It may be a new year, but so far, there’s been plenty of the same old story for Canada’s men’s national teams.
On Thursday, the Under-20 squad got a taste of life in CONCACAF – hot conditions, “injury”-prone opponents and a heartbreaking goal conceded deep into stoppage time.
On Friday, the senior squad gave new Canadian fans a glimpse of what longtime supporters are already maddeningly familiar with – silly defensive lapses, good spells of possession with nothing to show for them and, ultimately, another non-result.
And squeezed in between, the CONCACAF draw that ensured Canada will need to travel to either Dominica or the British Virgin Islands for World Cup qualifying in June – an itinerary that will undoubtedly cause consternation (and even anger) among the clubs whose players will make the journey for their country.
So yes, for those predisposed to taking the pessimistic view (i.e. Canadian soccer fans), it’d be easy to see 2015 as just another incarnation of the stories we’ve all seen and heard before.
But to do so would ignore what’s brewing beneath the surface of another few disappointing national-team results.
Let’s not forget that this week, we also saw a Canadian go No. 1 overall in the MLS SuperDraft for the first time. Now, as any Edmonton Oilers fan will tell you, nothing is guarantee when it comes to top draft picks. But by all accounts, Cyle Larin has a promising future ahead of him for Orlando City SC and the Canadian national team.
Let’s also not forget that, the week before, we saw a Canadian sign with a Premier League side for the first time in nearly a decade, when Doneil Henry made the jump to West Ham United. While the 21-year-old has yet to debut for the Hammers, manager Sam Allardyce clearly sees plenty of potential in the former Toronto FC man.
Not to mention that three more products of local academies – Chris Mannella (Toronto FC), Maxim Tissot (Montreal Impact) and Manjrekar James (Sigma FC) – made their debuts for the senior national team.
These events, put together, represent a seismic shift in perception for young Canadian players currently working their way up through youth clubs or academies. They now have indisputable evidence that there are clear paths for Canadian kids to pursue the game of soccer and achieve remarkable things.
While Larin and Henry will likely be valuable members of the Canadian player pool for years to come, their actual contributions are almost secondary to how their achievements will serve to stoke the dreams of the upcoming generation.
You need look no further than the boisterous reaction of Larin’s teammates on the Canadian Under-20 team while watching the SuperDraft, or the heartfelt support for Henry from the Toronto soccer community, to realize what the moves mean in the big picture.
Of course, a positive attitudinal shift isn’t going to pay any immediate dividends. And while moral victories are all well and good – for instance, Canada really did look decently dangerous against Iceland, despite the patchwork lineup – this isn’t a year where moral victories will suffice.
World Cup qualifying is beginning, and there’s a very important Gold Cup on the horizon. The wins need to start coming, or else.
Thankfully, both the U-20 and senior teams have immediate opportunities for redemption – the senior squad gets its rematch with Iceland on Monday, while the kids can still control their own group-stage destiny with two games left against Cuba and Honduras.
In the grand scheme of things, this CONCACAF U-20 Championship and these two friendlies against Iceland will not – barring something spectacularly unique happening in the next week – live long in the memories of Canadian soccer fans. What will endure, hopefully, are the lessons learned by the players taking part in these competitions.
The ultimate hope is, of course, that all of this goodwill, all of these lessons, all of this hype, can coalesce at precisely the right time for Benito Floro’s squad to have memorable success when it matters the most.
Because while there have been good stories off the field so far in 2015, the time has come for Canada to start writing some good stories on the field as well.
