RHODES: Three observations from Canada's final match at the Arnold Clark Cup

Canada tried to use this tournament to improve their ability to create goalscoring chances from open play, an area that they have struggled in, including in the first two matches against England and Germany. With each game has come signs of improvement — against Germany they were strong in transition, and against Spain it was an improvement in wide areas.

Beckie, Fleming and Riviere link up well on right side

Canada had success on the right hand side in particular, with the starting duo of Janine Beckie and Jayde Riviere, and Jessie Fleming on the right side of the central midfield, combining well to create several opportunities. They created a triangle that regularly linked up and sent one of the three charging down the right flank with quick and precise passes to get the better of Leila Ouahabi.

Fleming herself went out wide at times and played a couple of crosses into the box, including one that struck the top of the crossbar. One of Beckie’s best moments was a cross that found the head of Huitema, but her header struck the crossbar after Lola Gallardo got a hand to it.

HIGHLIGHTS: #CANWNT 0-1 Spain @ArnoldClarkCup pic.twitter.com/C8R30gbBk7

— Canada Soccer (@CanadaSoccerEN) February 23, 2022

After Riviere was forced out of the game with an injury to her arm, Lawrence moved over to that right flank, and became a bit more involved on the attacking side of the ball, but Canada were unable to take advantage of their sustained pressure in the final 15-20 minutes of the match.

“It’s disappointing to lose, you hate losing more than you love winning,” Canada head coach Bev Priestman said after the match. “Incredible second half, I thought we were brave — this team across this tournament have shown moments of braveness, they just need to do it across the 90 minutes, but I think it’s the reality of where we’re at in terms of physically being able to compete over 90 minutes.

“We’ve shown some attacking threats, we had some clear cut chances that maybe 12 months ago we wouldn’t have had. I definitely feel like the group are moving forward, and I’m relatively happy with the overall second half performance. I think Spain showed their quality and we maybe let them into the game a bit too much in the first half.”

Putellas the star in an impressive Spanish midfield

Barcelona and Spain midfielder Alexia Putellas is undoubtedly one of the best players in the world, if not the very best, and she showed it again on Wednesday. The reigning Ballon D’Or winner hardly put a foot wrong in this match, and scored the winning goal in the 21st minute.

Driving forward after Patri Guijarro stole the ball from Ashley Lawrence, Putellas found Athenea del Castillo on the left flank before sneaking into the box undetected. When the ball came back to her from Leila Ouahabi, Putellas shot the ball past a diving Kailen Sheridan with her first touch, stretching to get her foot on the ball and open the scoring. Her movement off the ball is one of her biggest strengths, and it was crucial to Spain scoring the opening goal.

The goal gave her the lead in the tournament’s golden boot race as well.

The midfield trio of Barcelona teammates Guijarro, Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí was fantastic in this match, as watchers of club and country have come to expect. Barcelona have won each and every one of their 30 matches in all competitions this season, outscoring their opponents 157-7, and those three are a major reason why. Defensively and offensively, everything goes through them.

Spanish head coach Jorge Vilda had a lot of praise for his side after the match, especially when it came to the intangible things like hard work.

“It was a very competitive game, we battled hard,” said Vilda through an interpreter after the match. “We played well for certain periods of the game, albeit not making the best start, and that’s something we would like to improve on. We did then take control of the game, create chances, Alexia Putellas scored the goal, and I feel like we dominated from that point onward.

“Particularly at the start of the second half, we showed good movement, we were able to hurt them down both flank, which we knew we could do. We also defended well when Canada played on the counter, because they have quick players who are good at finding space. Toward the end of the game we had a lead to protect, and we showed as a team that we are capable of digging in.”

Canada miss out on Arnold Clark Cup trophy, but that wasn’t the primary objective

Canada entered the final day at the Arnold Clark Cup in pole position, with a win or possibly even draw sealing them the inaugural trophy in this tournament, but that was far from the main reason why Canada went to England. Testing themselves against the best teams in the world was a priority, as was getting the out-of-season players some valuable competitive minutes.

“The important thing here is context,” Priestman said after the match. “As a coach, when you lose, you sometimes lose sight of that. If you told me coming in that some players haven’t kicked a ball since [a pair of friendly matches against Mexico in November], you’ve got Christine (Sinclair) missing, you’ve got Adriana Leon [missing] — I think we’ve taking a step forward.”

“We’ve found ways to get Ashley Lawrence higher, we’ve got more combinations and more trusted players, we’ve widened the depth and I’ve tested more players. I said coming into this tournament we’d come away with European experience, we’ve done that. I’m so glad we attended this tournament, I think we’ve had some massive learnings, and there’s some players who have really had to step up.”

Not lost on Priestman and the Canadian squad is that they went toe to toe with three of the best teams in the world, and picked up a draw against England and a win over Germany. The Olympic champions have shown that they are worthy of that crown in many ways.

“We’ve played a team that’s probably going to go and win the Euros in one of the three team’s we’ve played,” Priestman said. “For us it’s been three games of half a game, to be honest. I can only walk away from this game happy with the second half, and a poor first half, and that’s credit to Spain.

“Spain had a lot of the ball, and I think we were uncomfortable with that deep down. I said to the players beforehand ‘you can be in control when they have the ball’, but I think the nature of this team — and it’s not a bad thing — is they want to be on the front foot. If I’m the Spain coach I’m saying ‘play one or two passes, wait until Canada jump out, then play’ and that’s what they did in the first half, and we addressed it at halftime.”

Spain also entered this tournament for the same reason, and leave with positives ahead of a big summer that includes the Euros, which they are among the favourites to win.

“It’s been a very good tournament for us in terms of preparing for the Euros later this year, we’ve been up against three top teams — England, Germany and Canada,” said Guijarro after the match through a interpreter. “Now with the tournament closing we can build on these three good performances. Maybe there was an element of disappointment in the draws against England and Germany, but we know we can still improve further in the next few months.”

“I think it’s been a very positive tournament overall, it’s been useful for us in terms of preparing for the Euros, which has been our main target,” Vilda added. “The team has done very well, and we’ve also discovered some areas where we can improve further. As Patricia said, over the next few months we’ll also have an international break in April with a friendly and some competitive games, then we’ll work out the final squad list and have our final preparations ahead of the Euros. We’ve got time to work on our strengths and improving them, and also reduce our weaknesses — so it’s definitely been a useful tournament.”