Four years is a long time. Canadian soccer fans know just how long. We live in four-year cycles, from missed World Cup to overblown expectations to, of course, missed World Cup. We know the rhythm of failure.
Now, after one of the most humiliating losses in Canadian soccer history—an 8–1 drubbing in Honduras that killed Canada’s run at the 2014 World Cup—fans are staring at another long four years.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, ask any of us. Things were getting better. After years of inept and backward management, the Canadian Soccer Association reformed its broken governance model, had a new president and fresh energy. And it went all in on Brazil 2014. The CSA’s marketing department, which previously couldn’t interest a starving man in a steak dinner, was selling hard the dream that the boys in red could reach Rio. And beyond Brazil lay a veritable land of milk and honey: millions in funding, star players, full stadiums and a golden age of Canadian soccer. Hard-core supporters, those who have ridden out too many four-year cycles of disappointment, were convinced. Surely this time. Surely.
They weren’t alone. When qualifying began, the team looked good. The dressing room was healed and hungry, with new players and a new manager. Sponsors pumped in cash, attendance shot up at home and fans tuned in to away matches. Our boys jogged through the opening round, gaining momentum. They went a year without giving up a goal in a meaningful match. They were on the verge, one game from the final qualifying round—closer to the World Cup than they’d been in 15 years. It was right there, a measly draw away.
Then, just like that, 8–1. It was more than a loss. It was pathetic. A team beaten before kickoff. Men reduced to boys by 40,000 hostile Hondurans, wasting chances and gifting goals. Down 4–0 after 45 minutes. The team had quit, eulogized at halftime by captain Kevin McKenna, who could only muster hope for “damage limitation.” Instead the players sank further. Shell-shocked, they ended the match staggering around the pitch like the walking dead.
The loss had a familiar—if unusually intense—bitterness to it. Honduras again. Failure again. It’s a refrain Canadian fans know all too well. In 2006 qualifying, the team went to Honduras needing a win and held a 1–0 lead into injury time; the game ended 1–1. A weak and winless bid to reach the 2010 World Cup four years later was crippled by a loss to Honduras in Montreal and killed with another away.
Now this, the worst yet. This is what it’s like to be a Canadian soccer fan: Watching your team fall at the same hurdle every four years, no matter how bright things look. And—oh, the irony—this time, everyone was watching, the cynics confirming what they’ve always suspected: Canada sucks at soccer.
It’s a tidy case, that on some existential level, Canada and soccer don’t fit. But that’s not it. This loss wasn’t proof that Canada is rightfully and forever doomed to the fringes of football. It was a program hitting an inevitable rock bottom, weighed down by endemic on-field problems.
The good news? Canada has been exposed. The governance problems have been solved, but the soccer problems remain. With that one loss, the paper over the cracks was ripped away. And the problems, laid bare, may finally be fixed.
It starts with a new coach. Stephen Hart took the honourable (read: only) option and stepped down. That leaves an opening for someone with the experience to win in CONCACAF, the prestige to draw players, a name to hang corporate sponsorship on and the stomach to work for less than they could earn elsewhere. Applications are welcome.
From there, a new team. Please. Simply put, this one wasn’t good enough. The collapse in Honduras was hyperbole, but it killed the myth that these guys are world-class. Some used to be, others maybe will be. Too many never were. In truth, a World Cup–calibre team would have wrapped up the group long before that final match.
Which points to the big, long-term problem: How do we build a coherent and functional development system to turn the million or so soccer players in Canada into 11 guys good enough for the World Cup? Canada’s soccer-playing population is larger than that of a third of the countries in South Africa in 2010, but it’s been 26 years since our lone appearance. Tapping into that vast potential is the only way forward.
The CSA is set to take the first step by hiring a technical director. The position—a vital role in shaping the program’s direction—has sat empty for years. A ship without a captain always finds the rocks.
Then, the perennial problem, the death of every World Cup run. It’s been nearly 30 years since Canada won in Honduras, eight since a victory in any Central American stadium. The atmosphere and intensity down there is killer, but the road to every World Cup runs through that isthmus. As long as it’s blocked by fear of 40,000 angry Hondurans, Canada’s getting nowhere.
When qualifying for Russia 2018 kicks off, the CSA will have to convince Canadians the team is worth supporting, that there’s real reason to hope for success. A lot has to change for that to be believable. But four years is a long time.
This article originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine.
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