AGR: How can the CanWNT learn from disastrous end to 2025 in 2027 World Cup preparation?
It’s been a disastrous end to 2025 for the CanWNT, as they lost back-to-back games to Japan in Nagasaki, falling 3-0 in their first game before suffering a 1-0 defeat in their second game.
With that, they’ll now end 2025 on a five-game losing streak, having also failed to score a goal across that span, which is quite worrying to see.
Therefore, while there will be some positives to take from Canada’s last game, in which they put in an improved performance en route to that 1-0 loss, that won’t be enough to erase some of the concerns and questions surrounding this team heading into 2026. 
Ultimately, this was always supposed to be a transition year for this team, so these results aren’t the biggest concern right now - even if they’re still worrying to see. When it was announced that Casey Stoney would take over at the start of the year, with her focus being on having a successful 2027 World Cup, some short-term pain was expected, after all.
If Canada needed to suffer some short-term pain to avoid another exit like the one they had at the 2023 World Cup, when they failed to get out of their group, it’d be all worth it.
Instead, this Canadian side has arguably regressed, and, more importantly, they are no closer to achieving some of their long-term goals, such as evolving their style of play, widening the player pool, and narrowing the quickly growing gap that exists between them and other top sides.
Certainly, this Japan series was eye-opening regarding that last point, as Canada hardly looked close to competing against the sort of top 10 nation they’ll need to beat if they’re to have any chance at making noise in 2027.
Canada fall 1-0 to Japan to end the year with a fifth straight loss, their longest losing streak since 2005.
— Ben Steiner (@BenSteiner00) December 2, 2025
The #CanWNT hasn’t scored a goal in any of those games either.
Last five:
🇺🇸3-0
🇨🇭1-0
🇳🇱1-0
🇯🇵3-0
🇯🇵1-0
But Canada won 4/5 games at home in 2025. pic.twitter.com/gnBBh4Nm5M
Yet, that’s another worry from the last five games Canada has played - not only did they lose each game, but they hardly ever looked close to winning any of them, either, which makes the results feel more concerning than they actually perhaps are.
When it came down to it, they struggled in both boxes and looked outmatched both physically and tactically across these five games, while looking quite unorganized on and off the ball.
If anything, that might be the biggest shock of all - for all of the struggles past iterations of this Canadian team have had (this isn't the first time they've struggled to score), they’ve always at least been hard to beat thanks to their organization and discipline on both sides of the ball.
Instead, they were quite outmatched across these matches, with their defeats to the US, Netherlands and the first of two matches against Japan standing out as the ones that best highlight how far Canada has to go ahead of 2027.
5 games, no wins, no goals scored... what's gone wrong with the CanWNT 🇨🇦 of late? 😬
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) December 2, 2025
"They were absolutely out-classed and played off the pitch when they lost 3-0 to the USWNT 🇺🇸 at the beginning of July... and they did not recover from there." pic.twitter.com/sdND8v7C27
For example, something that stands out from Canada’s tough end to the year is that they rolled out some pretty veteran-heavy lineups in each of their five defeats, which is quite worrying given that these games were all friendlies. It’d be one thing if Canada were getting steamrolled while playing a young team - at least those players could stand to learn and develop from those results, especially since these aren’t competitive games.
Instead, the average age of Canada’s starting lineup across this losing streak has been 27.44 - by comparison, the average age of their opponents has been 25.68. And, further to that point, Canada had the older average starting XI in each of those five games, too.
Just to put that in context, consider this - for a team that has already been struggling, the average age of their recent lineups would be somewhere between 29 and 30 by the time the next World Cup is here, which is a worry given how much this current group has struggled.
Yet, that’s something else that stands out from this run - given that they’ve played #2-ranked US, #8-ranked Japan, #11-ranked Netherlands, and #24-ranked Switzerland, it’s exposed that aforementioned gap that’s continuing to grow between Canada and other top nations, who are all seemingly getting younger and better by the year.
Because of that, it shows that a big goal for this team in 2026 will be to get younger. While it can be debated whether the stylistic changes this Canadian team is undergoing are right for this group, it’s hard to say they should abandon this adaptation phase until they see how this team could look with some new players in tow.
It’d be one thing if Canada had been racking up excellent results with their veterans, and had completely fallen off a cliff after trying to switch styles - while this team has been nowhere as bad as this for two decades, the way their last two major tournaments have gone shows that this gulf between Canada and top sides has been there for a while now.
GOAL🇯🇵🇯🇵
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) November 29, 2025
Oh no!😳
The misery continues for the #CanWNT, as Kailen Sheridan loses the ball right in front of the goal, and Mina Tanaka ruthlessly punishes her to put her team up 2-0
🔴Watch LIVE on OneSoccer pic.twitter.com/N7CXKBkcit
With the growth that’s occurred in the women’s game, which has seen the rise of younger and more technically gifted teams, Canada’s old approach was always good enough to just hang on, but they’ll need to do a lot more than that if they’re to make a deep run in 2027.
Just look at their neighbours, the US, who have undergone a very interesting 2024 and 2025 of their own. After a disastrous 2023 World Cup, one that saw the defending champions crash out on penalties in the Round of 16, they refreshed their team and won a gold medal at the 2024 Olympics, and have since cruised to an excellent 2025 despite using this year to widen their player pool and expand their roster - just like Canada had wanted to do.
All of a sudden, the dominant US team of the 2010s, one that had seemed to become stale in the early 2020s, has returned to prominence, thanks to a player pool that has seen young upstarts push key veterans in a competitive environment.
