Team GB is up and running and has got its first three points on the board. We felt that the Canadians were a stronger team than the Australians, who lost 7-0 to the USA today by the way. But we were absolutely up for winning this game. Ten of the 11 that started on Sunday started again today, so I found myself back on the bench, which of course was disappointing. We made a good start but all our early possession came to nothing and Canada enjoyed their best spell of the game in the latter stages of the first half.
We made a slow start to the second half but bit by bit began to assert ourselves again and Chelsea Berlin’s cross-come-shot out wide on the left found the top corner of the net. Chelsea, like all good strikers, insists she meant it as a shot, but the rest of us would probably disagree! It was a few minutes later that I was sent on to play sweeper to offer our tireless two midfielders, Ewa and Tamar, a bit more support and to protect our two centre halves Dani and Ellie.
My personal feeling is that 4-5-1 really suits our squad and for me personally, I was delighted to play the sweeper role – I absolutely loved it. Minutes after my arrival, the second goal came as Tamar played the ball in from the left to Chelsea who was standing about 12 yards out and wasted no time burying it in the back of the net.
We had alot of families supporting us as well as members of the Open Men’s Squad who had come down to cheer us on and they went wild – it was fantastic.
The second goal knocked the Canadians who offered little after that – there was also nearly a third goal from us as I picked up a loose ball from a corner clearance, side-stepped my opponent and hit the ball from 25 yards. It missed the top left hand corner by about a foot and was met with a loud “oooooooh” in the stands.
Despite our attacking success, our player of the match was our goalie Dana who didn't have many saves to make but was called upon on several occassions to rush out of the goal and clear the ball or dive at the feet of an oncoming Canadian. She marshalled her area brilliantly.
At the end we celebrated our win with our fans and then had a warm down before bussing it back to the hotel for ice baths and massage. Some of the squad went out for dinner with their families but it’s a 10pm curfew for us as we are back in action again at 6pm on Wednesday against the tournament favourites USA who seem head and shoulders above the rest of the competition.
We’ll give them a fight though and whatever the result, I know that when the USA girls walk off the pitch tomorrow, they’ll feel like they’ve been in a serious game of football.
Hopefully tomorrow, I will have some time during the day to talk more about the Opening Ceremony which took place at the Ramat Gan stadium on Monday night. It was quite something to walk around a stadium waving at 40,000 people cheering you on! And while most other countries walked around in orderly rows of eight as instructed, the British team bounded in jumping and singing as if they were walking down Wembley Way to an England game!