Canada to face England in women’s soccer friendly in April in Manchester

TORONTO — Canada has added an April 5 friendly with England to its Women’s World Cup warmup schedule.

The game will take place at Manchester’s Academy Stadium, which is home to Canadian international Janine Beckie and the Manchester City women’s team.

England is ranked No. 4 in the world, one spot ahead of Canada.

The two teams have history. England knocked the Canadian women out of the 2015 World Cup with a 2-1 quarterfinal win in Vancouver. The teams have not met since.

Also, former Canadian assistant coach Bev Priestman, who helped develop some of Canada’s top youth players, left Canada’s ranks last August to return home and become an assistant coach with England under Phil Neville.

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The Canadian women are 5-7-0 all-time against England, but have lost five of the last six meetings dating back to 2013. The lone victory during that stretch was a 1-0 decision in Hamilton before the 2015 World Cup.

“This will be an important match for us as we will have the chance to test ourselves against one of the best national teams in the world,” Canadian coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller said in a release. “We are facing a Tier 1 opponent that are contenders to win the FIFA Women’s World Cup.”

Canada opened its 2019 schedule with a 1-0 victory over Norway in January in Spain. The Canadian women head to Portugal for the Algarve Cup later this month to face No. 22 Iceland and No. 20 Scotland before a ranking game.

Canada has been drawn with No. 46 Cameroon, No. 19 New Zealand and the seventh-ranked Netherlands at the World Cup, which starts in June in France.

“This year is all about preparing for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, so we are eager to get together in Europe and continue the momentum we built throughout 2018,” said Heiner-Moller.

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press