Recap: Canada fall 3-0 to the USA in Olympic Qualifying Tournament final

The United States won the 2020 Olympic Qualifying Tournament with a 3-0 win over Canada on Sunday night.

The sides traded chances in the first half, with Canada’s best opportunity going to Christine Sinclair:

The closest the Americans came to scoring was a long-distance effort from Christen Press. Her effort crashed off the bar and the game remained scoreless.

It was the first time that they’ve been held off the scoresheet after 45 minutes since the 2019 World Cup final. Canada also had 56% of the ball in a well-contested opening half.

At the hour mark, Lynn Williams gave the USWNT a 1-0 lead. She picked off a pass and fired the ball home.

Lindsey Horan doubled the lead for the USA, opening up some space for herself before placing a low shot into the bottom corner.

Canada had a chance to pull one back a few moments later, as Janine Beckie ran at the American goal, but her ball across the face of the goal went just wide. It might have been a shot or a cross, but either way it just missed the desired target.

The win was sealed for the Americans when Megan Rapinoe, who came off the bench in this one, ran onto a pass between the defenders and slid the ball under Stephanie Labbe to make it 3-0 in the 87th minute.

It was a bittersweet ending to a great tournament for Canada. On one hand, they qualified for the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer, Jordyn Huitema won the Golden Boot and Christine Sinclair scored her record-breaking 185th international goal.

They seemed to run out of energy in the second half as waves of American attackers wore them down, which led to a couple of late goals, but an overall strong performance in this match against the best team in the world is something to build on ahead of an exciting few months for the program.