A second victory for Canada at the 2026 Concacaf Women’s U-17 Championship

Canada stayed perfect at the 2026 Concacaf Women’s U-17 Championship on Thursday with a 7-0 win over Dominican Republic.

Gabriela Istocki, sporting the armband again, opened the scoring early once more with a curling right-footer from the top of the box in the 6th minute. Brooklyn Schwartzberg made it 2-0 in the 23rd minute with a near-carbon-copy strike. Istocki then added a third three minutes later from a tight-angled finish off a slipped ball from Racquel Partovi.

Canada would add four more in the second half with Adalyn Fairweather (55’), Lacey Kindel (64’), Partovi (81’), and Brooklyn Boldt (91’) all finding the back of the net.

Reed Tingley setup Fairweather’s emphatic finish with a square ball from the left. Kindel’s was another of those back-post moves Jesse Acteson spoke about after the first match – arriving on the left to get on the end of a ball from Partovi. A searching diagonal from Sloane Southcombe found Partovi on the right and she took care of the rest. And some hustle to win the ball and then find her teammate from Fairweather led to Boldt’s stoppage-time strike.

Acteson was pleased with his side’s performance.

“Happy with the game,” said the acting head coach. “We executed what we had spoken about before the game, so that was good.”

“We spoke about having a 90-minute performance and we feel like we did that,” Acteson continued. “Competing all the way to the end, making sure, even though it was hot, we were keeping our habits and our principles alive, so we’re really happy with that.”

One element that was new on the day – Nicaragua didn’t get forward nearly as much in game one as Dominican Republic did in game two – was the option of transitioning into attack quickly, really stretching the field vertically to create openings.

Istocki’s first goal, with Bridget Asekomhe chasing down a long ball before laying off to the captain, was a rather direct counterattack.

“We knew [they would play] a little bit higher than the previous game, so it was a space that we were looking to exploit, especially early on, to get in behind them,” explained Acteson. “We felt like we had pace in the front and with their high back-line we could get in behind it and cause some problems. They executed really well.”

Both Asekomhe and Partovi saw action off the bench in the first match, but moved to the starting lineup against Dominican Republic – two of the eight changes Acteson made to his XI.

They repaid his faith with a combined five assists – two for Asekomhe and three for Partovi along with her goal.

“Those two had a really good impact,” said Acteson. “Were able to create a lot offensively.”

The quick turnaround was a factor in the number of changes, but so too was the faith the coaching staff has in their group.

“In tournament football you need everybody, all the players in your squad,” stressed Acteson. “We believe in everybody, feel like everyone can go out and compete and do a good job.”

Canada, aside from a slight dip in the second half against Nicaragua when the rhythm of the game became stop-start, has kept a consistent level of performance, regardless of who was or wasn’t on the pitch. Every outfield player has seen action already, as have two of the three goalkeepers with Megan Lemieux stepping in for Kellyanne Dumas.

Fairweather is another such example: coming off the bench for the second-straight match to score another goal in Alajuela.

“Great goal, something that we had done in training as well yesterday, so she took it really well and then had a nice assist, something that we spoke about as well yesterday,” noted Acteson of Tingley’s square ball that picked out Fairweather near the penalty spot. “A really good performance for her.”

Tingley would not be awarded an assist on that goal – Partovi had the slightest of touches before Fairweather’s finish – but she has been electric through two matches, much like she was in Morocco last year. Tingley took on the armband when Istocki went off after half-time before passing it to Kindel when she exited.

“She has been really good so far,” said Acteson. “Gets after the back-line, attacks, creates a lot of good spaces. She’s been brilliant so far.”

Behind the scoring, Canada were able to keep a second consecutive clean-sheet.

It can be difficult to say too much about the defensive output on a day where Canada dominated the possession battle (74% to 26%) and outshot the opponent 24 to 7, but the central trio of Brady Burtnett in the holding midfield role, Christ-Mayron Brou and Élizabeth Proulx, the two centre-backs, as well as Lemieux in goal, managed everything Dominican Republic threw at them.

“We knew they were going to be pretty direct,” laid out Acteson. “We won a lot of first contacts – Brady won a lot of first contacts, the centre-backs won a lot of first contacts, something that we knew was going to be a difficult challenge for us.”

“There’s a couple moments in transition that we had to put out fires and the back-line, the keeper managed really well,” he continued. “A couple shaky moments, but we remained calm, we defended our box well.”

With six points and a +12 goal-differential Canada go into the final game with fate in their own hands. El Salvador, the opponent in game three, sits on four points after an opening day draw against Dominican Republic, so a single point will be enough for Canada to qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup.

The game will kick off at 2:36 pm ET and, if the trend continues, will be aired on OneSoccer – though with Bundesliga action at the same time, it may only be available via the website.

Having caught their matches from the Concacaf prequalifiers, Acteson knows what to expect from the Central Americans: “It’ll be a fight as well – we know that with our prescout.”

“It’s a team that’s going to fight, has some quality,” he continued. “We haven’t really watched them so far [here], so we’ll dive into that now and make sure that we’re ready to go for that game.”