As Wayne Rooneys milestone 100th cap at Wembley last Saturday and his three goals in two matches, edging him ever close to Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time England scoring record, have captured English footballs imaginations and headlines of late, over this same time frame, the English women’s team have quietly, and rather assuredly, gone about their business some 100-plus miles outside of London, all climaxing, come Sunday morning our time, in a rather monumental moment for women’s soccer in England - in fact, make that for English soccer itself. The venue is Wembley Stadium. The occasion is a rather prestigious friendly between two footballing nations with rather large designs on the FIFA Women’s World Cup head in Canada next summer. The current European champion Germans will put their second-place FIFA ranking on the line against England, who just in early August, throttled fifth-ranked Sweden 4-0. That match was played in rather unfashionable Hartlepool in front of a crowd of less than 5,000. Some three months later, a 55,000-capacity Wembley Stadium crowd will be in full voice in what will be the first women’s match in the home of football since the US beat Japan in the final of the London 2012 Summer Olympics. You’ll remember that occasion where, following the final whistle confirming gold for the US, shortly after we, and what seemed to be the entire nation, witnessed the extraordinary pictures as the Canadian flag was hoisted to those world famous Wembley rafters when we picked up that rather famous bronze medal. A defining moment, which was not only one of the greatest moments for Canadian soccer but one our entire nation will always look back on rather fondly - deep Canadian pride and tears of immense joy in equal measure. However, that was then and Sunday will most definitely be England’s moment. No one could have dared to imagine when the English FA announced the friendly fixture, that more than a month before the kick-off, they would announce a sell-out. All 55,000 tickets having been snapped up by a crowd whipped up into a fever pitch-like frenzy for women’s soccer.The FA could have sold another 20,000-plus, but as long planned major transportation works are scheduled for London this weekend, together with the police, it was decided to cap Sunday’s attendance at that 55,000 mark. To put this figure into a much clearer perspective, in September Wayne Rooney and his world famous cast of BPL stars could only muster a crowd of 40,000 for a Wembley international against Norway. Following yet another abysmal World Cup campaign, the appetite for the England team is reaching an all-time low. So disastrous was their World Cup that their ranking dropped from a credible 10th to 20th in the FIFA rankings. Meanwhile, the English women’s team has climbed above even us, as they sit in seventh spot currently. Want to run the perfect World Cup qualification campaign, Roy? Just have a look at how England set about qualifying for next summer: Played 10, won 10 - England hit the back of the net an incredible 51 times whilst only conceding a solitary goal over those 10 matches. Only the Germans compiled the better record in qualification for a World Cup where UEFA will have eight nations competing. Seven of those places have already been decided, with the eighth and final berth to be decided when Italy and the Netherlands go at it over the dreaded two-leg playoff. The first leg will be played in the Netherlands on Saturday with the return fixture next Thursday. England have their sights set on going at least one better next summer than how they performed at Germany 2011, where they went out rather cruelly on penalties to France in the quarterfinals - the semi-final stage, where, most surprisingly, the then-world champion Germans also came unstuck to Japan. Sunday’s match at Wembley between England and Germany is sure to be hotly contested. Bragging rights will certainly be on the line. An English victory would catapult the profile and prestige of women’s soccer close to that probe that recently landed on a comet out in distant space. England, though, is fully aware of the daunting task that lays ahead Sunday afternoon at Wembley Stadium against a team they are yet to beat. A pair of scoreless draws back in 2007 is the closest they have come against Germany, a six-time European and two-time World Cup champion. If England need any further inspiration or motivation they just need to look towards one of English footballs most inspiring of players and someone, come next summer, you’ll become rather familiar with in Fara Williams. Williams, who picked up her record-breaking 130th-international cap in August’s triumph over Sweden in August, lived for over six years as a homeless person. Yes, you read that correctly - the break-up of her family was reason why. Football would be Williams’s saviour - as the girl who was born a stone’s throw away from Stamford Bridge and grew up a huge Chelsea fan - spent her days on the street and her nights in a variety of London’s homeless shelters throughout this awful period of her life. If you think last season’s BPL was exciting as it came down to the wire in the final match, then