Team Canada is in the quarterfinals of the Olympic Women’s Soccer Tournament. In a remarkable display of tenacity and grit, Canada beat Colombia 1-0 on Wednesday to stay in the hunt.
You may be of the opinion that Team Canada deserved to be penalized for spying on other team’s practices with a drone. You are free to have that opinion. It sounds like this has been happening for quite some time within their men’s and women’s programs and was not a one off. However it is fair to say that the decision to monitor other teams’s practices was not a decision made by Canadian players, who have made an incredible amount of personal sacrifices to be part of the Canadian team. It is for that reason why Wednesday’s win meant so much.
Canada’s hero on the pitch on Wednesday against Colombia was Vanessa Gilles of Chateauguay, Quebec, who scored in the 61st minute on a header from a free kick by Jessie Fleming of London, Ontario. For Gilles, it was her second goal of the 2024 Olympic Games. She previously scored the game-winner on Sunday in a 2-1 Canada win over France.
Team Canada will now play Germany in one of four quarterfinal games on Saturday. The other three quarterfinal games have France versus Brazil, Spain versus Colombia and the United States versus Japan.
