that Canuck goalie, Erin McLeod had taken 10 seconds to put the ball in play, instead of the maximum six seconds This is an incredibly rare call, and analysts have said that it is never used at such high level games.
The penalty kick hit Marie-Eve Nault of Canada in the arm in the box, converting the penalty and giving the Americans a 4-3 win on Team Canada.
Shock at Semi Final Olympic Loss
After the game, the Canadian women soccer squad remained on the turf, unable to believe that the gold medal dream had slipped through their fingers in such a cruel way.
"I didn't want to leave because I couldn't believe that's what happened," said Canada's Melissa Tancredi. "That was our game. That was our win to have and it was taken away."
Replying to comments that this was the best game in the history of Canada's women soccer, Tancredi said: "That's who we are and what we were expecting to bring. It's just unfortunate that every step we took somebody was making a decision on the other half to help the other team out."
Captain Sinclair had the last word to the referee when she told her after the game-breaking call: "I hope you can sleep tonight and put on your American jersey because that's who you played for today."
Canada will meet France on Thursday, August 9th to fight for the bronze medal.
