This week, TribalFootball.com talks exclusively with expansion side and league leaders Western United's team captain Jaclyn Sawicki, who is Canadian-raised but now playing for Philippines as they prepare for their first WWC Finals this summer.
Sawicki explained her perspective on Western United's fantastic start to their inaugural season, winning their first seven matches, mostly while she was recovering from a leg injury: "Western United has a good core of players from Calder United in the NPLW [the second-tier state league level throughout the country].
"The foundation came in pretty strong. They brought in experienced players from abroad [including 2019 American Women's World Cup winner Jess McDonald and American Hannah Keane, who played at San Diego State University and for clubs in Germany, Portugal and Spain] and have blended well. We're still trying to figure things out [for a team style]. It's been a good level of play and at a high intensity and competitive. The Calder girls were welcoming to the new players; some of us had a lot more professional experience but everyone was willing to help and no one felt above anyone else."
Sawicki has not ever trialed for a NWSL team. She said that, attending college in Canada, she felt she had to go to an American college to have a chance to be drafted and with her Polish passport, she had planned to go overseas anyway for her professional career.
Photo courtesy Raymond Braganza (RVBraganza on Instagram).
For the new Canadian women's professional league, which is planned to launch in 2025, she said: "It's been a long time coming. I'm curious what it is going to be like—the standards, salaries."
She also wondered why the eight CPL [Canadian Premier League] men's teams did not start women's side. It is a very good question which we will follow-up on in our future discussions with Canadian league officials. We suspect that the Canadian Soccer Association and the CPL—which will start its fifth season in May—felt that starting a women's league on top of the eight team men's league could have put the entire venture at risk, which also had to deal with two seasons under COVID, restricting fan support and revenue streams.
Sawicki has had a non-linear approach to her professional career for a 30-year-old, even playing recreational league soccer while working full-time in British Colombia in the Recreation and Health/Sport field over the past few years.
She said that the Philippines Football Federation [PFF] actually approached her on two occasions across the past five years: "The PFF reached out to me in 2017 but I turned down the opportunity to concentrate on my club career in Japan with Chifure AS Elfen Saitama."
She then played in Sweden with Assi IF for two seasons before returning to Canada. The PFF then reached out to her again in February of 2022 after the team qualified for the 2023 WWC from the AFC Women's Asian Cup in India the month before and she wanted to help them to more success.
She sees this debut Women's World Cup Finals appearance as an opportunity to build the game at home, particularly at the younger age levels, such as with the U-17 and U-20 national team levels: "The PFF has started restructuring the development of youth, so it [making the Women's World Cup] is not a one-time qualification and becomes a consistent thing. [With the] U-17 and U-20 national teams, younger players [will have] opportunities to play in an [age group] Women's World Cup."
This strategy will help the full Philippines national side to be less reliant on North American diaspora like Sawicki, with the side that qualified in January of 2022 at the Asian regional qualifiers having only six home-based players, with 17 coming from their diaspora.
Sawicki actually played internationally for Canada at the U-20 level, including at the U-20 Women's World Cup in Japan in 2012. She played once for the full national team as an injury-time substitute against the U.S. in September 2011 (a 1-1 tie). She also qualifies through ancestry to play for Poland and has a Polish passport. She was invited to a Polish women's national team camp in 2013 for a week and then continued onto Russia for a tournament with a Canadian university all-star team.
She explained why she finally decided to join the Philippines: "To put it simply, it just felt right to. Even though I had stints with the Canadian National Team and went to an U-20 World Cup, I never felt like I grew up in a Canadian home—[I] just developed within the Canadian Sport system. My mother has been my biggest supporter throughout my career and I was never great at expressing my appreciation for everything she has done for me. So, I guess this was my way of showing gratitude and telling her I am proud to be Filipino.
"I am, of course, also proud to be Polish, but I believe everything happens for a reason. When I attended camp with the Polish National Team back in 2013, I kind of knew right away this doesn't feel like it should." She described her week in Poland as: "Tough; there was a big language barrier. I didn't know enough to converse and the coaching staff wasn't very fluent in English."
Sawicki was an inspired acquisition by Western United and Philippines and brings important international experience and a passion for the game to both sides.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham is on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey
