There’s something peculiar about the mind set of a Canadian national team fan – something that forces us, again and again, to focus on what we don’t have rather than what we do have.
Take, for instance, the roster news coming out of last week, when we learned which players head coach Benito Floro will take into a friendly against Panama on Nov. 18. You’d think, perhaps, that the buzz would be about the return to the team of exciting youngsters such as Russell Teibert and Jonathan Osorio, or the first senior international call-up for promising Homegrown Player Maxim Tissot.
Instead, Canadian fans by and large tormented themselves by concentrating on a player who isn’t going to be at training camp with Les Rouges: Tesho Akindele.
It’s understandable for fans of a team as goal-starved as Canada to be excited by a Canadian-born rookie blazing the ball into the back of the net with regularity for FC Dallas. These are the same fans that had to endure a 10-game goalless drought not too long ago, after all. It’s perfectly reasonable to be disappointed upon learning that said player has declined a call-up to the national team you so ardently support.
But what’s a little less reasonable and understandable – yet, perhaps, entirely predictable – are the conspiracies and comparisons that immediately followed the news that Akindele wouldn’t be meeting up with the Canadian side. The parallels were quickly drawn with Teal Bunbury, who spurned his birth nation to play for the US several years back, an option that many instantly assumed Akindele had also exercised.
Reputable news sources were reporting as recently as a few days ago that Akindele would be joining the American team for its pair of upcoming friendlies. If the 22-year-old truly were snubbing the land of his birth for our neighbors (or neighbours, as we’d say) to the south, there’d be good reason for our nationalistic inferiority complex to kick into overdrive.
But it turns out that Akindele won’t be playing for the US in the team’s match against Colombia this week – he was reportedly part of the provisional roster, but not Jurgen Klinsmann’s 25-man roster – and odds are that he won’t suddenly be called in for the second game against Ireland next week, either.
And while he isn’t ruling out the possibility of accepting a future US call, he also told MLSsoccer.com on Monday night in Seattle that there is “definitely” a chance he could suit up for Canada in the future.
“I was just kind of focused on the playoffs and it just wasn’t the right time for me to go into [Canada’s current] camp,” Akindele said after FCD’s loss to the Sounders on Monday night. “But I talked to Canada. They know how I feel about it, so I think it’s on good terms just now.”
No one knows what the future holds for Akindele, either for club or countries. Perhaps he’ll be able to sustain his hot form in 2015, or perhaps he’ll be afflicted with a devastating sophomore slump. As far as his national-team prospects are concerned, Akindele is ultimately the only one who knows how that will turn out.
But what I know, and what I’d like to impart upon my fellow followers of the Canadian men’s national team, is that the time has come for an attitude adjustment.
We can surely be hopeful that players such as Akindele, Fraser Aird and (dare we dream) Junior Hoilett will one day suit up for Canada’s senior team. We can chat and theorize about how they would help the team if that day came, and we can be upset every time a Canadian roster is released and their names aren’t on it.
But what we can’t do is send ourselves through the perpetual psychological wringer of publicly excoriating someone as the “next” turncoat each time a situation such as this arises. Every player’s individual situation is different.
Akindele is not the next Bunbury, nor is he the next Jonathan de Guzman or the next Owen Hargreaves or the next whomever.
He’s the one and only Tesho Akindele, with one life to live. One chance to turn the athletic skills he has into a successful and satisfying career – a career that could, it’s worth remembering, still ultimately include representing his birth country.
Don’t misunderstand me. I have no time whatsoever for those who will use our national team as a bargaining chip, or as leverage, or as a fallback plan. Players who publicly and purposefully mislead national-team supporters are worthy of whatever scorn they receive.
But we can only hold each individual responsible for their own actions and their own decisions, not for the ones of those who came before them.
And we can’t move forward as a national team (or more broadly, as a national soccer community), if we continually allow ourselves to be consumed by anger at players who – for whatever their reasons – have decided they don’t want to be onboard.
To his credit, Floro has made clear that he won’t beg players to join the national team. He wants and needs players who are interested in being a part of what he is trying to build. Based on the reactions of many of his players over the past 18 months, there appears to be plenty of buy-in already.
So ahead of the friendly with Panama, let’s focus on watching Teibert and Osorio, and wondering whether we’re seeing the future core of Canada’s midfield coming together. Let’s watch young defenders such as Tissot and Karl Ouimette mature before our eyes. Let’s marvel at the supreme skill of Atiba Hutchinson, and hold out hope that Dwayne De Rosario can find a happy ending for his national-team career.
By all means, let’s also think about how the team might look with other names in the mix. But rather than devoting our time and mental energy to those who’ve decided not to join up with Canada, let’s devote it to those who have.
And, who knows – maybe, by building a positive, confident atmosphere around our national team, we’ll help convince some fence-sitters that playing for Canada is something they’d like to do after all.
MLSsoccer.com writer Michael McColl contributed to this report.
