Canada’s national soccer teams are in a good place right now.
The nation once again stood up and took notice of the women’s team at the Summer Olympics, with Bev Priestman’s side changing the colour of their medals to gold at Tokyo 2020 and continuing the team's stellar tradition of success at the highest-profile multi-sporting event in the world.
The men, meanwhile, did what they were supposed to do in the early rounds of World Cup qualifying: they stomped a bunch of CONCACAF minnows and lesser lights to book themselves a spot in the final qualification round for Qatar 2022. Weeks later, they put the big dogs of the region on notice with several creditable performances en route to a controversial exit at the semifinals of the Gold Cup.
That tournament firmly established the Canadians as a team to be reckoned with in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers, while also shining a spotlight on winger Tajon Buchanan and central midfielder Stephen Eustaquio. New England Revolution ace Buchanan has already parlayed his breakout 2021 season into a winter transfer to Club Brugge in Belgium, while Portugal-based Eustaquio is heavily linked with a move to Turkish power Fenerbahce.
Buchanan, Eustaquio and the rest of the men's side return to play on home soil on Thursday night for the first time in nearly two years, and it’s fair to say that things are lining up nicely for the momentum to keep rolling for the Canadian national team programs.
The format of the final qualifying round involves eight teams each playing 14 games between now and March, with some international breaks consisting of triple-match weeks. It’s a punishing sprint brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it will finally give us a real look at what the new Canada squad is made of.
The Canadians get things started with one of those aforementioned triple match-weeks, hosting Honduras at Toronto’s BMO Field on Thursday before jetting off to Nashville, Tenn., for a date with the United States on Sunday. The men then head straight back to Toronto to face El Salvador on Sept. 8, after which we’ll have a better picture of how realistic Canada’s World Cup hopes are.
“We want to win all games at home and make that a fortress in accumulating 21 points,” Canada head coach John Herdman told reporters last week, as quoted by the Times Colonist. “That’s the mission. But we know the football gods are not always smiling on you and we have a built-in margin for error. We also know how many road victories we will be [targeting].”
While the first three games won’t necessarily make or break Canada’s World Cup dreams, they will go a long way towards telling us what this new generation is made of.
What we do know is that this is arguably the most talented men’s side in the history of the program. Poster boy Alphonso Davies is as good as any other player in the region. A FIFA World XI left back with Bayern Munich, the 20-year-old is Canada’s first true superstar and will be the focal point of the program for the next decade or more.
But he’s not the only one.
Jonathan David just helped lead Lille to an unlikely Ligue 1 title in France, scoring 13 times in league play. The 21-year-old has 15 goals in 16 appearances while wearing the Maple Leaf, and there’s a quiet confidence to his demeanour that’s a perfect complement to the affable extrovert in Davies.
The Davies-David duo will draw a lot of the attention, but Canada has many other weapons ahead of this prolonged fight. Cyle Larin, a former MLS rookie of the year, scored 19 times as Besiktas claimed the Turkish Super Lig title last season. Next to him on the field for both club and country is the ageless wonder Atiba Hutchinson, who at 38 has gained legendary status in Istanbul and still has a ton left in the tank to give to Canada.
Buchanan and Eustaquio have already been mentioned, and Canada’s depth spans to the likes of Jonathan Osorio and Richie Laryea (Toronto FC), Mark-Anthony Kaye (Colorado Rapids), Junior Hoilett (Reading), Samuel Piette and Kamal Miller (CF Montreal), Milan Borjan (Red Star Belgrade), Lucas Cavallini (Vancouver Whitecaps) and more.
It’s an impressive list of players both young and experienced, and it looks even better when considering that there are several more European and MLS-based pros who have been left off the current squad for one reason or another.
But while making lists is fun, the only thing that matters is how the team plays when it steps onto the field.
To Herdman’s credit, he’s gotten the team to buy into his vision — Canada now boasts an attractive, fluid style; but more importantly it appears as though the players are playing for each other.
This cohesiveness allowed the team to pour on the goals against the minnows in the early rounds and give a scare to regional powers USA and Mexico in the Gold Cup.
Now, a still relatively untested side will have to navigate the unwieldy world of qualification in the CONCACAF region — one that’s defined by road trips to run-down venues in front of rabid fans who resort to all sorts of trickery to help their teams gain an advantage.
As good as Canada has looked on manicured fields in the United States, the real test comes when rival teams let the grass at their stadium grow an extra half-inch to negate the speed of Davies and Buchanan, or when opposition supporters put on raging street parties outside the Canadian team hotel at all hours of the night.
That’s not even mentioning what the fans come armed with in the stands.
If the team can survive all of that intact, then Canada can rightfully call itself one of the rising powers of CONCACAF.
It’s time for the Canadians to combine guile, determination and mental strength with the bundles of talent on hand. As the United States can tell you after missing out on the 2018 World Cup (following a shocking defeat on a water-logged pitch to an already-eliminated Trinidad and Tobago), talent alone isn’t enough to reach the promised land.
But it sure helps.
“We want to put the world on notice,” Herdman said. “We are absolutely committed to getting the team to Qatar. I told the players this four years of preparation is about playing an opening game in the 2022 World Cup against an Italy, Brazil, Argentina or Spain.
“There’s a new mentality [on the team] that believes anything is possible.”