It was a frustrating afternoon for the Canadian women’s national team in Cartagena, Spain, as they were unable to finish their chances in a 0-0 draw against the Czech Republic on Friday. Playing at Estadio Cartagonova, Canada looked like the better team, but were ultimately left settling for a draw.

The Canadians had 61% possession and 20 shots in this one, but only two of them were on target.

After a fairly quiet start to the match, Canada had their best chance of the first half in the 23rd minute. After a perfectly weighted pass from Gabrielle Carle split two defenders, Christine Sinclair ran onto the ball and picked it up near the goal line. Her pass across the box was redirected, but Jessie Fleming’s follow-up effort was straight into the hands of the goalkeeper.

The Czechs also had several chances in the opening 45 minutes, almost exclusively on the counter attack from Canadian turnovers, but one was fired wide and the others were swept up by the expectedly strong duo of Vanessa Gilles and Kadeisha Buchanan at centre-back.

Adriana Leon seemed to be inspired in this one, as she’s likely one of the players on the edge of the 18-player squad heading to Tokyo — she needed to put in a big performance and she did. Despite not scoring, Leon linked up well with the midfield and Sinclair well during her 55 minutes of action, and was throwing herself into every challenge.

Canada missed another attacker in this match, as they were without Janine Beckie  — the Manchester City forward was ruled out of playing in either friendly after suffering an injury in training this week, but she’s expected to be okay for the Olympics.

Bianca St. Georges made her international debut on Friday afternoon, coming on to replace Jayde Riviere in the 80th minute. She made an immediate impact, finding Jordyn Huitema (who also impressed off the bench) within seconds after coming onto the pitch. St. Georges found a diving Huitema with a cross, who sent her header around the post.

Deanne Rose had the best chance of the second half in the 84th minute. With an open net in front of her after a low cross from the left wing, Rose sent the ball into the side-netting. That was the story of this match for Canada; they were finding some opportunities to do damage, but were just unable to find the back of the net.

On a more positive note, it was a third consecutive clean sheet for Stephanie Labbé and her backline, as they were impressive once again.

Up next for Canada is one final pre-Olympic tune up — on Monday (3 pm ET/12pm PT) against Brazil. The two sides last played against each other at the SheBelieves Cup in February, where Brazil won 2-0.

MATCH NOTES

• With just over a month until the Olympic soccer tournament kicks off, Canada have just one match left, on Monday against Brazil, before they open the tournament against hosts Japan on July 21.
• Apart from eleven minutes at the start of their SheBelieves Cup opener against the United States, Stephanie Labbé has played every single minute for Canada in 2021 — that was her fifth match in a row, and fourth start.
• This was the first-ever match between Canada and the 27th-ranked Czech Republic