CANADA’S BIG CHANCE
It’s make-or-break time
AT THE time of writing, Canada sat 73rd in the men’s FIFA world rankings, ever so slightly atop the likes of Guinea and Bolivia. With just the solitary appearance at at which they lost all three group games failed to even make a dent in qualifying for recent tournaments.
In all honesty, it’s an embarrassing indictment for a country whose GDP sits snugly inside the world’s top 10.
The country’s persistent failure when it comes to football is systemic thanks in part to an uniform underappreciation for the professional sport, a severe lack of public interest in its domestic product and a mismanaged approach to how the game should be run nationally.
The story of the 1986 World Cup campaign is one of squandered talent and naivety, while the national team’s inability to convince eligible players to turn out for them - Owen Hargreaves, Asmir Begovic, Jonathan de Guzmán - has no doubt added to their suffering.
However, the last decade has shown sprigs of change, both in how the populous views football itself - football fan and ultra culture is steadily sweeping across North America - and how governmental bodies are tackling the root causes of their underachievement.
Last year saw football, or ‘soccer’ depending on who you talk to in Canada, reach its hitherto zenith in The Great White North - the men’s national team secured a historic 2-0 victory over their southern rivals, the USA, in the CONCACAF Nations League and an entirely new domestic professional league sucto capitalise on strong attendance
In addition, Canada also happens to boast two of the hottest rising stars in the sport – left-sider Alphonso Davies, 19, is collecting trophies like Panini stickers at Bayern Munich while striker Jonathan David, 20, moved from Gent to Lille for a reported 30m euros in August.
These buds of positivity, coupled with the country winning the right to host the 2026 World Cup in conjunction with Mexico and the USA, offer an opportunity for football to blossom in a nation poised to become a footballing heavyweight - if only they can shed the apathy and channel their energy into getting it right.
There is a stark dichotomy between the approach to men’s and women’s football in Canada. They are judged by entirely different yardsticks.
Merely reaching the 2022 World Cup in Qatar would be cause for celebration for the men’s side, whereas Canada’s women are expected to go toe to toe with the world’s best each and every year.
The 2020s will prove to be a do or die decade for Canadian men’s football. By the end of it, they’ll either have embraced the sport completely or they never will.
The reignition of interest in football from Canadians is in part due to their state’s changing demographic makeup. Recent immigration statistics show that citizens of Nigeria, Japan and Russia are immigrating to Canada in waves searching for greater economic and employment prospects.
These are nations in which football is part and parcel of
daily life, and with this surging immigration, these new Canadian citizens are bringing with them an emboldened love for football. Football is proving to be the - eration Canadian immigrants. If, as the government suggests, Canada is so eager to embrace and offer a great future to those willing to leave home and settle in metropolitan areas like Windsor, or Halifax, or Edmonton, or Victoria, it makes a huge amount of sense - even if sport wholeheartedly and cater for this multicultural audience.
The data in favour of Canada embracing football is encouraging. It ranks 10th among all nations for the number of registered athletes participating in football, while a recent study by FIFA states that 1 in 41 Canadians is enrolled in the sport at some level.
By comparison, that number ranks only slightly lower than that of France and England - 2nd and 4th respectively in FIFA’s world rankings and far more competitive on an international level.
Football competes for attention in Canada with other national pastimes such as ice hockey, baseball, and basketball. However, the rising costs of participating in rival sports has been pricing out working-class families for some time. It makes sense, therefore, that children of lower-income homes would turn to football as a popular alternative.
The talent pool of Canadian soccer is a fertile ground and the powers that be would be encouraged to strike while the iron is hot, to invest further in coaching and the sport’s domestic infrastructure to nurture potential superstars.
For any burgeoning talent to succeed, players need a stage on which to shine. Thus the assembly of the new Canadian Premier League has come at just
the right time.
Since the disbanding of the Canadian Soccer League in 1992, Canada has severely suffered from its distinct lack of a domestic league. Until 2019, it was the highest-ranked FIFA nation without one to its name.
The lack of such a national showcase caused an immense chasm between youth football and the national team. Young Canadians were deprived of a shop window in which to demonstrate their talent in their home country and instead were forced to seek risky moves abroad.
Lucky ones, like David Edgar and Marcus Haber, could fall back on their British lineage and enjoy solid careers in England. Atiba Hutchinson secured a trial at Schalke 04 before successfully winning a move to Östers IF in Sweden.
Until recently, Canadian footballers were faced with three options upon attempting to turn professional: take a risk and ply your trade abroad, battle it out south of the border for a limited number of roster spots in MLS, or cut their losses path.
The invention of the new Canadian Premier League offers a bridge between youth and international football so sorely missed in recent years.
Now young Canadian footballers have the chance to display their talents on home soil and secure themselves a contract with a CPL team before ultimately sealing a move to a more renowned
league - and thus securing their CPL team with vital funds to ensure their operations at Halifax Wanderers, gave his thoughts on the CPL acting as a
“I just think this is going to open so selling market, whereas the Canadian Curtis Marshall - AFC Curtis, a CPL fan some of the standout stars from the inaugural CPL season: “Tristan Borges came in from the Netherlands, where it wasn’t working out for him, and he 13 goals and went on to sign a contract
“Joel Waterman, he’s moved onto Tsai, he’s a Canadian U20 international at York9 FC who made a move to ADO deprived of a local team to throw their or Juventus - now these avid fanatics can don the colours of their local CPL the impact the CPL will have on local
“It also helps that to games have the potential Newcastle and I could get a British
The inaugural season of the CPL can
One hurdle the CPL will have to clear nadian Premier League teams to grow So far, it sounds as if the ownership groups of all seven sides have done and their continuation to connect with their local audience is a neces
Jason Armond of in Victoria, British of the new side’s impact on its local the most popular sport in Canada, our miss a televised match featuring their ada has tried to form its own domestic
“Others have come and gone and that the CPL will need to stick around to look forward to in the next decade, so or Nova Scotia now have something to tion and the right coaching, forget Li