Age will take its toll on the largely veteran Canadian women鈥檚 soccer team following the cycle that includes the ongoing 2015 World Cup and the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics next year.
When it does, 20-year-old Emma Fletcher of Victoria is among those players who aims to be ready to fill the gaps when the likes of Crofton鈥檚 Emily Zurrer eventually depart. The process has already begun with youthful Kadeisha Buchanan, Ashley Lawrence and Jessie Fleming selected for the World Cup team.
鈥淚t great to see them doing well up there,鈥� said Fletcher, of the breakthrough threesome.
Buchanan, Lawrence and Fleming will join Fletcher, and the rest of the Canadian youth movement, in the 2015 Pan Am Games next month in Toronto. They know it鈥檚 part of the process to get to where they want to be.
鈥淸Playing on the World Cup/Olympic team] is something I have dreamed of since I was a little girl,鈥� said Fletcher, the only sa国际传媒 player on the Canadian women鈥檚 Pan Am Games soccer team.
鈥淏ut I am not taking anything for granted.鈥�
She knows spots on the Canadian team for the 2019 World Cup in France and 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics will be earned by what happens then, not by promise shown now.
Not that Fletcher doesn鈥檛 show plenty of that as a dynamic attacking midfielder/winger.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a huge honour to be asked to wear the national team jersey again at the Pan Am Games,鈥� said the former Mount Douglas Secondary student, who began the sport in the Gordon Head association.
鈥淧laying in the U-20 World Cup was one of the best experiences of my life.鈥�
Fletcher, the lone sa国际传媒 player on the team, played extensively in all four games and was key in helping propel host sa国际传媒 to the quarter-finals of the 2014 U-20 World Cup.
Fletcher is a dual citizen 鈥� dad Stefan is from New Zealand 鈥� and she played in the 2012 U-17 World Cup at Azerbaijan in the famous national-team black of the Commonwealth-cousin Kiwis. But she found her heart beats red and white and that she always felt more Canadian.
And, continentally, more of a West Coaster. That鈥檚 why Fletcher, a college junior, is transferring her U.S. NCAA career this fall from the Louisiana State University Tigers to the Cal-Berkeley Bears of the Pac-12.
鈥淚t was culturally really different and I was not really fitting into the South,鈥� said Fletcher, who set an LSU freshman record for assists with 12 in 2013.
鈥淚 missed home and wanted to be closer. The LSU coach was great [in allowing Fletcher to go to Cal-Berkeley without having to sit out a season],鈥� added the Islander, whose brother Sam Fletcher has been selected to the sa国际传媒 boys鈥� U-16 team and was both the outstanding junior soccer player and overall top junior athlete this year at Reynolds Secondary.
Fletcher is planning on an interdisciplinary degree perhaps leading to speech pathology or child psychology.
鈥淚 like kids,鈥� she said.
It鈥檚 all part of a busy young life balancing school and also NCAA and international sport. She is looking forward to her first multi-sport experience in Toronto.
鈥淏eing around athletes from other sports in the Pan Am Games will make it different than the soccer-only international tournaments I鈥檝e played in,鈥� added Fletcher, who has stayed in game trim this spring and summer by working out with the UVic Vikes players.
Fletcher and her Canadian mates play Group B fixtures at the Games on July 11 against Ecuador, July 15 against Costa Rica and July 19 versus Brazil at CIBC Hamilton Pan Am Soccer Stadium, normally the CFL home of the Tiger-Cats.
Fletcher will be among a contingent of more than 50 Island athletes from several sports competing in the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games, which run July 10-24.
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