Unstoppable force

Even at the age of 40, Canada's talismanic captain and all-time record scorer remains as determined as ever to deliver success

- CHRISTINE SINCLAIR

For more than a decade Christine Sinclair was Canada’s best footballer; for several years she was probably the best in the world. At the 2015 Women’s World Cup in her home nation, her face stared out of magazines and newspapers, video games, postage stamps and television screens, and down from giant billboards. In her stellar career she has won over 300 caps for her country and scored 190 international goals, a tally which put her top of the all-time scoring charts – including both male and female internationals.

She’ll be 40 when the 2023 World Cup starts. Inevitably she’s no longer the best in the world, or even in Canada, but she remains hugely influential and there was never any doubt over coach Bev Priestman taking her captain to Australia.

On the pitch she started Canada’s toughest warm-up matches, away to the US and France, and was part of the Portland Thorns team that won the NWSL title in November. Off it she is leading the fight for equality. So shy as a schoolgirl she walked the corridors with her head down, she took to celebrity uneasily, doing it because she recognised that she had to in order to promote the sport and, later, research into multiple sclerosis which her mother suffered from prior to her death last year.