Sports Revelation Online ..breaking authenic sports reports
By Harry Awurumibe, Africa’s No. 1 Women’s Football Journalist
Golden Girls. ..Canadian players mob Jessie Fleming (NO.17) after she scored penalty goal which brought her team back from defeat.
At last, the Canadian senior women’s football team struck Gold in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics women’s football event courtesy of 3-2 penalty win over Sweden in the final match at Nissan Stadium Yokohama on Friday.
The explosive encounter had ended 1-1 at regulation time forcing it to go intothe extra time which also failed to produce a winner after 120 minutes of football, thanks for goals from Stina Blackstenius for Sweden in 34′ and Jessie Fleming for Canada in 68′.
The resultant penalty kicks saw alot of drama before Canada outscored Sweden 3-2 with the last kick out of the six apiece to win the match which guaranteed them the Olympics Gold medals.
Beverly Priestman… Baby-face Gold Medal-winning Coach of Canada Senior Women’s Football Team.
Sweden’s Kovovare Asllani missed the first kick but two of her teammates Nathalie Bjorn and Olivia Schough scored before Anna Avegard, Caroline Seger and Jonna Andersson missed this kicks.
However, Ashley Lawrence, Vanessa Gills and Andriana Leon lost their kicks after Jessie Fleming scored the first kick yet Deane Rose and Julia Grosso converted the last two to win the game for Canada.
At the end Sweden settled for Silver medals while United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) took the Bronze medals in a colourful medals ceremony inside Nissan Stadium in Yokohama.
Worthy of mention is the Canadians have been winning Olympics medals since London 2012 and Rio 2016 where they won Bronze medals back to back before Coach Beverly Priestman who was hired in 2018 led Canada to strike Gold in Tokyo on Friday.
Youthful Priestman herself was Assistant Coach to Phil Neville in the FIFA 2019 Women World Cup final in France and was only appointed by Canadian Football Federation last year just as the 35 year-old English tactician has rewarded her employers in less than one year.