As Canada heads to World Cup, Julia Grosso prepares for another big moment

June 26, 2024

It’s the gold medal match of the women’s football tournament at the Tokyo Olympics. Canada is taking on Sweden. The game is tied 1-1. Extra time solves nothing. Penalty kicks ensue.

After the first five attempts, Canada and Sweden remain deadlocked at two. Canada goalkeeper Stephanie Labbé denies Sweden’s Jonna Andersson. Julia Grosso, the sixth player, can clinch gold for Canada.

No fans are present Nissan Stadium in Yokohama due to pandemic restrictions, but that doesn’t ease the tension. Canada had entered the tournament hoping to win its first Olympic gold medal in women’s soccer after capturing bronze in the last two such tournaments.

Grosso goes blank, but before long she’ll know that she took a deep breath, started her run-up, and took a left-footed shot that beat Sweden goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl in the bottom left corner of the net. Grosso jumps, her face euphoric. Players swarm the 20-year-old midfielder. Canada won gold.

“I don’t think I fully understood in that moment what that meant,” Grosso told The Athletic. “It was the craziest, coolest moment of my whole, entire life.”

Two years since that historic goal, Grosso, now 22, will represent Canada at the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup. She had a successful college career at the University of Texas, before signing with Juventus in Italy’s Serie A. She won the Coppa Italia with Juventus in consecutive seasons and Serie A Midfielder of the Year honors for 2022-23.

Grosso’s arrival on the international stage isn’t a shock to those who coached and played alongside her, though. She’s a budding star, who exudes creativity in the midfield while relishing the big moments.

Grosso helped Juventus to the Coppa Italia title this year (Ivan Romano/Getty Images)

It was now a decade ago, but Chris Sargeant still remembers his first experiences seeing a midfielder whose creativity stood out from her peers.

Sargeant was the coach of Mountain United Football Club, a high-performance youth soccer club located in Burnaby, British Columbia, and the player was a 12-year-old Grosso. He marveled at her ability with the ball, to take players on and move past her opponents easily with her feet at a young age.

“She could unlock defenses,” Sargeant said.

Sargeant would go on to coach Grosso as an assistant at Vancouver Whitecaps FC Girls Elite Academy, a program that began in January 2015 for top women’s soccer prospects in western Canada. Grosso played with the Whitecaps FC Girls Elite REX from 2015 to 2018.

The Vancouver program’s impact remains huge. Several Canadian women’s national team players were a part of Whitecaps Girls Elite, including Grosso, Jordyn Huitema and Jayde Riviere.

“You don’t often get groups with that many players with that much ability all at the same time,” Sargeant said. “They got on very well but also pushed each other because of how competitive they wanted to be and how determined they all were.”

Grosso and Huitema both grew up in British Columbia, attending Burnaby Central Secondary School together. Their friendship blossomed in high school while being teammates on Whitecaps Girls Elite. Huitema describes it as the “JJ connection.”

“She understands everything I’m going through in soccer and if I need to talk to her about something or have a conversation about it, she’ll give me good advice, which is always nice and needed,” Huitema said.

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When they played together growing up, the pair scored goals, and motivated each other to be the best players and people. Those qualities stood out to Angela Kelly, the women’s soccer coach at the University of Texas — so much so that they outweighed Grosso’s relatively small stature.

“She had great vision,” Kelly said. “She moved off the ball extremely well. She didn’t shy away from taking on. And she was a winner.”

Kelly recruited Grosso to play for the Longhorns, and the Canadian would go on to make 60 appearances at the college level, scoring 21 goals.

Her biggest moment came in the Big 12 semifinal against West Virginia on Nov. 4, 2021. With the game scoreless after 90 minutes and extra time, the match went to penalty kicks. Familiar circumstances for Grosso, three months removed from her Olympic gold-clinching penalty kick.

Kelly remembers Grosso looking at her teammates and saying, “Ladies we have this.” She looked at Kelly and said, “Angela, don’t worry, we got this.”

Once again, Grosso blocked everything out, and executed the spot kick. Texas defeated West Virginia, advancing to its first Big 12 championship final since 2007.

“Pick your spot, don’t change your spot,” Kelly said is her advice to players on penalty kicks. “Don’t listen to anything. Don’t look at anyone focused on your task at hand and execute. That’s exactly what Julia did at that moment.”

Canada wore shirts reading “enough is enough” ahead of their SheBelieves Cup opener (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Grosso will likely make her Women’s World Cup debut in Australia, but it won’t be her first time experiencing the circus that tends to surround the tournament; she was on the roster for the 2019 edition, but didn’t make an appearance in any of Canada’s four matches in France.

“It was very frustrating,” Grosso said on not playing during the 2019 Women’s World Cup. “I was a younger player so I wanted to play. But on the bright side, I learned so much from that tournament.”

Grosso credits captain Christine Sinclair for her calming presence on the team, teaching her to not dwell in the past.

“I’ve learned to stay in the present moment,” Grosso said. “(Sinclair) is just so calm and makes everyone around her feel better about the situation we’re in no matter what it is.”

Preparations for Australia weren’t without distractions. On Saturday, Feb. 11, the Canada women’s national team sat out training. Canadian women’s player representative Janine Beckie told The Athletic the team demanded “immediate change” and called on Canada Soccer to treat the women’s program “equally and fairly” with its funding. The Canadian Soccer Players’ Association said in a statement that the players felt their preparation and the future success of the women’s program have been compromised by Canada Soccer’s “inability to support its national teams.” According to the statement, the women’s team prepared for the upcoming Women’s World Cup with fewer training camp days, fewer players and coaches invited into camps and “immense uncertainty about compensation.”The players eventually participated in the SheBelieves Cup, though Sinclair tweeted that “The SheBelieves (Cup) is being played in protest” ahead of Canada’s first game of the tournament.

On March 2, Canada Soccer reached an interim funding agreement with the Canadian women’s national team that is retroactive to 2022. The terms of the deal “mirror a similar deal with the men’s national team players that includes per-game incentives and results-based compensation,” according to the statement.

For Grosso, she admitted the toll of the dispute.

“It’s definitely unfortunate that we have to go through that,” Grosso said.

“I do know that my team is just a bunch of fighters. We always pull through together and no matter what the circumstance, we’re always by each other side. So I think that’s all that matters. It’s unfortunate, we deserve a lot better, but hopefully, we’ll get that.”

Grosso looks to the veteran players to leave behind a better Canadian national women’s team. Sinclair, Beckie, Quinn and Sophie Schmidt testified before the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, providing details on their dispute with the country’s national soccer federation.

Grosso calls them “the voice of our team.”

“It’s very inspiring,” Grosso said. “They have done so much for us. Maybe one day we’ll be in that position, and we’ll keep fighting for more and do the same things.”

The connection between the players on and off the field, Grosso says, will fuel Canada at the Women’s World Cup. By staying focused — blocking everything out — Grosso aims to reach new heights for Canada.

(Photo: James Williamson – AMA/Getty Images)

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