Christine Sinclair, the top national team goal scorer who achieved pay equity in Canadian soccer
The 40-year-old forward, who is looking to score at the World Cup and become the first player to do so in six championships, is her country’s image and standardbearer
She took a deep breath, a couple of steps and kicked the ball toward the goal, confident that it would do as she intended. And it did. It skimmed the ground and was heading to the right. But Nigeria goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie made the save, preventing Christine Sinclair from making history once again. Most of all because she would have become the first player to score a goal in six World Cups, now level with and Brazil’s Marta — also competing in Australia and New Zealand — and Cristiano Ronaldo in the men’s competition. It seems, in any case, only a matter of time before it happens, perhaps in the next game against Ireland, as she is one of Canada’s regular strikers. And her soccer and determination, now that she is no longer the shy girl she used to be but the megaphone of the country, back her up.
Sinclair was introduced to the soccer world at the 2002 U-19 World Cup in Edmonton, where she won the Golden Boot — 10 goals and a playoff win over England — and MVP of the tournament. A year later, she played in the first of her six World Cups with the senior team, scoring three times to win bronze. It was just the beginning for this Portland Thorns forward because her resume includes an Olympic gold medal and two bronze medals, 14 times best player in Canada, in addition to being a personality in the country. In 2013, for example, she was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame and in 2017, Governor David Johnston named her an Officer of the Canadian Order.
Not only that, since in 2016 she has been on the cover of the FIFA video game along with Messi and a year earlier, with her partner Kadeisha Buchanan, she appeared on a postage stamp to commemorate the 2015 World Cup. And in January 2022, she was awarded the special FIFA Best award as the all-time top scorer for a national team, with 190 goals (also ahead of Cristiano’s 123, the man with the most). For Canada, in any case, she is everything because she has also played the most games (325) and dished out the most assists (58).
Her starting place in the national team is in no doubt, although she has not finished a game since the semifinals of the last Games. She has played a lot of soccer but is also 40 years old — three years older than her coach, Bev Priestman — the second oldest player at the World Cup after Nigeria’s Ebi Onome, who is a month older. A far cry from Korea’s Casey Yujin Phair, who just turned 16. Sinclair has worn the Canadian national jersey for 23 years. A fan of baseball as a child, her idol was Roberto Alomar — second baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays — and in his honor, she always wears the number 12 jersey. But the family heirloom was the always soccer ball, as both her father and uncle were Canadian amateur soccer champions. And she dedicated herself body and soul, as she made clear in the 2011 World Cup, when she broke her nose in the first game and in response wore a face mask until her team was knocked out.
Although as a child she hardly said a peep, the years have given her authority. That’s why she was the national team’s standard bearer last year in the fight for equal pay with the national men’s team, to the point that the women’s team announced they would not participate in the SheBelieves Cup. But faced with the threat of legal action from the federation, they backed off without losing sight of an agreement that eventually came to fruition, at least for this World Cup. Incidentally, she testified before a House of Commons committee, denouncing the federation’s treatment of the team and alluding to insults from former federation president Nick Bontis, who would later issue a public apology.
Likewise, Sinclair is also raising the flag for the creation of a domestic professional league, which looks set to get the green light in 2025. “This is a mess,” is how she summed up the federation’s lack of progress. Player, captain, standardbearer and more, Sinclair has time to be active in fundraising for multiple sclerosis research and treatment, as her mother Sandra, who passed away last year, suffered from the condition. This World Cup, she says, is about her. And also for the history books.
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