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Marie-Yasmine Alidou celebrates Canada's victory at the 2025 Pinatar Cup. (Photo: Canada Soccer)
Five CanWNT players whose stock rose at the 2025 Pinatar Cup
2025-02-27
by
Benedict Rhodes, CanPL.ca Contributor (@BTFR17)
Canada Soccer CANWNT National Teams

Canada won the 2025 Pinatar Cup on Tuesday, beating Chinese Taipei 7-0 to secure top spot in the four-team invitational tournament.

While Canada was certainly intending on winning the competition in Casey Stoney’s first few matches in charge of the team, the new head coach also used the camp as a chance to give several players opportunities to get more minutes than they did previously, or in some cases make their international debuts. Others returned to form after struggling a bit lately as well.

Here are five players who made the most of their opportunities and stood out across the three matches.

Emma Regan

Emma Regan had made a handful of appearances for Canada prior to the Pinatar Cup, but this tournament featured some breakout performances from the AFC Toronto midfielder. Playing alongside Julia Grosso in Canada’s opening match before pairing with Jessie Fleming in the third match (with an appearance off the bench in between), Regan showed an ability to dictate play on and off the ball and make play come through her for stretches of games at the base of the midfield.

The panel on OneSoccer compared her to the great Desiree Scott this week, and if she can make that “destroyer” role in midfield her own, she will be a fixture in the national team for a long time.

Marie-Yasmine Alidou

Mimi Alidou has a strong track record of scoring goals at the club level, including ten in fifteen continental games with current club Benfica. For some reason, though, she never really broke into the national team on a regular basis under past coaches. Alidou featured in all three of Canada’s matches in this camp, appearances six through eight of her national team career. Her best performance came in the final game against Chinese Taipei where she scored a first-half hat trick to lift Canada to the trophy. She also had success at Pinatar Arena late last year, scoring in a friendly win over South Korea.

Casey Stoney said this week that she was shocked Alidou hasn’t had more opportunities with the national team in her career. Frankly, so is everyone else.

Clarissa Larisey

Like Alidou, Clarissa Larisey has scored consistently at a high level in Europe and university, but it hasn’t necessarily resulted in regular national team appearances. She will have a chance to win a more regular spot in this year of development for the national team without any competitive games, and if she plays like she did at the Pinatar Cup she will force Stoney to call her up regularly and give her minutes.

On Tuesday, in her 12th national team appearance, Larisey scored her second international goal with a well-taken header to put the icing on the cake in the 7-0 win that clinched the Pinatar Cup. Next she will be looking to find some scoring form with Crystal Palace after her January transfer to South London as well.

Samantha Chang

Four years after her senior international debut at the 2021 SheBelieves Cup, Samantha Chang was back in the fold this week with new head coach Casey Stoney. She came off the bench at halftime against China in Canada’s opening match of the tournament before playing just over a half-an-hour against Chinese Taipei on Tuesday, both times slotting into central midfield admirably.

After a brief stint in Europe playing in Denmark and Portugal, including at HB Køge with Emma Regan, Chang will be one of the inaugural players in the Northern Super League this season with Vancouver Rise FC. If she can stand out there, this year could be the one that sees her become a regular in the national team.

Jordyn Huitema

After almost a year without scoring for the national team, and an up-and-down NWSL season with Seattle Reign, Huitema needed to have a big camp to start 2025, and she did.

An unused substitute in Canada’s 1-1 draw against China to open the tournament, Huitema started the next two games against Mexico and Chinese Taipei. She assisted Vanessa Gilles’ winning goal against Mexico with a headed pass from a corner kick, before finding the back of the net twice herself in the dominant performance against Chinese Taipei. Her first goal was a volley from a corner in the first half to make it 3-0, before she made it 6-0 shortly after halftime from the penalty spot.

Casey Stoney has introduced a two-striker formation with the national team in this camp, so if Huitema can take this momentum into the NWSL season and the next national team camp in March and April, she has the opportunity to stake a claim to one of them.

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