McLeod was injured and had to leave the game early in the Canadians 2-1 overtime loss to the US in a quarterfinal match.

The Canadian women’s soccer team fell to the Swedes 2-1. They finish Group Play at 1-1-1 and will advance to elimination play with their first round opponent being the United States.

BEIJING — Cheryl McLeod can’t decide whether to play hurt at the Summer Olympics or retreat to the safety of her hotel room to rest her frayed nerves.

“I’m not sure if I can take much more this,” Canada’s unofficial first soccer mom – at least for this week – said Sunday morning on the 338 km/hr bullet train from Tianjin to Beijing.

TIANJIN, China — Canada’s women’s soccer team could have wilted under the heat and humidity and stifling noise of the pro-Chinese crowd.

Instead, they turned the intense conditions in their favour Saturday, playing host China to a 1-1 draw to remain unbeaten at the Olympic Games.

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Canada wore down Argentina to win its Olympic debut 2-1 Wednesday, getting a goal in each half and using a significant size advantage to subdue the South Americans.

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Even at a young age McLeod seemed to sense her athletic career was on the soccer pitch. Before she even hit her teenage years she expressed a dream, not unlike other women on Canada’s Olympic soccer team, that some day she would play for the gold — even though women’s soccer wasn’t then in the Games.