FRISCO, Texas -- Despite outscoring the opposition 17-1 while winning the Group B title, Canada head coach Kenneth Heiner-Møller insists Canada won't enter its 2018 concacaf Women's Championship semifinal match against Panama overconfident.
The winner of Sunday's confrontation at Toyota Stadium will book a spot at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France, while the loser will get another opportunity to qualify in Wednesday's third-place match here.
"That's one of the reasons why we're here because we haven't been going in overconfident in any of the matches, not for the opener, not for the second match, not for Costa Rica," Heiner-Møller Saturday.
"We've been good having one step at a time looking at the opponent right ahead of us and what we should be doing. That's part of the thing we've been good at. Then its about playing to our performance every time no matter if we play the best team in the world or someone who's not. It's our performance we can do something about and that's the standard we need to set every time we're on the pitch."
That pitch at the stadium could be a bit water-logged given the weather in the north Dallas area. The weather forecast calls for rain Sunday afternoon after thunderstorms pounded the area Saturday morning.
"It depends if it's clear water on the pitch," Heiner-Møller commented. "It definitely will have an imapct on the game and how we'll approach things. We're pretty prepared. i think what we pride us is that we are a very apdpatable team. Hopefully the weather will be with us.
Heiner-Møller called his opponents "the surprise Panama."
"They have been doing a great group stage as well," he finished. "If you look at the match they had against Mexico [a 2-0 win], it was something that was about to happen. You could see it in the game. They were good putting on a great performance."
If she plays, veteran midfielder Diana Matheson will make her 200th international appearance.
