Casey Stoney hasn\u2019t yet seen the best possible version of her Canadian women\u2019s soccer team. <\/p>\n
The former England captain has been head coach of the program since January 2025, but injuries and circumstance have limited her options for assembling the quintessential lineup. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve got a really good idea of what our strongest squad could be. I\u2019ve never been able to put it together yet,\u201d she said in a video call from her home in San Diego, Calif. \u201dSo I\u2019m hoping over the next few windows we\u2019ll be able to get closer to that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Stoney and her team last gathered in early June for a camp and a friendly in Costa Rica. <\/p>\n
Busy months have followed, with the coach doing World Cup commentary in Vancouver, strategizing about Canada\u2019s soccer future with sporting director Kenneth Heiner-Moller and men\u2019s head coach Jesse Marsch in Toronto, and visiting players at their clubs around the Northern Super League and National Women\u2019s Soccer League. <\/p>\n
Now she\u2019s eager to be reunited with her crew.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m itching to get back with the team. Like, June is too far away to October,\u201d Stoney said. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to being back with the players, back with the staff, back on the grass, back working. Because I feel like we\u2019ve made progress and we want to continue that progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coming months are critical for the Canadians as they look to build on the wave of support that swelled around the men\u2019s side during this summer\u2019s home World Cup and book spots in the sport\u2019s two biggest international tournaments. <\/p>\n
The work starts in October when the ninth-ranked Canadians host No. 12 Denmark in a pair of friendlies. The nations will face off in Montreal on Oct. 9, then meet again in Toronto on Oct. 12.<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s team last played on home soil in June 2025 when they downed Costa Rica 4-1 in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing more important than us playing at home,\u201d Stoney said. \u201cI think we\u2019re always looking for opportunities where we can. The players love being at home. They want to be connected to the fans. They want to be playing in front of the home audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also essential to introduce new supporters captivated by the men\u2019s World Cup run to the women\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s massively important that we capitalize now. I think the men\u2019s team\u2019s done a great job to inspire and capture the nation. And how do we keep them?\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more that we can play at home the better. The more tickets we can sell, the more fans we get in the stands, the more people we get connected to the team, it\u2019s really going to help the team move into qualifiers and then hopefully into the World Cup.\u201d <\/p>\n
Denmark is a top opponent, Stoney added, and the games will provide vital preparation for a November window where Canada will compete in the CONCACAF W Championship. The competition starts with a quarterfinal matchup between Canada against Panama on Nov. 27.<\/p>\n
The eight-nation tournament \u2014 running through Dec. 5 in Mansfield and Houston, Texas \u2014 serves as a qualifier for both the 2027 World Cup in Brazil and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
Earning berths to those competitions early would allow the team to map out their preparation, Stoney said. <\/p>\n
So far, that preparation hasn\u2019t been easy. Stoney and her team have criss-crossed the globe, taking on some of soccer\u2019s biggest teams \u2014 including the United States, the Netherlands and Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve intentionally created quite a lot of struggle in this team over the last kind of 12 to 15 months, and it\u2019s been intentional. We\u2019ve gone and taken on really difficult opposition in their home nations,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The results haven\u2019t always been positive. <\/p>\n
Canada fell to both the Netherlands and Switzerland in October, then dropped a pair of games to Japan in late November and early December. The team beat Argentina and Colombia at the SheBelieves Cup in March, but fell to the U.S.<\/p>\n
The defeats brought \u201cloads of learnings,\u201d Stoney said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t buy into the panic of like \u2018We haven\u2019t won for five games!\u2019 Well yeah, look at who\u2019s played,\u201d she said. \u201dSome of those performances were not good enough. We know that, absolutely, but you\u2019ve got to go through the struggle to learn and get out the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coach has also vied to create competition for jobs on the national team, bringing in fresh-faced players such as 18-year-old midfielder Kaylee Hunter and 19-year-old forward Annabelle Chukwu.<\/p>\n
Adding talent to the pool is both about pushing veterans to perform at their top level and about succession planning, Stoney said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my job to, yes, think about the now. But it\u2019s also my job to think about a year, two year, in three years time, how are we depth charting and bringing these younger players through as well,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I think there\u2019s been a conscious decision to see some new faces, see some new players. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, I was learning about them. I needed to know who\u2019s going to be on the journey with us, and who\u2019s not quite ready to be on the journey with us. Who\u2019s got too comfortable and who hasn\u2019t? And raise the competition levels because that\u2019s the way it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter who\u2019s in the lineup, the group will be working to get better and better over the coming months, Stoney added. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve not been at our best yet,\u201d she said. \u201dWe need to peak in June, July next year (at the World Cup). That\u2019s when it really counts.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2026.<\/p>\n
Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Casey Stoney hasn\u2019t yet seen the best possible version of her Canadian women\u2019s soccer team. The former England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-874601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}