Unity underlying theme for Canada Soccer execs
Strategic plan aims for an improved men’s program, continued success for the women
Canada Soccer’s top brass has announced its 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 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 a country of Canada’s size and with a 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 (Canadian Premier League), 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.
The women’s national team, led by head coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller, will compete in this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in France looking to challenge for the title. Meanwhile, striker Christine Sinclair is poised to become the top goal-scorer in tournament history.
“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,” HeinerMoller 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 1986 and it hasn’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 online 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 to close the gap between themselves, the United States and Mexico to become a top team in the region.
They are not going to do that by playing against the U.S. Virgin Islands, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis and French Guiana, who they host in Vancouver March 24 in the final game of CONCACAF Nations League qualifying. Eventually they will have to schedule games against higherranked opponents from Europe or South America, which will give Herdman a better gauge of where his starting point actually is.
One of the things we want to do is we want to make sure we have alignment with all our member associations.