Canada’s women’s soccer team looking to build in return to home soil: coach

Casey Stoney hasn’t yet seen the best possible version of her Canadian women’s soccer team.

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.

“I think I’ve got a really good idea of what our strongest squad could be. I’ve never been able to put it together yet,” she said in a video call from her home in San Diego, Calif. “So I’m hoping over the next few windows we’ll be able to get closer to that.”

Stoney and her team last gathered in early June for a camp and a friendly in Costa Rica.

Busy months have followed, with the coach doing World Cup commentary in Vancouver, strategizing about Canada’s soccer future with sporting director Kenneth Heiner-Moller and men’s head coach Jesse Marsch in Toronto, and visiting players at their clubs around the Northern Super League and National Women’s Soccer League.

Now she’s eager to be reunited with her crew.

“I’m itching to get back with the team. Like, June is too far away to October,” Stoney said. “I’m looking forward to being back with the players, back with the staff, back on the grass, back working. Because I feel like we’ve made progress and we want to continue that progress.”

The coming months are critical for the Canadians as they look to build on the wave of support that swelled around the men’s side during this summer’s home World Cup and book spots in the sport’s two biggest international tournaments.

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.

The women’s team last played on home soil in June 2025 when they downed Costa Rica 4-1 in Toronto.

“There’s nothing more important than us playing at home,” Stoney said. “I think we’re 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.”

It’s also essential to introduce new supporters captivated by the men’s World Cup run to the women’s squad.

“I think it’s massively important that we capitalize now. I think the men’s team’s done a great job to inspire and capture the nation. And how do we keep them?” she said.

“The 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’s really going to help the team move into qualifiers and then hopefully into the World Cup.”

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.

The eight-nation tournament — running through Dec. 5 in Mansfield and Houston, Texas — serves as a qualifier for both the 2027 World Cup in Brazil and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Earning berths to those competitions early would allow the team to map out their preparation, Stoney said.

So far, that preparation hasn’t been easy. Stoney and her team have criss-crossed the globe, taking on some of soccer’s biggest teams — including the United States, the Netherlands and Japan.

“I’ve intentionally created quite a lot of struggle in this team over the last kind of 12 to 15 months, and it’s been intentional. We’ve gone and taken on really difficult opposition in their home nations,” she said.

The results haven’t always been positive.

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.

The defeats brought “loads of learnings,” Stoney said.

“I don’t buy into the panic of like ‘We haven’t won for five games!’ Well yeah, look at who’s played,” she said. “Some of those performances were not good enough. We know that, absolutely, but you’ve got to go through the struggle to learn and get out the other side.”

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.

Adding talent to the pool is both about pushing veterans to perform at their top level and about succession planning, Stoney said.

“It’s my job to, yes, think about the now. But it’s 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,” she said. “So, I think there’s been a conscious decision to see some new faces, see some new players.

“Also, I was learning about them. I needed to know who’s going to be on the journey with us, and who’s not quite ready to be on the journey with us. Who’s got too comfortable and who hasn’t? And raise the competition levels because that’s the way it should be.”

No matter who’s in the lineup, the group will be working to get better and better over the coming months, Stoney added.

“We’ve not been at our best yet,” she said. “We need to peak in June, July next year (at the World Cup). That’s when it really counts.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2026.