Canada's women's soccer team is set for a big Olympic tuneup
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The Canadian women's soccer team is currently in Atlanta preparing for the SheBelieves Cup, where they'll face a pair of global top-10 teams as they get ready to defend their Olympic gold medal this summer in Paris.
The SheBelieves Cup is a four-team mini-tournament held annually in the United States. The format is changing this year from a straight round robin to a small bracket that gives each team just two matches apiece.
On Saturday in Atlanta, the United States faces Japan at 12:30 p.m. ET before Canada meets Brazil at 3:30 p.m. ET. The winners square off for the Cup on Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio while the losers play for third place. The OneSoccer streaming service is the only place for viewers in Canada to watch the games.
It's a tiny tournament, but there's no filler. All four teams are ranked in the top 10 in the world. Canada is ninth — one spot ahead of Brazil. Japan is seventh, and the mighty U.S. is a surprisingly low fourth after failing to reach the quarterfinals at last summer's Women's World Cup.
The Canadian women would probably like to forget last February's SheBelieves Cup, which set the tone for a tough year for the squad. Amid a bitter (and, to this day, unresolved) labour dispute with Canada Soccer, the players walked out of their training camp in Florida, only to return the next day after the federation threatened legal action. The Olympic champs finished last in the tournament, then bowed out meekly at the World Cup in Australia, where they were shut out in two of their three matches and failed to advance following a 4-0 loss to the host team in a