"Not good enough": CanWNT issued wake-up call after listless defeats to Netherlands, Switzerland
It’s a big wake-up call for the CanWNT.
Just months after Casey Stoney said her team was "miles off" in a 3-0 defeat to the USWNT, the Canadian boss vented similar frustrations after her team fell 1-0 to the Netherlands on Tuesday, which capped off a miserable October window, one that also included a 1-0 defeat to Switzerland last Friday.
“It was not good enough; it was nowhere near the level in terms of technical quality, the ability to keep the ball, and winning 50/50 duels,” Stoney bluntly noted after the Netherlands match. “It was not to the standard we need or that is required when we’re playing top opponents.”
Not only was Stoney frustrated that her team have now lost three straight matches for the first time since 2019, however, but she was also quite unhappy with the nature of her team’s two performances in this October window, as seen in her comments above.
Having had over three months to stew on the frustrations of that US defeat, it was hoped that Canada would come into this camp with a fire lit underneath them after that loss - instead, they’re left with more questions than answers as they head into the final window of the year.
After a bright start to Stoney’s tenure, in which they had a record of 6W-1D-1L in their first eight games, this feels like a crucial moment for this team, especially when considering the way these three tough performances have come together rapidly in succession.
“It’s never okay to lose, but if the performances were getting better, then we’d be more okay. The performances did not get better,” Stoney explained. 
In particular, what stands out is not the defeats themselves, but how they lost, as Canada were virtually unrecognizable on the pitch across their two games this window.
More specifically, the internal fire that always seems to drive this team was missing, as they didn’t look like the side that managed to drag themselves out of the group stage of the 2024 Olympics despite a six-point deduction, or the team that won the 2021 Olympics, for example.
Instead, they were timid and out of ideas, as they struggled to keep the ball, were outmatched physically and looked disorganized on both sides of the play, which cost them heavily in both defeats.
GOAL 🇳🇱
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) October 28, 2025
CanWNT 🇨🇦 go down 1-0 to Netherlands as Lynn Wilms beats her Aston Villa teammate Sabrina D'Angelo to open the scoring
🔴 Watch LIVE on OneSoccer pic.twitter.com/Af1VrlNmAI
Given that they ran back a pretty veteran-heavy lineup in both games of this camp, that’s a big worry, especially when considering Stoney’s comments from the summer, in which she tried to light that fire under her players after that US defeat.
Yet, this underlines the crossroads at which Stoney currently finds herself. Ultimately, when seeing Canada’s struggles across their last three performances, in which she essentially ran back the same team on three occasions (she started just 16 players across those three matches), it’s easy to suggest that Stoney could perhaps try shaking up her starting XI, helping weed out the complacency that has seemingly set in across their ranks.
Certainly, that’s been an idea Stoney’s played around with doing, but when asked why that hasn’t come to fruition quite yet, she revealed the other edge of the coin - she feels the player pool isn’t in a position to support those sorts of sweeping changes quite yet, either, and that wholesale changes could also be to her team’s detriment.
For a coach that hasn’t even been in charge for a year, it’s a tough balancing act, as she needs time as much as she needs to make those big changes - and that’s not exactly an easy dilemma to navigate, especially when considering the fickle nature of international management, where coaches don’t always have the most time to work with players and are at the mercy of their talent pool (something Stoney has been trying to grow over the past eight months).
“Who am I changing personnel to? The pool is the pool, and it’s so small,” she pondered.
She added: “There’s an element where we probably need to make changes, but we also need time.”
It's now 3 consecutive defeats for the CanWNT 🇨🇦, a losing run they haven't experienced since 2019 😬
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) October 28, 2025
So what comes next for Casey Stoney's side? 👀 pic.twitter.com/4Q422gCCMi
No doubt, though, no matter what the fallout is for this Canadian team going forward, the big thing they’ll want to figure out ahead of the next window is their identity.
That’ll need to come on the tactical side, yes, but it’ll also come in the form of intangibles such as work rate and other things of the like, which were not at the level Canada would’ve liked in this window.
In particular, a big area of improvement that Stoney will want to see is on the physical side of their game - while Canada actually ended up winning 58% of their duels against the Netherlands, they lost several crucial duels in key areas, and that figure doesn’t account for the several times where the Netherlands just simply nudged a Canadian player aside before recovering the ball, which technically doesn’t register as a duel.
Given that a hallmark of past Canadian teams has always been their ability to impose themselves physically in matches, that’s a big worry, as Canada looked second-best in far too many of those situations in this camp - for context, they also lost 47% of their duels against Switzerland, too.
For a side that is already struggling to match the technical demands that matches like this provide - they completed just 73% of their passes vs. the Netherlands and 78% of their passes vs. Switzerland - they must be at least able to hold their own on the physical side of the match, too.
GOAL 🇨🇭
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) October 24, 2025
Switzerland strike first vs. the CanWNT 🇨🇦 as Alayah Pilgrim cleans up in the box with a cool finish 🎯
🔴 Watch LIVE on OneSoccer pic.twitter.com/cSLI3v2aXt
With the women’s game becoming faster, more technical, and more physically demanding with each passing year, the best teams in the world must be able to keep up in all of those facets, and Canada looked unable to match what sides like the Netherlands and Switzerland were able to bring to the table.
“I’ve played against Canada, I’ve watched Canada, and I’ve heard that was the hallmark, but it isn’t now, so we’ve got to get back to basics,” Stoney said of her team’s struggles in duels. “I’ll be honest, I feel like we looked like little girls against women out there, at times, in terms of the duels. They looked sharper, they moved the ball quicker, and then we got into duels and we got pushed off the ball.”
“We don’t have the most physical side, but we can still use our bodies in more efficient ways."
POST-GAME SHOW 🚨
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) October 28, 2025
The OS panel wanted to see more heart and grit and fight from the CanWNT 🇨🇦 in this second friendly vs. the Netherlands...
...so did we see any of it? 😔 pic.twitter.com/ubc170mgHx
Yet, for all of the frustrations from a defeat like this one, it’s worth extracting a few positives from this window.
Namely, a big one is that despite looking far off the standard in both games, Canada only lost both games 1-0, and could’ve still gotten results in each match had they been sharper in front of goal and defensively.
Considering some of the players they’re missing due to injuries, that’s encouraging, as it’s not as if they’ve regressed to a team that is incapable of winning at the top level. Along with the play of players such as Jayde Riviere and Gabrielle Carle, things weren’t all bad this window.
Now, though, if they’re to maintain their status as an elite side going forward, it’ll be imperative that they find their identity, and quickly, or else they risk being left behind as teams around them continue to improve at a rapid rate.
Things don’t get easier for them in their next window, as a pair of games against Japan await them at the end of the year, but there’s a reason why they’re playing top opponents like that right now, despite their struggles - iron sharpens iron, after all.
Certainly, Stoney has made it clear that her team needs this wake-up call - now, it’s to be seen what sort of effect her words have heading into her team’s next games.
“We’ve got lots of work to do,” she said. “But we have to keep playing good opponents to let us feel what that’s like, so that we then know what we need to work on as players now return to their clubs. This is a transition period for us.”
