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Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium is set to host the Opening Ceremony for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 on Saturday just before the tournament begins when the hosts take on China PR in the Opening Match at 16.00 local time.

http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/


Members of the Canadian national women's soccer team stand for a photograph after the roster for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup was announced, in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday April 27, 2015.

GO CANADA!!

   

Front row left end......that girl has her game face on.

They all say how cool it'll be playing in front of 50,000+ home fans, I hope their ready for it.

   

Commonwealth Stadium turf ‘unbelievable’: Sinclair


EDMONTON - Attention Abby Wambach.

Turf is fine here. How is it in Winnipeg?

The lawsuit against FIFA to prevent the Women’s World Cup on artificial turf in Canada, led by American superstar Wambach, was no issue with the Canadian team. The Canucks were able to experience their first practice on it a day prior to the opening game of the seventh edition of the event Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium.

In Edmonton, FIFA installed new football turf on which no game has yet to be played. The surface received positive reviews from the players when the left the field.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Canadian superstar Christine Sinclair.

“Kadeisha Buchanan and I happened to be in Edmonton the day they were laying the new turf and it’s what we expected it to be. It’s awesome.”

“It’s a really good quality turf,” added Erin McLeod, the Canadian keeper.

“I’m assuming they’ll water it before the game, which will make it a little quicker. It’s a longer turf than what they had in the past here, so that’s a plus. No issues. All good.”

If there’s one thing, the temperature might be a concern.

The forecast for Saturday’s game time is 27ºC.

Melissa Tancredi gave the surface a positive review but did point out the heat factor.

“It felt really good,” she said. “It was fresh. It was very comfortable. The only thing is it was very hot. We’re going to have to take some measures before the game and at half time to cool our feet down.

“But it feels good because it’s brand new.”

RECORD WITHIN REACH

Every seat they could create, some previously listed as “restricted view”, have been added to the manifest for sale for today’s opener of the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

With 51,000 tickets sold as of early evening Friday, national organizing committee chief of marketing and communications Sandy Gage said “we are very confident we’ll break the record by morning.”

The record is 51,963 from the 1994 Canada-Brazil game in Commonwealth Stadium.

Seats surrounding the press tribune and VVIP tribune and a west side upper-deck camera location were added at 6 p.m. local time as the last of the original configuration of seats disappeared.

Fewer than 2,000 tickets remained of the seats added last evening. The capacity will likely turn out to be one side or the other of 53,000.

As of 6 p.m. Friday evening, 933,743 tickets had been sold at the six Canadian venues.

With a sellout for the final and a near sellout for a Group Stage game against the USA, Vancouver has sold the most tickets to date at 252,97.

Edmonton is second at 184,232 and Winnipeg, with two USA sellouts, is third at 175,137.

Ottawa leads the Eastern cities with 135,973 followed by Montreal at 130,694 and Moncton at 54,731.

“We’re going to be very close to the one million we set as a goal for our total by the opening kickoff,” said Gage.

The all-time total attendance record was set by USA 1999 at 1,194,221.

REDHEAD ALERT?

The role of Erin McLeod will be played by Sophie Schmidt.

No, the midfielder isn’t going to play goal in Saturday’s World Cup opener against China.

Back in 2002 at the FIFA U-19, McLeod dipped her head in a vat of red hair dye. Schmidt hasn’t replicated the role. But she’s dyed a significant percentage of her hair pink for the occasion.

“Erin had something completely different and special going on back then in that tournament,” said Schmidt.

“I don’t think I can outdo her here.”

Asked to describe her World Cup look, Schmidt laughed.

“I’m not sure. Maybe you could call it a two-tone pink fade. My teammates are going to be Rockin’ the Red. I think I’m going to stay with the lighter pink.”

@sunterryjones

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Looks to be a beautiful day for a soccer game.

Gonna do some yard work and then settle down with dad to watch the games and maybe have a beer or two

   

Also, wtf Toronto? From everything I've heard Toronto is a lively interesting city, what's with the insecurities? Another Toronto media person taking shots at Edmonton for some reason in the globe and mail. Won't dignify it with a link, but it is getting tiresome.

   

Toronto had a choice, Pan Am Games or the second largest sporting event in the world. Someone in City Hall chose the PA games, must of been on crack or something.

   

Quite the finish with Sinclair scoring on the penalty shot in extra time....

1-0 Canada....

   

Be interesting to see if the outcome of this tournament is "predetermined" as the women's Olympic outcome seemed to have been, last time.

I guess that FIFA is guaranteeing the honesty and fairness of the result, so there will be "nothing to concern ourselves with. Capiche?"

   

We'll see. That game at the Olympics was obviously fixed. But it was a nervy win today. China did their best to pull a Chelsea and park the bus, but Canada prevailed. Now on to New Zealand.

   

It's hard to trust them.

I hope that our various auditors-general are going over all of the public books associated with this tournament with magnifying glasses. The sort of bakshish that greases FIFA's skids are quite unwanted, here.

   

I hope your taking sometime to actually watch the game being played and just not scanning the sidelines for people walking around with large brown envelopes stuffed with cash.

   

The latter is quite unacceptable in my Canada and if that is really what is really what is going on, the integrity of what is happening down on the turf comes into question, as well (see 2012 Olympic Women's Semifinals).

   

Good game happening right now in Winni-Peg < ( British annoucer ) Aussie's really giving the Americans a run for their money after 30 minutes .

   

I wonder if this topic could be moved to the designated soccer thread under sports, might be easier for this old guy to find it that way.

   

.....Done, sorry about that, I should have done that at the start,

   

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