Cindy Walsh (born September 13, 1979) is a Canadian retired

soccer player A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a defender. She has been a member of the Canada women's national team.

College career

She attended the

University of Hartford The University of Hartford (UHart) is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut. Its main campus extends into neighboring Hartford and Bloomfield. The university attracts students from 48 states and 43 countries. The university and it ...

, playing for the

NCAA Division 1 NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic ...

Hartford Hawks The Hartford Hawks are the NCAA Division I athletic teams of the University of Hartford, located in West Hartford, Connecticut. Hartford sponsors teams in eight men's and nine women's NCAA sanctioned sports. The men's and women's tennis teams were ...

on a full athletic scholarship. She started 80 games, missing only 3 because of emergency surgery to remove a ruptured appendix in 2000. She was voted Rookie of the Year and named to the conference 1st team in 2000, 2001 and 2003 and named 2nd team in 2002. She had a career high of 11 assists and 7 goals in 2002, and played a variety of positions from defender, midfielder and striker.

Club career

Between 2001 and 2014 she competed in the now defunct semi-professional W-League, which was among the top leagues in North America. In 13 years she played with the

Laval Dynamites Laval Dynamites (french: Dynamites de Laval) were a Canadian soccer team, founded in 1997. The men's team (founded in 2001) was a member of the Canadian Professional Soccer League/Canadian Soccer League, the highest professional soccer league i ...

, Toronto Inferno,

Western Mass Lady Pioneers Western Mass Lady Pioneers were an American women's soccer team, founded in 2004. The team was a member of the United Soccer Leagues W-League, the second tier of women's soccer in the United States and Canada. The team played in the Northeast Div ...

, and

Laval Comets The Laval Comets (french: Comètes de Laval) was a Canadian women's soccer team established in 2006 in the city of Laval, Quebec, Canada, a northern suburb of Montreal. The team was a member of the W-League, the second tier of women’s soccer in ...

. She was named to the W-League All-Conference team in 2008. She was also named league all-star team and named as W-League Defender of the Year in 2012. In 2019, she played with FC Sélect Rive-Sud in the

Première Ligue de soccer du Québec The Première ligue de soccer du Québec (PLSQ) is a semi-professional soccer league created in 2012. The Quebec Soccer Federation operates both men's and women's divisions at the pro-am tier of the Canadian soccer league system. The league is pa ...

International career

She joined the Canadian senior national team when she was 18 years old. In 1998, she played in the

CONCACAF Women's Championship The CONCACAF W Championship (previously known as the CONCACAF Women's Championship, CONCACAF Women's Invitational Tournament, CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup and CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying) is a football competition organized by the Confede ...

, which they won and secured a qualifying spot for the

1999 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was the third edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the world championship for women's national soccer teams. It was hosted as well as won by the United States and took place from June 19 to July 10, 1999, at ...

. She was captain of the U20 Women’s national team in 1999 at the

Pan American games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is held ...

, participating in all games, and helping the team to a 4th place finish. In 2010, Walsh was called back to the senior national team for a training camp in Cyprus and helped contribute to winning the 2010 Cyprus Cup after a 10 year absence with the team.

Coaching career

She began her coaching career with the

in 2013, serving as a player-coach, making it all the way to the W-League finals in first season and being named coach of the year. From 2009 to 2016, she was Assistant Technical Director at the Association régionale de soccer de la Rive-Sud and School Programs Educator at Collège-Français de Longueuil, De Mortagne School in Boucherville and Heritage Regional High School. She has also led the women's selection for the Quebec Games on several occasions and work at Soccer Quebec's High Performance Center. In 2020, she was announced as the head coach of the women's team of

CS St-Hubert CS St-Hubert is a Canadian semi-professional soccer club based in Saint-Hubert, Quebec that plays in Ligue1 Québec. History The club was originally formed in 1980. Prior to joining the PLSQ, the club played in the Ligue de Soccer Elite Queb ...

, making them the first club in the PLSQ with a female head coach.

Personal

Her sister

Amy Walsh Amy Heather Walsh (born September 13, 1977) is a former midfielder for the Canada women's national soccer team. From 1997 to 2009, she played 102 matches for the national team. In May 2017, Walsh was inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fam ...

was also a player for the Canadian women's national team.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, Cindy 1979 births Living people Soccer players from Montreal Canadian women's soccer players Women's association football defenders Hartford Hawks women's soccer players Canada women's international soccer players Canadian expatriate women's soccer players Canadian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate women's soccer players in the United States Anglophone Quebec people Canadian people of Irish descent FC Brossard players FC Sélect Rive-Sud players CS Longueuil players CS St-Hubert players Laval Comets players USL W-League (1995–2015) players