A pair of Canadians take the pitch on opposite sides on Saturday in two massive matches as Olivia Smith and Ashley Lawrence vie for a spot in the Women’s Champions League Final, while Ali Ahmed tries to keep Liam Millar out of the Championship playoffs.
Here’s a lookahead to key Canadian involvement in Europe this weekend.
Olivia Smith, Arsenal vs. Ashley Lawrence, Lyon (Saturday at 9am ET/6am PT)
Two Canada regulars will compete for a spot in the Women’s Champions League Final, set for May 23 in Oslo, on Saturday. For one, it would mark her first chance to claim European club football’s top prize. For the other, it’s another shot at what eluded her nearly a decade ago.
When Olivia Smith and defending champions Arsenal take the pitch against Ashley Lawrence and eight-time winners Lyon in France, they will already have one foot in the door for the final. The Gunners claimed the first leg in London and hold a 2-1 aggregate edge. After Jule Brand opened the scoring for the visitors in the 18th, Arsenal drew level in the 58th minute on a Mariona Caldentey free kick that was officially ruled an own goal by goalkeeper Christiane Endler.
It was Smith, world football’s first £1 million woman, who bagged the winner. In the 83rd minute, miscommunication between Endler and defender Ingrid Syrstad Engen allowed for the 21-year-old Toronto native to pounce on a loose ball and slot into an empty net. The goal was Smith’s 10th across all competitions.
“The girls and I are really excited to get the opportunity to play in the semi-final,” Smith told The Guardian this past week. “Lyon are a quality team, they have a great skill set up top and great set of players, but we believe in ourselves.
“Having won it last year, pressure comes with that; being labelled champions of Europe holds weight. But we’re just focused on the game. Football’s football, and we’re doing something that we love and we have each other’s backs and great support from the fans. We have to be able to pick each other up and drive each other forward together.”
A 30-year-old Toronto native, Lawrence signed for Lyon in the summer following two seasons and two Women’s Super League titles with Chelsea. It was a return to France for the West Virginia product who spent the first seven seasons of her pro career at Paris Saint-Germain. While she did win a Division 1 Feminine title with PSG, as well as a pair of Coupes de France, the Champions League crown proved elusive.
Lawrence’s Lyon team has been a juggernaut this season. Already having claimed the league title with an undefeated campaign, the Arsenal loss, in which she played the full 90 minutes, was only Lyon’s second defeat in 30 matches. Their only prior loss was a 1-0 defeat to Wolfsburg in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-finals tie.
“We don’t lose too many games, right?” OL manager Jonatan Giraldez said after the Gunners match. “So now it hurts the possibility to win the [tie], but we know that.
“This is a semi-final, high-level competition.”
For Lawrence, there will be extra motivation to advance to the final. She reached one Champions League Final with PSG and it couldn’t have been more heartbreaking. Taking on OL in Cardiff in the 2017 final, the two French sides played to a scoreless stalemate over 90 minutes. An extra half-hour solved nothing and it came down to penalties. After Eugenie Le Sommer - Lyon’s second shooter - had her effort stopped by Katarzyna Kiedrzynek, PSG’s third shooter - Onema Geyoro - was denied by Sarah Bouhaddi.
As PSG’s sixth shooter, Lawrence stepped up and delivered a perfect penalty, the kind that simply cannot be stopped, hammering the ball well out of the reach of Bouhaddi. Still deadlocked after six shooters, Kiedrzynek went to the spot to take her own penalty. Her shot was exceedingly poor, dragging it outside of the post.
With a chance to wrap up the title, it was Bouhaddi who was to take next. Kiedrzynek returned to her goal and was momentarily fooled by her counterpart’s stutter step. But Bouhaddi’s shot was a solid one and it beat Kiedrzynek’s dive to give OL the victory and leave their French rivals disconsolate.
Having tasted defeat in such a bitter manner, Lawrence will do whatever she can to get another bite at the cherry.
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Liam Millar, Hull City vs. Ali Ahmed, Norwich City (Saturday at 7:30am ET/4:30am PT)
Canada midfielders face off in the final matchday of the Championship season on Saturday with the match meaning significantly more to one player than the other. Liam Millar’s Hull City, still harbouring playoff aspirations, host Ali Ahmed and Norwich City, who are playing out the string. The Tigers head into Saturday’s match level on points with Wrexham for the final playoff spot with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s side ahead on a +1 goal difference.
That Hull is in this position at all is thanks to a horrible run of form. The Tigers appeared primed to contend for one of the automatic promotion spots at the end of February, but since March 1, the team has won just two of 11 matches and is mired in the midst of a six-match winless run. On the weekend, Hull fell 2-1 to Charlton Athletic.
As for Millar, the Toronto native returned to the scoresheet for the first time since the end of January in last week’s 2-2 draw with Leicester City. Millar also set up Oli McBurnie for the Tigers’ second goal. For the season, Millar now has three goals and five assists in 32 league matches.
“I am happy to score again,” Millar said of the Apr. 21 goal. “It has been a while since I have scored. I have wanted to add more goals and assists to my game, so I am trying my best to improve on that. The press was good as we were on the high press and we were rewarded. I am trying to do as much as I can to add more goals and assists to my game and that is something I want to add upon and help the team. I am going to continue to work on that every day to try and earn more.”
The formula to finish in the top six is a simple one for the Tigers, but the fact that their fate is out of their own hands is exceedingly frustrating. Hull must better Wrexham’s result. Looking for a fourth promotion in four seasons, Wrexham finishes up their campaign at home to Middlesbrough in what could be a consequential match for both sides. Currently in fourth, Boro can still earn automatic promotion with a victory combined with an Ipswich loss and Millwall’s failure to win.
On the other side of the pitch, the Canaries have already bettered their 13th-place finish from a year ago. Ninth in the table on 65 points, Norwich is already guaranteed to finish in the top half of the table. That is a welcome result for a side who appeared to be in relegation trouble at one point during the season when they lost six straight in the beginning of October amid a 13-match winless streak.
A 25-year-old Toronto native, Ahmed joined the Canaries in January from the Vancouver Whitecaps following a run to the MLS Cup Final back in December. After a hot start to his Championship career, Ahmed has cooled off in recent weeks. While he’s notched four goals and three assists in 18 matches, Ahmed has not had a goal involvement since Mar. 21 and hasn’t scored since Mar. 14, now goalless in seven matches.
