We're one year less a day away from the kickoff of the 2014 U20 Women's World Cup -- and we now know where exactly those kickoffs will take place.
The matchday schedule has been released, with Montreal's Olympic stadium set to host the final on Sunday, Aug. 24. Moncton (!!!) is set to host one of the semifinals (Montreal will host the other), with the quarterfinals spread across all four host cities (Edmonton and Toronto being the other two).
As for Canada's schedule? We now know they'll play at Toronto's BMO Field/National Soccer Stadium on Aug. 5 and 8, before moving to the Big O on Aug. 12.
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None of the tournament's other 15 participants have been decided yet, though the four European qualifiers will be known by the end of this month (and will be some combination of Denmark, England, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, Wales and Germany). The other confederations will determine their qualifying countries in competitions ranging from this October to next January.
Most eyebrow-raising, of course, is the fact that Toronto -- which wasn't initially expected to play any hosting role whatsoever in Canada 2014/2015 -- will host the Canadian team twice (and would host them a third time, in the quarterfinals, if Canada happens to win their group).
Of course, the other 2015 host cities (Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa) either weren't prepared or weren't willing to host in 2014, while Edmonton gets to host the senior team twice in the 2015 Women's World Cup. Montreal also gets to host Canada at least twice (once in 2014, once in 2015); possibly more depending on the teams' fortunes.
So realistically, the only folks with a valid gripe here are probably those from Moncton. Not that that'll stop others from complaining, but hey, figured I give it a shot.
At the last U20 Women's World Cup, held in Japan last year, a Canadian team featuring recent CanWNT call-ups Adriana Leon, Danica Wu, Christabel Oduro and Rachel Melhado fell short of the knockout round, after a 6-0 drubbing of Argentina was followed by consecutive losses to Norway and North Korea.
Of course, the beauty of these youth tournaments is the inevitable massive roster turnover, and the unpredictability that it creates; the most notable name on this Canadian squad will likely be defender Kadeisha Buchanan, who's already made a name for herself with the senior national team. Beyond her, well, we'll leave the prognosticating about that until we get a bit closer to the tournament itself.
So we don't know who'll be playing for Canada or who they'll be playing against... but we now know why, when and where they'll be playing. Three out of the five Ws covered -- not bad at all.
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