By Elias Laradi
Canada will look to book a spot in the 2024 W Gold Cup quarterfinals as they get set to face Paraguay who are ranked 50th in the FIFA world rankings in a first-ever meeting at the senior level.
Canada will be without the services of Nichelle Prince who suffered a calf injury in the opening game against El Salvador and Bev Priestman confirmed she will be out for the rest of the tournament.
"It's just very unfortunate," I feel devastated for Nichelle, both on a personal level but also what she's contributed for this team post-World Cup. I think she's done incredibly well in that No. 9 (position) so it's a massive loss for us.
"But I'm pleased at the same time to say well this isn't another long-term long-term injury. But I think it's long enough to rule her out with the Gold Cup and it could be tight for (the) SheBelieves (Cup in April). I'm not sure yet."
Focusing on Paraguay, Priestman feels it won’t be easy breaking down their defense and finding openings to create scoring opportunities.
"They're incredibly tenacious but also well-organized and hard to break down," said Priestman. "We're going to have to take our game to another level and do that off the back of a tight turnaround with some injuries. So that's a challenge but we have to embrace that challenge and be ready for that with our own standards and expectations."
Jayde Rose who has been stellar on the back end feels this is a huge opportunity for the team.
“I think every game is a massive game”, Rose told the media at the MD-1 press conference in Houston, Texas. “ Especially with the format of this tournament knowing that we could win all of our games and still be ranked third overall and it comes down to the amount of goals scored is massive for this team and each game is incredibly important.”
Priestman continues to preach that every game is a step forward to the Paris Olympics this summer and that they are building towards that end goal of defending a gold medal.
“We have our own expectations and standards and this comes down to us being ready for July and Paris and this is a great process to get us there and going in as favorites is a good experience for us.” - Canada Head Coach, Bev Priestman on the bigger pircutre for the CanWNT.
Canada currently leads Group C on goal differential with +6 and they will need to score a lot more to have a good chance at getting that number one seed in the next round. Kickoff is scheduled for 5:00 pm EST at Shell Energy Stadium and Canada will finish the group stage on Wednesday against Costa Rica.
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