Canada Soccer eyes long-term success
Plan aimed at growth, development and governance
Canada Soccer’s top brass have announced their ambitious strategy, which encompasses all aspects of the game and, hopefully, results in the continued success of the women’s national program and improvement of the men’s team.
The launch of the Canada Soccer Nation: 2019-2021 Strategic Plan, was outlined on Monday in a news conference at BMO Field in Toronto.
The idea of the three adopted priorities, Develop, Govern, and Grow, is to get everyone pulling in the same direction, which is not always easy in country of Canada’s size with a vast variety of different philosophical approaches to the game.
“One of the things we want to do, is we want to make sure we have alignment with all our member associations,” Soccer Canada president Steven Reed said. “Our members are our provincial and territorial associates as well as the clubs, the CPL, so that everyone continues to be in alignment, so that we’re all moving forward for our sport in our country.”
Canada has made great gains on the women’s side when it comes to performances on the international stage, winning consecutive bronze medals at the previous two Olympics.
This summer, the women’s national team, led by head coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller, will compete in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France looking to challenge for the title. Meanwhile, striker Christine Sinclair is poised to become the highest international goal scorer in history at the tournament.
“I have the privilege of choosing the best players to represent the women’s national team, then everything in the middle is about bridging that gap,” Heiner-Moller said. “We have a great coaching curriculum in place and we need to continue to develop that because this beautiful game of ours is growing, it’s changing and we need to change accordingly as well.”
It’s on the men’s side where the most work is needed.
The only time Canada qualified for a men’s World Cup was in Mexico 1986, and they haven’t really come close since.
The awarding of the 2026 FIFA World Cup to Canada, Mexico and the United States has put pressure on the men’s national team to become more competitive, and the goal is to qualify for Qatar in 2022 before getting an automatic berth into the tournament as partial hosts four years later.
John Herdman, who took over the men’s program after unprecedented success with the women, is in charge of steering Canada into the 2022 World Cup.
It’s a big task for someone with limited experience in the men’s game, who will not have access to some of the best players in the world as he did with the women.
But Herdman has put a foundation in place by creating the men’s EXCEL program, with centres in nine cities across the country to help identify and develop talent.
“When we talk about development, first and foremost, we’re talking about player development and to continue lining that player pathway for both boys, girls, men and women,” Reed said. “We have some unbelievable people that are involved with that process.”
Developing talent has, arguably, been the biggest hurdle holding back Canadian men’s soccer, particularly at the grassroots level.
Many kids growing up in Canada are taught fundamentals by volunteer coaches, who donate their time out of necessity. Without volunteer coaches many grassroots players would not have the opportunity to play organized soccer. Yet, because coaches are volunteers, they often lack the technical ability to instil proper fundamentals.
“We talk about the coaches, because without coaches, we don’t have anything,” Reed said. “We want to enhance our coaching education programs and we want to continue to have an increased focus in that area as well.”
Former men’s national team captain Jason deVos was named Canada Soccer director of development in 2016 and has since worked on trying to correct the problems at the grassroots level.
“As a former captain of our men’s national team, I’ve never been more excited about the future of the game in this country,” deVos said. “If we’re going to develop a consistent stream of high-calibre players and give (coaches) a selection headache at the national-team level, we have to impact and improve the environment that our players and coaches are in at the grassroots level.
“We’re completely revising our coach education curriculum and content. New courses are coming on line by the minute as we need to give coaches the tools they need to understand their players and to meet their developmental needs.”
Canada is a pioneer when it comes to the women’s game and needs to continue moving forward as other countries pour more resources into female soccer in an effort to catch up.
On the men’s side, Canada needs to try and close the gap between themselves, the United States and Mexico and become a top team in their region.