Finally, the Canadian nightmare is over.
Finally, fans of Les Rouges have reason to hope once again.
Finally, the gaping, festering wound left by the team’s ignominious 8-1 defeat in San Pedro Sula back in October 2012 can begin to heal.
Some may say that such lofty verbiage is not befitting of a Tuesday-night post-World Cup friendly between two middling CONCACAF opponents. Well, those people clearly don’t follow the Canadian men’s national team closely enough.
See, there are very few legitimate “must-win” games in soccer. While Canada’s 3-1 victory against Jamaica at BMO Field on Tuesday was not, technically, a must-win game, the importance of the result – especially symbolically – loomed large.
The aforementioned catastrophic meltdown against Honduras in World Cup qualifying sent the Canadian program – which has hardly been basking in glory for the majority of its history – into one of its ugliest stretches of all time: 16 games without a victory, with a 959-minute goal drought thrown in for good measure.
Such difficult results were not entirely unexpected, given that the team used two interim head coaches and a wide variety of players through the first half of 2013 as they sought a full-time replacement for Stephen Hart after his resignation.
Then, when well-traveled Spaniard Benito Floro came on board in August last year, there was another adjustment period. Floro spent several camps experimenting with the player pool, as he attempted to become acclimated to the Canadian setup – and vice versa.
But the passing of the Brazil World Cup provided the Canadian program with a clean break: a new cycle and a new opportunity to put the difficulties of the last two years firmly in the past. Floro himself said this was the time when good performances were not enough; it was time to truly prepare for the future by earning results.
Of course, that would only work if the team itself stepped up – and step up they did.
Canada kept the tempo high in the early going against Jamaica. They attacked intelligently. They showed good movement on and off the ball and, when the time came, made the most of a pair of set pieces with a couple of dazzling goals.
Goalkeeper Milan Borjan, forced into numerous one-on-one situations thanks to the Jamaicans’ dangerous counterattacks, stood tall in the Canadian goal and surely will not be without a club much longer.
Randy Edwini-Bonsu, the speedy 24-year-old striker, created four or five chances on his own, and though he did not find the back of the net himself, he was a crucial piece of Canada’s attacking thrust.
Doneil Henry, Toronto FC’s 21-year-old center back, found himself at his less-preferred right back, but he made the most of the opportunity by showing a touch of versatility that could make him even more valuable to Floro in the years ahead.
Respected veteran
Patrice Bernier
earned the start to celebrate his 50th cap for the national team and picked up an assist on David Edgar’s first-half golazo. Bernier's young Montreal Impact teammate
Karl Ouimette
–
still recovering from the death of his sister last week
– was given the chance to earn his second cap for Canada, coming on as a second-half substitute.
And 36-year-old Dwayne De Rosario, Canada’s all-time leading scorer, was given a run-out in front of his hometown crowd. Could this have been DeRo’s final appearance for Canada on home soil? If it was, it’s tough to imagine a more positive atmosphere in which to have done it.
Now, no one is naïve enough to say the performance was without flaws or that Canada is suddenly on pace for a World Cup appearance thanks to winning one friendly.
In fact, thanks to the quirks of FIFA’s ranking system, Canada will likely lose ground in relation to its CONCACAF opponents due to this month’s Caribbean Cup qualifying process, in which minnows such as Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines get to beat up on even smaller minnows, such as Anguilla.
But Canada’s hardcore supporters are unlikely to lose much sleep over that right now. After enduring the last 16 months, a victory of any sort is a victory to be savored. The expressions on the faces of the players and the fans on Tuesday night speak to the relief and joy that the result brought.
Under Floro, the team has finally turned a vital corner.
No one knows what’s around the bend, but at least Canada won’t keep seeing the same ghosts in their rearview mirror anymore.
