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If Canadian men can win at soccer, what else can we do?
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If Canadian men can win at soccer, what else can we do?

At the risk of sounding sentimental, it’s also very satisfying that the Canadian men’s soccer team looks a lot like modern Canada

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It’s a feeling I didn’t realize I’d been missing: watching every dribble, dive and throw of Team Canada and its world-class opponents on a TV in a pub full of people watching the same thing; white-knuckling on the edge of the bar with one hand and a glass of lime soda in the other; hugging and high-fiving strangers in moments of joy; doubled over in pain with them in moments of joy that was narrowly denied.

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And all because we were Canadian, and because our countrymen played soccer, of all sports, shockingly well against world-class competition for one of the first times in history, living or otherwise. On Sunday, Canada lost a soccer match to Uruguay on penalties in Charlotte, N.C., and in doing so “lost” third place in the Copa America, a tournament featuring 10 teams from South America and six from Central and North America.

It was Canada’s first appearance in the tournament. Uruguay was the 11th team in the world to enter the tournament, compared to Canada’s 48th. Uruguay had won the Copa America 15 times. “Losing” third place was an incredible achievement for Canada, in its first ever invitation to the tournament.

But just watching the Canadian players take on America’s best — including twice against world number one Argentina and the greatest soccer player ever, Lionel Messi — was a remarkably visceral experience. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so patriotic, even in defeat.

To paraphrase Neil Young: My whole life, until recently, everyone knew that Canadian men’s soccer was nowhere. The team qualified for its first World Cup in 1986. Nothing came of it. Canada didn’t qualify again until 2022, after impressively beating our North and Central American rivals: Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, etc. (World Cup berths are awarded by regional competitions. Canada’s region, known as CONCACAF, includes the United States, Mexico, and the Central American and Caribbean countries. It’s not known for great soccer, stadiums, pitches, fan behavior, or for producing World Cup champions.)

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As expected, Canada was eliminated from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar after three games, none of which it really threatened to win. And that was fine. It was in a tough group: much better and more experienced teams like Belgium, Croatia and Morocco were in Canada’s way. So it was perhaps unfair to call it a disappointment. It still looked better.

But then the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) seemed to be collapsing, amid wretched allegations of high-ranking officials ignoring sexual abuse of young female players, and later of generally chaotic mismanagement. The women’s team went on strike. John Herdman, the highly respected men’s coach who had previously led the women’s team to glory, quit. Just when there was hope for the first time in decades, the whole project seemed to be imploding, and it was depressing.

But somehow the CSA managed to muster up enough courage and money to hire the experienced American coach Jesse Marsch, an enthusiastic guy sometimes compared to the fictional TV coach Ted Lasso, and who within a few weeks seems to have won over the Canadian troops to his way of thinking.

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Canada played six Copa America games against very good teams — a huge boon to the team’s development, regardless of the outcome. It lost three: two to the world’s best Argentina and one to 11th-ranked Uruguay. But it also won two, against similarly ranked Peru and Venezuela.

That’s nothing to brag about, but even a few days later, I still get a little giddy about it. Rightly or wrongly, when I watch one Canadian national team compete against another in any sport — hockey included! — I start to sweat. This Canadian men’s team has exceeded those expectations, and we could really use more exceeded expectations in this country these days, both athletically and otherwise.

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At the risk of sounding sentimental, it is also very satisfying that the Canadian men’s soccer team bears a striking resemblance to modern-day Canada. The players’ resumes bear a striking resemblance to the country itself. Davies was born in a refugee camp in Ghana to Liberian parents. He built his soccer experience in Edmonton and Vancouver and now plays for Bayern Munich, one of Europe’s top clubs. Striker Jonathan David was born in New York City to Haitian parents who moved back to Haiti, but later to Ottawa, where highly respected local youth coach Hanny El-Magraby took up his cause.

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One of Marsch’s favorite players is clearly Moïse Bombito, a 24-year-old Montrealer of Congolese descent who plays for Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids but had made just six appearances for Canada before this year’s Copa America. Bombito was impressive in every way in the tournament, including penalty kicks, but his path to the national team and MLS took a detour via community college in Iowa and then the University of New Hampshire.

“The best example of what’s wrong with the sport in our country is that … Bombito was never really identified (as a top talent) until he was 23. That’s just not possible,” Marsch told CBC. “We need to find the next Moïse Bombito at 15. We need to know exactly who he is. And we need to be able to challenge him to become a pro at 17, 18, so that at 24, 25 he’s playing for a top 10 club in the world, almost like Alphonso Davies.”

“As Canadians, we should aspire to do what a Brazilian kid wants to do,” El-Magraby told The Athletic in 2020. “Yes, (Brazilian kids) want to play for their local club, but their hope is to end up in Madrid or Juventus.”

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“As Canadians, it’s not something we take for granted that we feel this way. So I felt like I had a responsibility to call (David) out on that,” El-Magraby said. That’s great to hear, at a time when this country clearly needs more ambition and determination in every aspect.

It used to be hard to understand why a young Canadian top footballer would want to play for Canada when he already had other options for the national team: Calgary-born midfielder Owen Hargreaves famously chose England; Montreal-born goalkeeper Yassine Bounou famously chose Morocco and made himself one of the stars of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Suddenly it’s cool to play for Canada, and this deeply uncool and complacent nation should be very grateful for that. We should all get behind this team. It’s not easy at all to build a winning national soccer program. We’ve never done it before. If we can do it now, God knows what else we can do.

National Post
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