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Emily Zurrer vies with Yesica Arrien of Argentina in Canada's 2-1 win at the Olympics.
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Aug. 13, 2008
SHANGHAI, China - Hello everyone...we just arrived in Shanghai to play our quarterfinal match against none other than your lovely country-USA!
Last night we lost, 2-1, to Sweden in the last match of our group play. Sweden was a very good team and we were just not on our game last night. Before the match began we found out that we had already made the quarters, and I think that it affected the way we handled the game. Receiving cards was also on the back of our minds at this point, especially for me. I had received one in the game against China, and if I were to get another one last night, I would have had to miss our quarterfinal game.
There is not much else to say about the game except that we didn't come out with our usual fighting Canadian spirit, and Sweden was able to exploit that. I hate losing, but at the same time, we are pumped to play our American rivals in the next round.
The two-hour plane ride to Shanghai went by fairly smoothly, except that it took forever going through security. They were checking absolutely everything in our bags. They even went as far as to light a few girls' hand sanitizer on fire in order to prove to them that it was flammable. They put my bag through the x-ray machine three times before finally letting me go through.
We arrived at a really nice five star hotel, which has a perfect view of the stadium we will play in. Everyone here is so warm and welcoming (like everyone in China basically), and it is nice to be away from the business of the village for a few days.
Our bags had traveled separately and were supposed to arrive later that evening. Well, much to our dismay, when our bags finally did arrive (about 15 minutes ago), there was stuff missing from all of them. Apparently, they had searched all of our bags and removed things like toiletries, electrical cords, even one of my shin pads! (shin GUARDS for those of you who may not understand the Canadian term-my American teammates for example!!!) One of my teammates was panicking because all of her cleats were missing from her bag, but luckily I found them stuffed in mine a few minutes later. One of our midfielders left her blackberry in her luggage and was pretty surprised/upset when she couldn't find it. We're hoping that it will turn up in someone else's bag, along with my shin pad/guard.
So basically most of us are without shampoo, face wash, toothbrushes, etc. right now, which can make an already tired team pretty cranky, But, there is nothing we can do about it, so we're just going to have to live with it for the time being. There are bigger things to worry about---like our next game!!!!!
