CanWNT players reflect on Christine Sinclair's retirement from international soccer | CBC Sports

Sinclair's in here, and scores! Christine Sinclair gives Canada a deserved lead. It'll come to Sinclair, who shoots and scores! Christine Sinclair makes no mistake. To finish it, is it in? Oh, you bet it's in! Captain Fantastic does it again for Canada. 22 years of blood, sweat and tears for Christine Sinclair. But finally, she can call herself an Olympic champion. Sinki is, you know, the pivotal of Canada's soccer. Everything that she's done for this team is just, there are no words. She's so humble. She really just exudes what it is to be Canadian. And I'm just so grateful to have been able to share the field with her. I've learned a lot being able to play by her side, not only on the field, but off the field. She's a great human, a great friend. Even if you ask her, she would say the same thing. She wants us to be even better than when she was on the team. She's always talked about leaving the sport better off than when she was a part of it. And her legacy will live on forever. I think Sink has always been a bit of a thermometer for the team. She's definitely a woman of few words, but I think when she gets angry or she's not satisfied with what's going on, it's very clear. And I think the team reacts in a way when Sink says something. When I was a younger player on the team, I remember that there was a time that she kind of left a pair of spare boots at my hotel room door, because I didn't necessarily have that many pairs of boots. And she'd been with Nike for years. And yeah, she just left me a pair of boots. And I don't think she would have said much, but had maybe overheard that I needed a pair of six studs or something, wherever we were playing. Those are the kind of actions that she does. And again, doesn't necessarily need a lot of acknowledgement and doesn't need to go up to me and tell me that this is what she's doing. But I think she's always just kind of that quiet force. And you can feel her trust and respect for her teammates. And it's very powerful. I think that off the pitch, she's just the most humble and incredible human and captain. I think other than being able to be the best there ever was, I think the talent that she's had is being able to bring the best out of everyone else. I saw someone say, Cinqui, you're a national treasure. And I do think that's very accurate, because women's soccer didn't have any references in Canada. There was nobody to really pave that path for people like myself, people who also aspire to be professional soccer players. Cinqui definitely created a path for Canadian women's soccer players to have a future and to make it sustainable at that. After I scored my first goal, she kind of just told me, she was like, ah, there's going to be plenty more. And I think coming from her, that was, yeah, that was pretty special.