Rome is crumbling. The sky is falling. The world is coming to an end.
None of that is true. Nor was the notion that the Canadian men's team was ever in any kind of trouble at the Concacaf Gold Cup.
Canada followed up a barnstorming 6-0 win over Honduras in its opening match with an incredibly disappointing 1-1 draw vs. Curaçao last weekend, a result that raised questions in some quarters about the team’s status as one of the tournament favourites. If the Canadians couldn’t even brush aside the tiny island nation off the coast of Venezuela, then how can they be expected to beat Concacaf’s big boys?
"You're gonna have a few bad games here and there. That's just how life is," winger Jacob Shaffelburg said this week.
Coach Jesse Marsch added: "We've created higher expectations from the performance of the team and from what our expectations are internally. Let's not be so hard on the team."
Indeed, let’s not make mountains out of molehills. Marsch’s men set things right and managed to get back on course with a 2-0 win over El Salvador in an ill-tempered and ugly contest on Tuesday in Houston. In doing so, Canada clinched first place in Group B and secured a date with Guatemala in Sunday’s quarter-finals, marking the fifth straight time that it’s reached the knockout round of the Gold Cup.
This match wasn’t exactly an advertisement for “the beautiful game”, and it didn’t offer any entertainment value to those in attendance, thanks to El Salvador’s shameless tactics and flagrant attempts to drag Canada into the gutter. But none of that mattered to Marsch, who was back on the touchline after being suspended for his team’s first two games of the competition.
“Right now, I don't really care about the spectators as much as winning the group and moving on. … I'm happy with the concentration and discipline that our team showed and the fact that we got the win,” Marsch told reporters after Tuesday’s win.
American referee Joseph Dickerson was kept busy in the first half as he blew his whistle for 22 fouls, handed out four yellow cards and expelled two Salvadorian players. As a result, the Canadians never got into a steady rhythm and registered just a single shot on target before halftime despite enjoying 71 per cent possession against a Salvadorian side who defended in numbers.
El Salvador midfielder Santos Ortíz was sent off in the 35th minute after he picked up his second yellow for a crude scissor kick tackle that scythed down Niko Sigur from behind. Then right before halftime, Jairo Henríquez elbowed Alistair Johnston in the face in an off-the-ball incident and was shown a red card following a VAR review.
“I thought we had a pretty complete performance, even before the red cards. We just didn't get goals in the first half,” Marsch offered.
The goals came soon after the restart courtesy of a pair of sublime efforts from Jonathan David and Tajon Buchanan just three minutes apart. That allowed the Canadians to kill off the game against their Central American counterparts who were bound and determined to turn Tuesday’s tilt into a street fight right from the get-go.
"We knew El Salvador was going to be scrappy and fight for every ball, and they did that. Maybe they crossed the line a little bit on a couple plays, but I have a lot of respect for [El Salvador’s coach] and the job that he's doing with the team, and I have respect for their team and how they compete for each other. So, not an easy match, but important for us to win the group,” Marsch said.
Even when it was down 2-0 and needed a win to have any chance of advancing, El Salvador inexplicably defended in a deep block with all eight remaining outfield players getting behind the ball, rather than searching for a goal to get back into the game. How the Salvadorian players can look themselves in the mirror after this cowardly display is anybody’s guess. El Salvador should be ashamed, and the Gold Cup is better off with its elimination from the competition.
Canada’s lack of proper game management hurt them vs. Curaçao, conceding a late equalizer when it should have put the game away much earlier. They learned their lesson against El Salvador, staying focused following a disappointing first half and then shutting things down after taking a comfortable lead.
"Once we get the two goals at the beginning of the half, we can kind of put it a little bit more on cruise control, and make sure that we're saving ourselves physically, make sure that we get certain guys out of the match that have put a lot of minutes into the match,” Marsch explained.
“Maybe we could have been a little bit more adventurous at some moments. But I think the guys were really just thinking about killing the game off so that we could prepare ourselves and get ready for Guatemala.”
Credit should also be given to the Canadians for the way they held their nerve and kept their composure against a thuggish El Salvador that looked to disrupt the flow of the game by any means necessary in order to sneak out a result. The Central Americans' efforts proved to be totally in vain, and Canada collected a well-earned win against the unabashed chicanery merchants.
Going forward, Canada can expect more of this treatment at the Gold Cup, so it’ll be important that it keep its cool if it hopes to win this tournament for the first time in 25 years.
“We showed them right before the match a bunch of clips where El Salvador was really hard and really aggressive and not dirty but made the game hard on their opponent. That's one of the things they do really well. And then we talked about being prepared for that, and being up for the fight, but not crossing the line, and keeping our discipline. And I thought our guys did that,” Marsch offered.
John Molinaro is one of the leading soccer journalists in Canada, having covered the game for over 20 years for several media outlets, including Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is currently the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic, a website dedicated to in-depth coverage of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer. TFC Republic can be found here.
