It’s crunch time for Canada’s Under-20 side in World Cup qualifying.
Following a tournament-opening win over Haiti on Saturday, Canada dropped a 2-0 decision to Mexico on Monday at the CONCACAF U-20 Championship. With three games left in the group stage – against El Salvador, Cuba and Honduras – every remaining game, and every single goal, will be crucial.
But if head coach Rob Gale is worried about his team’s chances, he isn’t showing it.
“You haven’t seen the best of us yet,” Gale said after Monday’s game. “We’ll regroup from this.”
Mexico opened the tournament with a 9-1 win over Cuba and has had plenty of recent success in the youth ranks, winning the 2013 CONCACAF U-20 Championship and finishing second at the FIFA Under-17 World Cup that same year. So Gale was hardly surprised with the quality they brought on Monday.
“It was exactly as we expected,” he said. “The difference in the end was the little bit of better quality in the final third to create chances and test our goalkeeper more than we tested them.”
Canadian captain Luca Gasparotto also knew what he and his backline partners would be up against. And while he felt the team could have applied better pressure in the first half, he’s pleased with the energy shown after halftime.
“On another day it would have been another scoreline,” he said. “We knew we could play with these guys.
“We’re disappointed with the result, but all the boys’ heads are up and we’re focused on the next game. It’s still early days and anything can happen.”
The Canadians have little time to think about Monday’s result, as their next game comes on Thursday against El Salvador, a team Canada will be battling for one of the World Cup berths available in this tournament.
The format – which sees the teams play five games in less than two weeks – will test every squad’s depth, but this is exactly what Gale had prepared for.
“It’s another tight turnaround. There’s a lot of demand on the players,” he said. “We’ve had 17 players already on the field, so I think that bodes well for us and it’s going to be a group effort.
“If we continue to show the fight and the spirit and the energy once we’re organized, we’ll continue to progress as the tournament rolls on.”