in the Women’s Super League title race was even more mouth-watering. Three clubs had chance of the title going into the last game of the season. Williams’s club, Liverpool, needed both clubs above them, Chelsea and Birmingham City, to experience final day fixture blues. And that they duly did. Chelsea lost, Birmingham drew and, thanks to a Williams penalty, Liverpool ran out 3-0 winners and with it were crowned FAWSL Champions. England have been preparing for Sunday’s match, which falls a day shy of the 13th-anniversary of Williams’s England debut at St. George’s Park Football Centre, the national training centre where Roy Hodgson’s squad also prepared ahead of last Saturday’s Euro 2016 qualifier against Slovenia. Opened just over two years ago at a cost of ￡120 million ($215 million), St. George’s is home to all 16 national teams for both men and women and is set in over 300 acres of plush English countryside, 130 miles to the north of Wembley Stadium - the very same place where, last Saturday, Williams was special guest taking in the Euro 2016 qualifier from the comfort of the Royal Box. As Wayne Rooney was before the match on the occasion of his 100th cap, Williams was honoured on the pitch at half-time for becoming the most-capped player in women’s football for England. On Sunday afternoon, she gets chance down on the pitch along with her teammates, brimming with confidence, to finally overcome those über-successful Germans. With 55,000 cheering England on from the Wembley stands, the match has all the ingredients to go down as one of the more magnificent moments for English football. This in a stadium, which will always mean so very much for our women’s team and for all those who contributed to one of the most famous medals in Canadian Olympic history. Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca @TheSoccerNoel on Twitter Josh Jackson Super Bowl Jersey . Reyes, 26, was traded from Atlanta to Toronto in July 2010 and spent the remainder of the season in the minors. He began 2011 in the majors and made 20 starts with the Blue Jays, going 5-8 with a 5.40 earned run average before he was waived on Aug. Oren Burks Super Bowl Jersey . The 10-year deal the league and players agreed to that ended the 2011 lockout gave either side the right to opt out after six years. With the league projecting financial growth, there has been speculation that players will take that option in three years, especially since a new national TV contract will be in place by then. http://www.packersonlineteamstore.com/elgton-jenkins-jersey.html . The two teams will play through the completion of the game starting at 5pm ct on Wednesday. The regularly scheduled Wednesday night matchup will follow that and will now be seven innings. David Bakhtiari Super Bowl Jersey . -- Howie Kendrick had a two-run single in his first game batting leadoff this season, Chris Iannetta hit a pair of RBI singles and the Los Angeles Angels beat Cleveland 6-4 Tuesday night, sending the Indians to their fifth straight defeat. Ray Nitschke Super Bowl Jersey . Kripps, of Summerland, B.C., and Edmontons Barnett used a terrific second run to move up two spots, putting the Canadian duo in medal contention with the final two runs set for Monday (11:15 a.m. ET, streaming live at cbc.TORONTO – They were making Morgan Rielly hold the shopping bags as they strolled through Eaton Centre during a rare day off the ice. Nazem Kadri was there and so was the 24-year-old walking backwards and documenting the light mocking of his junior teammate with a cell phone camera. Then he tripped over a garbage can. Things just aren’t going Jake Gardiner’s way these days. Gardiner has been a healthy scratch in each of the past two games, an odd show of faith to a player who signed for five years and more than $20 million in late July. The Maple Leafs, though, have consistently taken a tough love kind of approach to the former Ducks first round pick. The results mostly indicate that such an approach has failed to reap much in the way of reward, Gardiner struggling to find consistent form in each of the past two seasons – some of that, no doubt, the growing pains of a young defenceman. In question is whether such an approach is beneficial to the long-term development of a talent the organization is clearly high on, but also someone whom the head coach, Randy Carlyle, has prodded most often. Tough love from a coach can have its benefits, say various players in the Toronto room, but only if the personality in question is right for that type of motivation. Some respond to old-school types, benefiting from constant barks in the ear. Dion Phaneuf, for example, recalls his time under hard-edged former Flames coach, Mike Keenan, fondly. Others need that positive voice. Nazem Kadri would probably fall more under the latter. He took his share of prodding over his early Toronto years from the likes of Dallas Eakins and Ron Wilson. And while he hated it, he also was the fiery type to respond to it. “It sucks,” said Kadri. “I don’t like it all. But I’m not going to let it ruin my confidence or my self-esteem as a player because at the end of the day I know what I can do and I believe in myself. “I