Diana Matheson

Matheson majored in economics at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, and was voted Ivy League Player of the Year in 2007 and Princeton Women's Athlete of the Year in 2008. As a freshman in 2004, Matheson was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection and was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year. She earned first-team All-America and first-team All-Mid-Atlantic Region honours and was one of 12 finalists for SoccerBuzz Freshman of the Year. During her sophomore year, she scored five goals, second-most on the team, and recorded a team-high seven assists. As a junior in 2006, Matheson co-captained the squad and led the Tigers with eight goals and five assists despite missing five games to train with the Canadian national team. As a senior, she missed the first seven games to play in the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup in China, then broke Princeton's single-game and career assist records with a four-assist performance against Rutgers. She finished as Princeton's third four-time first-team all-league honoree and its seventh Player of the Year.

2003–2006: Early career

Matheson began her club career in Canada with the Toronto Inferno in 2003 and the Ottawa Fury from 2004 to 2006. Both clubs were semi-professional, and no fully professional domestic option existed in Canada during her playing career; she would never play professionally in her home country. She was registered with the Inferno while representing Canada at the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup as a 19-year-old. Matheson joined the Ottawa Fury of the USL W-League, then the second tier of women's soccer in Canada and the United States, and combined her summers there with her studies at Princeton. The Fury reached the W-League championship final in both 2005 and 2006, losing to the New Jersey Wildcats and the Vancouver Whitecaps respectively, with squads that included more than ten Canadian internationals. Matheson was named to the 2005 W-League Championship All-Tournament team, and the following year was selected as one of four midfielders on the W-League all-league team drawn from the competition's 38 clubs, having recorded a goal and three assists in seven appearances while splitting the summer with national team duty.

2008–2010: Team Strømmen

Matheson played the second half of the 2008 season in Norway with Team Strømmen, finishing as a runner-up in both the Toppserien and the national cup competition. She rejoined the club for the 2009 season and for the first half of 2010, before national team duties took her away. She finished her time…

Standing 1.53 m (5 ft 0 in), Matheson was noted for the pace and technical quality that allowed her to hold a place in a Canadian side known for its physicality. She made her national team debut at the Algarve Cup in March 2003. She was 18 at the time and deferred her admission to Princeton in order to take up the call-up. She scored her first international goal on June 15, 2003, against Mexico. Matheson was named to Canada's squad for the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup as a teenager. In the quarterfinal against China, she delivered the left-footed cross from a counter-attack that captain Charmaine Hooper headed in during the seventh minute, the only goal in a 1–0 upset of the fourth-ranked Chinese. The result carried Canada into a World Cup semifinal for the first time, and they finished fourth after two late goals by Sweden in the semifinal — still the country's best finish at the tournament. In 2006, Matheson became the 14th Canadian woman to reach 50 caps, and she played a then-national-record 45 consecutive matches between 2003 and 2006. At the 2007 World Cup she appeared in all three group-stage matches as Canada failed to advance, and in 2008 she played all four matches at her first Olympic Games, where Canada were eliminated in the quarterfinals by the United States. She won six CONCACAF medals with Canada over her career, including a silver at the 2006 qualifying tournament and the 2010 continental title. Canada again exited at the group stage of the 2011 World Cup. At…

Born in Mississauga, Ontario, Matheson attended White Oaks Secondary School in Oakville, Ontario, where she received the Principal's Award for athletics and academics. As a member of the Ontario provincial team from 1999 to 2002, she won the national championship in 2001 and was runner-up in 2002, captaining the side in her final year. Playing for the Oakville SC women's team, Matheson was a 2002 Ontario Cup champion and club national women's champion.