CALAIS, France — Janine Beckie scored in the 87th minute as Canada salvaged a 2-2 draw with Brazil at the Tournoi de France women's soccer tournament.
Beckie completed Canada's comeback from a 2-0 deficit when she collected a through ball from Diana Matheson and scored.
The goal came after Brazil was reduced to 10 players in the 75th minute when defender Jucinara was given a red card for pulling down Canadian midfielder Sophie Schmidt at the top of the box.
Matheson scored Canada's first goal in the 74th minute. Matheson, who has 19 career goals, became the second Canadian woman to score international "A" goal in three different decades along with captain Christine Sinclair.
"We had a good performance, a winning performance for 90 minutes," Canada coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller said. "We talked about finishing strong and I think we did finish strong."
"Overall, in a very short period of time we played three tier one, top ten teams in the world and it was a great test for us."
Marta opened the scoring in the eighth minute and Ludmilla da Silva made it 2-0 for No. 9 Brazil with a goal in the 17th minute.
Canada, ranked eighth in the world, finished the tournament 0-1-2 after opening with a 1-0 loss to fourth-ranked France and following with a 0-0 draw with third-ranked Netherlands. Canada was unable to get a goal against the Dutch despite playing with a numerical advantage for most of the second half.
Canada, which qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics earlier this year, returns to action for a friendly against Australia on April 14 in Vancouver.
Heiner-Moller used the Tournoi de France to give minutes to all 22 players in camp in preparation for final roster selection ahead of the Olympics.
"You have to test players within a certain spine, so you cannot change everything every time," he said. "I think they got a good opportunity to show themselves and what they're capable of doing right now, all 22 players in three matches against Top 10 teams in the world.
"This was a great step for us to be ready for the Olympics."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2020.
The Canadian Press
