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The Canadian women’s national soccer team became fan favourites by winning a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics.

Their performance transcended sports since Canadians who otherwise had little interest in soccer found themselves supporting the team.

They repeated the feat four years later with another bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Now, the focus is on the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France where Canada looks to once again capture the imagination of an entire country.

“We have a good group of veterans, who have a lot of tournament experience between the World Cup and Olympics who can lead the team in terms of experience and exposure in these types of event,” said Canadian goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe.

“And then we’ve got this incredible young group of younger players who also have some tournament experience. Winning a bronze medal in Rio, we were a young team there and a lot of those youngsters are still with and are almost in this middle group of young veterans in a way.”