Sinclair said she spent half the year playing baseball (second base, after Alomar) and half playing soccer from age 4. Her mother played, her father played, her older brother played. Two of her uncles, Bruce and Brian Gant, played for the Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League.

“It was just something our family did,” Sinclair said.

She became a two-time N.C.A.A. champion at Portland, and with a degree in life science, Sinclair speaks with a kind of reticence that is often called humility but may also be the restraint demanded by scholarship. When she does speak her mind, people take notice, as happened after the 2012 Olympic semifinals against the United States.

It was a tense, engaging match during which Sinclair scored three times and the Norwegian referee made two disputed calls — one for time-wasting on Canada’s goalkeeper and another for a hand ball that led to a penalty goal by Wambach. The United States finally prevailed, 4-3, on a header by Alex Morgan in the 123rd minute, after which Sinclair said, “We feel cheated.”

She did not stop there, adding: “We feel like we didn’t lose, we feel like it was taken from us. It’s a shame in a game like that that was so important, the ref decided the result before it started.”

The teams ended up staying on the same floor of the same hotel that night in Manchester, England, said Glass, the Canadian equipment manager.

“They wouldn’t even look at us,” Glass said of the Americans. “They knew we got robbed.”

After the Olympics, Sinclair received a four-game suspension by FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, for “displaying unsporting behavior toward match officials.”

Yet what is most remembered — and cherished — by the Canadian team is what Sinclair said in the dressing room after the match at Old Trafford. Amid quiet sobbing, she told her teammates that she had never been prouder of them. And, using a certain curse word for emphasis, she added that the tournament was not over, saying, “We have a bronze medal to win.”