Chilliwack’s Jordyn Huitema will play international soccer in Florida next month as she leads her Canadian national team into action at the 2021 SheBelievesCup.
The four-team tournament runs Feb. 18-24 in Orlando and includes Canada, the United States, Brazil and Japan.
Games will be played at the Exploria Stadium, and newly-minted Canadian head coach Bev Priestman views it as a great tuneup for the Tokyo Summer Olympics, which are supposed to take place, COVID permitting, from July 23 to Aug. 8 in Toyko, Japan.
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“The SheBelieves Cup gives us the opportunity to face some of the top football teams in the world in a tournament setting,” Priestman noted. “It will be a great opportunity to get ourselves ready for the Tokyo Olympic Games, facing different styles of play and tight turnarounds.”
All four nations competing in the SheBelieves Cup reached the knockout phase of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France and have all since qualified for the 12-nation Toyko Olympics.
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Canada are two-time Olympic bronze medal winners (2012 and 2016) and two-time CONCACAF champions (1998 and 2010). In all, Canada have participated in seven consecutive editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup (1995 to 2019) and three consecutive editions of the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament (2008 to 2016).
At Rio 2016, Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team were the first Canadian Olympic team to win back-to-back medals at a summer Olympic Games in more than a century.
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