By comparison, if you look at Canada’s 2025, they’ve been unable to stoke similar fires in their group, as they haven’t been able to integrate youngsters as smoothly as the US.
To that point, when looking at the 37 players that saw the field for Canada this year, just 12 of them were 24 or younger - by comparison, Canada had 10 players 30 or older see minutes this year. Plus, since all minutes aren’t created equally, just five of those players 24 or under were among Canada’s top 20 minutes earners, compared to eight players over 30 who were among that top 20, including five in the top eight. 
Here's the list of minutes earned by CanWNT players in 2025 - players in red are 30 or older, players in yellow are between 25 and 29, and players in green are 24 or younger
That’s important to note, because it remains to be seen how impactful those players 30 or over will be by the time the 2027 World Cup comes around, given that most will be around 32 or older by then - by comparison, any player 24 or under will likely be in or starting to enter their primes by the time that tournament starts. Especially when you consider how much Canada has struggled with a veteran-heavy group this year, that’s no small detail.
Because of that, look for Canada to embrace a youth movement in 2026. There are valid reasons why they haven’t been able to fully commit to that this year - ideally, Olivia Smith, who is regarded as a massive player for the future of this team, isn’t the player with the 21st most minutes next year because she’s fully healthy all year - but there are several other youngsters who could also earn a look, too.
Plus, it’s not to say that Canada should completely cut all of their veterans loose, either. Ultimately, a strong calling card of this group for years has been their culture, so cutting out the veterans who have been key to that could have a devastating effect on that, and it’s not as if players forget how to play soccer after 30, too. 
Instead, a balance can be struck, one where Canada can hand the keys to key players 24 or younger, like Jade Rose (who was 7th in minutes in 2025), Jayde Riviere (13th in minutes), Holly Ward (17th in minutes), Simi Awujo (20th in minutes), Smith (21st in minutes) and many others, while also ensuring that key players over 30 like Janine Sonis (3rd in minutes), Adriana Leon (5th in minutes) and Kailen Sheridan (8th in minutes) still have a role to play, as long as they perform and earn them.
And don’t forget the impact of players still in their prime, such as Jessie Fleming (2nd in minutes), Emma Regan (4th in minutes), Vanessa Gilles (9th in minutes), Julia Grosso (10th in minutes), Gabrielle Carle (12th in minutes), who are incredibly valuable contributors to this team, and are not to be forgotten in this battle of ‘young vs. old’.
Speaking of those players in their primes, however, it’s worth highlighting Regan, who took a huge step forward this year, and at 25, shows why it’s important to embed players 24 or younger into the set-up going forward, as she’s proven to be an excellent find for this team. She might not have been playing at the highest level when she first started to get Canadian call-ups a few years ago, but she’s blossomed into a key piece, one that can help power this transition period Canada is going through.
Yet, that’s the last thing to also watch out for in 2026 - Canada’s big priority when it comes to squad selection has to start considering club form, much as they did with Regan when they started regularly calling her up in 2023, even though she was playing in the lesser-watched Danish league at the time. One big change among elite teams in the 2020s has been that club play has become imperative for top players looking to earn their spots on top national teams, thanks to the incredible growth of the professional game.
Before, some of the top players in the world could get away with being okay at club level, as they’d rock up and perform internationally, which was what mattered most at the time. Now, the club game is just as big as the international game, so there’s more of a correlation between those who are shining for club and country - just look at what’s going on with teams such as the US, Spain and England as a prime example of that.
Because of that, look for Canada to try and place more emphasis on club form going forward, as several of their key players haven’t hit the sort of standards that you’d like them to with their clubs in recent years - even despite Stoney’s many calls for her players to find new club situations.
If that means dropping a player struggling in a higher-ranked league to bring in a young player thriving in a lesser-regarded league, so be it - some of Canada’s best performers this year, such as Regan and Holly Ward, played in the Northern Super League’s inaugural season, and past standouts such as Evelyne Viens, Marie-Yasmine Alidou, Olivia Smith and others really broke out for Canada while playing at smaller European leagues, so it’s not as if Canada shouldn’t turn their nose at a young player who breaks out in 2026 while playing in the NSL, the Portuguese league or another similar circuit..
"Casey Stoney said 'If you're not performing in club you will not come into camp' and I think that she needs to stick to that threat."
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) December 2, 2025
Is it time for some more serious call-up considerations for the CanWNT 🇨🇦 in 2026 - and should club form play a larger role? 👀 pic.twitter.com/TF32xO2Kyb
By doing that, that could push Canadians playing across the world to raise their level, while also motivating some of the veterans in this group to step up in a big way for their clubs to match that (and to leave those clubs if they’re unable to do that).
Of course, from there, the job would be far from over for this Canadian team, which still has to further refine and develop their identity going forward, but they’ll struggle to do that without fostering more of a competitive player pool, showing why that’s such an important goal of theirs heading into next year. 
Ultimately, with the limited time that international teams get to spend together, it makes it important for players to come into camps in form, so that they can raise the competitive level of a group instead of playing catch-up, which in turn helps a team push to new heights and embed new ideas.
Therefore, while the end of 2025 was rough for this Canadian team, if it can spark them to hit the reset button in 2026, perhaps there can be some value to these losses - even if they missed a key chance to accelerate that process this year, one in which they played no competitive matches.
With the next Concacaf Championship now less than a year away, time is quickly ticking for this team, so hopefully they can take advantage of this opportunity they have with no competitive games until that tournament, giving them the chance to experiment.
