THE CANADIAN PRESS
PANAMA CITY — Vanessa Legault-Cordisco scored the game’s only goal Monday as Canada survived a late push from Mexico to escape with a 1-0 win and finish the group stage of the CONCACAF U-20 women’s soccer championship with a perfect record.
The Canadians had a number of chances to put the game away after going ahead 1-0 in the first half but they couldn’t get anything past Mexican goalkeeper Aurora Santiago.
"We’re really happy with the result," Canadian coach Andrew Olivieri said. "(But) we would have liked to have put up a bit of a better performance."
Legault-Cordisco scored in the 28th minute after Shelina Zardorsky sent a free kick into the Mexican penalty area. Canada’s Christabel Oduro got a touch before Legault-Cordisco put the ball past Santiago.
Mexico poured on the pressure late in the second half as Canada began to wilt in the steamy conditions.
The Mexicans had two great chances to tie it up in stoppage time, but they hit the woodwork with one shot before Canadian goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo made a game-saving stop moments later.
"I don’t think we were really ready to cope with the pressure the Mexicans put on us late in the game," Olivieri said. "I think a few players were a bit tired by the end, the heat got to them."
He said his team made the task more difficult by failing to capitalize in front of the goal.
"We had four or five fantastic chances and their ‘keeper came up big quite a few times," Olivieri said. "I think we could have put it away a lot sooner and it would have saved us a lot of that pressure at the end of the game."
Canada finished Group A at 3-0-0 and will take on either the U.S. or Panama in one of Friday’s semifinals. Those two countries play Tuesday to decide Group B, with the second-place team facing the Canadians.
The top three teams in the eight-country regional qualifier will advance to the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup set for Aug. 18-Sept. 8 in Japan.
Canada has only been together a short time, but Olivieri said he’s pleased with the progress.
"Our goal is to get to the World Cup just to expose (the players) to that pressure, that environment," he said. "So we’re happy getting through to the semifinals so we can go get our ticket to the World Cup.
"In terms of the quality of play, we’d like to improve as a group but for where we are after two weeks, we’re pretty pleased."