Canada advance to Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship

Canada qualified for the Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship after back-to-back wins over Dominica and Bermuda. Canada won their qualification matches Saturday 21:0 against Dominica and Wednesday 9:0 against Bermuda to finish first in the three-nation, round-robin Group F series in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic from 26 to 30 August.

On Wednesday, Canada’s goalscorers were Olivia Chisholm, Annabelle Chukwu (two), Isabelle Chukwu, Nikolina Istocki (three), Keira Martin and Adriana Bianchin. Across the two matches, Annabelle Chukwu led all Canadian scorers with seven goals while goalkeeper Noelle Henning and her backline posted back-to-back clean sheets.

“This camp has provided our program with a great assessment of our players from across the National Development Centres together as a group,” said Emma Humphries, Canada Soccer’s Women’s U-17 National Team Coach. “We were able to start to form our team culture and identity across the camp and the players were able to start to form some partnerships which was nice to see. The squad is in a really good place ahead of the Concacaf Under-17 Championship in the new year.”

Across the two matches, Canada featured 19 different players including seven youth international debuts. Eleven different players scored goals across the two matches, including seven players who scored their first youth international goals.

Match centre Canada v Dominica : https://canadasoccer.com/national-team-match-past/?matchId=4485
Match centre Canada v Bermuda : https://canadasoccer.com/national-team-match-past/?matchId=4487

The Canadian group have been together since 16 August in the Dominic Republic. As part of an integrated Women’s National Team Program, the camp and competition provided some of Canada’s exceptional young players with an opportunity to work together for roughly two weeks. These first two international matches provided valuable experience as they grow with an eye towards the Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship, the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, and ultimately Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team.

CANADA SOCCER’S WOMEN’S NATIONAL TEAM

Canada are Olympic champions (Tokyo in 2021), two-time bronze medal winners (2012 and 2016), and two-time Concacaf champions (1998 and 2010). In all, Canada have participated in eight consecutive editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ (1995 to 2023) and four consecutive editions of the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament (2008 to 2021). At Tokyo 2020, Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team became the first Canadian team to win three consecutive medals at the Summer Olympic Games and just the third nation in the world to win three medals in women’s soccer.

Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Youth Teams, meanwhile, have won four Concacaf youth titles: the 2004 and 2008 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship, the 2010 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship, and the 2014 Concacaf Girls’ Under-15 Championship. Canada have qualified for nine editions of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup (including a silver medal at Canada 2002) and all seven editions of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup (including a fourth-place finish at Uruguay 2018).