don’t want to say it works because then they’ll just keep giving me tough love,” he continued. “[But] I think I respond well to it. It doesn’t really bother me. I’m a pretty thick-skinned kid, even going back to minor hockey; I’ve had some pretty tough coaches. I don’t like it so much and sometimes I’m not so patient with it, but I think I react well. It doesn’t really bother me. It’s not like I go into a shell after I get ripped out or reamed out, I just continue playing my game.” Gardiner isn’t really that fiery type. And the odd seat in the press-box or even down to the Marlies hasn’t done much to affect his performance positively. When the lockout ended in Jan. 2013, Gardiner was first healthy scratched and then sent to the American League, where he lingered unhappily for weeks. He finally returned to the NHL in March – amid the ranting of fans, media and his agent at the time – played a couple games, and then was sent back to the press box for the final days of the regular season and even Game 1 of the playoffs. Gardiner flourished when the Leafs turned to him for the rest of that playoff series with Boston, but promptly struggled again the following fall – drawing another prominent healthy scratch in late November. Is this the best way, then, to motivate Gardiner? A player, mind you, who questioned his security with the Leafs before – amid ongoing trade rumours – only to believe he was done with all that when the team sprung for a five-year deal in the summer. There’s nothing wrong with scratching a player from time to time despite media and fan protests, but to do so three games in the season – given the history of disconnect bbetween player and team, the splashy new deal, and fact that said player hadn’t played so poorly – seems off the mark.dddddddddddd Gardiner has ultimately been pushed out of the lineup by rookie Stuart Percy, an early revelation in a top-four role. But is removing Gardiner, who was by far the Leafs top possession player a year ago and leading defensive point-getter at even-strength, best for the team and best for his development as a young player? That’s unlikely, especially given the predictable early season struggles of Stephane Robidas. Carlyle, speaking generally, says his motivational tactics are dependent on the individual. “I think a lot of that is feel and a lot of it is personality,” he said. “Some people take coaching as criticism and other people take criticism as personal. Those things are things that you to weigh and have to measure when you’re applying it.” Carlyle admits to making mistakes in how he’s handled things in the past, though not specifically with Gardiner. Sometimes, he says, it might be the wrong time or the wrong setting for certain tactics. “We’re all human,” he said. “We all make mistakes. Those are things that you have to gauge with experience. I think those are learning curves for a coach.” Communication can make all the difference. And to Carlyle’s credit, he has been up front with Gardiner about why he’s not playing – though not anymore so than usual. He’s told the Minnesota native that his play hasn’t been up to the level that they expect. Today’s players, Carlyle says, want more of that. They want answers and responsibility. And despite his old-school leanings, it’s apparent that Carlyle has tried to adapt. There was a point last year before a game in Philadelphia that saw him bring Gardiner onto the visitors’ bench at Wells Fargo Center, pull out the iPad and show him a few video clips on what needed improvement. More of that might be helpful. And through some film dissection this fall, Gardiner has been told that he needs to contain the opposition more effectively in the defensive zone and move the puck quicker. Cody Franson wasn’t afforded such treatment by the team’s previous head coach, Ron Wilson, during his first training camp in Toronto. Franson found out he’d be the seventh defenceman to start the regular season not from the coach himself, but from an online video of the coach speaking to media. The worst part about it, he says, was leaving the rink every day uncertain of why he wasn’t playing and when he’d get back in. “When I went through it it wasn’t the best thing for me,” Franson said. “But every guy’s a little different. Some guys need stuff like that. Some guys just need to be talked to. It all depends on the individual.” “It always helps when you get some words of encouragement,” Kadri observed. The leash for Gardiner, however, has seemed short at times and especially now. He seemed to say as much in his exit meeting with Carlyle last spring – revelations that went beyond the imagination of the head coach. All that being said, Carlyle did doll out more even-strength minutes to Gardiner than any other player on the team last season, an indication of trust if there was ever was one. “We feel that we have a quality hockey player that can play to a higher level and he agrees with that,” said Carlyle earlier this week. “So to me that’s end of story.” Asked what Gardiner could do to impress once he earned another opportunity, Carlyle responded bluntly, “Play better.” Time will tell if he does and Carlyles tough-love approach is worth pursuing. ' ' '