What rises faster than the rate of inflation and the price of gasoline?
Posted at 6:00 p.m.
Canada’s soccer rating.
After the women, gold medalists at the Tokyo Games, it is now the men who shine. On Sunday, they got their ticket for the next World Cup. This feat puts an end to a 35-year lethargy, during which the Canadians have visited the abyss of international soccer, and have been lost there for too long.
At its lowest, it was very, very dark.
It was 10 years ago. You have forgotten ? It is because the Reds played in total indifference.
Between October 2012 and August 2014, the national team played 15 games. She didn’t win any. At the same time, they lost 8-1 against Honduras, and lost to kittens, such as Martinique and Mauritania (in a friendly match). Worse: it canceled 0-0 against… Saint-Christophe-et-Nevis.
What ?
Is that a real country, Mr. Chronicler?
Yes, yes, I swear to you.
Open Google Maps. See you in the West Indies. Do you see the little goldfish-shaped island between Anguilla and Antigua? Well, that’s it, the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis (Saint Kitts and Nevis for short). A country less populated than Blainville, and whose national stadium is twice as small as that of the University of Montreal. Fortunately, our representatives had won the return match. But it gives you a good idea of the depths from which Canadians emerge. From memory, I don’t remember any other national team having managed such a spectacular comeback in such a short time.
How to explain this sudden success?
It’s not the result of a single decision, but of a series of initiatives, explains to me the director of the academy of CF Montreal, Patrick Leduc, who played a few games with the national team in 2005. .
Leduc grew up in the 1990s, on the South Shore. We went to the same high school, at the same time. My buddies were playing with him. Already, at the time, he was three ticks above the best. Three times a summer, he says, he went to tournaments in the United States to face players other than Quebecers. The level was good, he recalls. But it’s incomparable with the level of adversity faced by the best players in the country today, from their teenage years.
“What has changed the most in recent years is the level of the opposition,” he analyzes. To illustrate his point, he gives the fictional example of the Bulgarian hockey team.
“If the Bulgarians only play among themselves, for years, they will never manage to be competitive in the World Championship. If that is their objective, they must face the Canadians, the Russians, the Swedes. To progress, it takes quality opposition. That goes for both hockey and soccer. »
Canadian players, he said, are better prepared than before for the game played in the zone to which Canada belongs, CONCACAF. Young people are also quickly exposed to quality opposition, particularly within the academies of Canadian MLS clubs, such as the one he leads at CF Montreal. In these programs, they have the opportunity to rub shoulders with the hopes of other MLS clubs.
Several national team players grew up in these structures. This is particularly the case of star player Alphonso Davies (Vancouver), Jonathan Osorio, Mark-Anthony Kaye and Liam Fraser (Toronto), as well as goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau (Montreal).
“These academies have contributed a lot to the growth of elite soccer in the country,” noted Soccer Quebec CEO Mathieu Chamberland. “Besides, the successes of the Canadian team coincide with the growth of these academies. »
In fact, says Mathieu Chamberland, the quality of development has increased across the country. Never has there been such a large pool of quality players in Canada. Among the determining factors, he underlines the improvement of infrastructures.
In the 1980s and 1990s, elite players were already training five times a week, 10 to 12 months a year. Summer, outdoors. In winter, on a hard surface, in a school gymnasium. Today, the hopefuls tread a large surface lawn, in July as in December.
These training centers have made it possible to significantly improve the offer of sports-study programs. Take the case of Louis-Riel high school in the Ottawa region. Since 2005, students have had access to the Dôme, an indoor stadium that allows them to play all year round, regardless of the weather conditions. Star forward Jonathan David and gold medalist Vanessa Gilles came from this program. The rookie of the national team and CF Montreal, Ismaël Koné, was trained at CS Saint-Laurent, located in the borough of the same name, where a magnificent indoor soccer field was inaugurated in 2017.
PHOTO PATRICK WOODBURY, THE RIGHT
John Herdman, Head Coach of Canada’s National Men’s Team
Finally, it should be noted, Canada recruited brilliantly.
It starts with the man at the head of the program, John Herdman. The British-born coach is competent, appreciated and respected by all. His presence is an asset in convincing players with dual nationality to line up for Canada, rather than their country of birth, or the state where they are now established. The recent successes of the national team, and the fact that Canada will present parts of the 2026 World Cup, are two other good calling cards to seduce binational players.
And the best part of it all?
The golden age of Canadian soccer has only just begun.
With this qualification, then the enthusiasm that will surround the 2026 World Cup, expect an increase in registrations in the next decade. And the larger the pool of players, the more intense the competition, and the better the chances of finding a nugget.
Canada will not become France or Germany overnight.
But he should no longer have to fear from the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis for a little while.