What is the problem with Canada?

I think they're headed for another terrible beating in San Pedro Sula

 

No kidding.

Part of Canada's problem is they keep having terrible Gold Cups.
Their FIFA ranking is usually quite low meaning they get put into terrible pots for WCQing draws, etc.

Right now Canada's FIFA ranking is 100. In 2014 in they made it as low as 112 in the World. Here's what the standings look like in their world.



They are according to FIFA the 11th best team in the region. They are ranked below Antigua & Barbuda, as well as St. Kitts & Nevis. People understand this right? Canada wins so few games that actually matter that they kinda can't pick themselves off the pavement. They can't get the ball rolling. One win against a good team like Honduras every few years doesn't do it. They have to start repeatedly winning these games. As much as people whine about the USMNT recently, we repeatedly beat the teams in our region in games that matter. We lose some, but we win a lot of them.

In fact, if Canada had to qualify for the Gold Cup in the manner than Central American and Caribbean nations do.................I'm not sure they'd even make the Gold Cup. That's something that's always been confusing to me.

 

They might not qualify all the time, but I think they would qualify most of the time. If you took Canada's spot and gave 0.5 of it to Central America (UNCAF) and 0.5 to the Caribbean (CFU), UNCAF and CFU would have 5 spots each. If you added Canada to UNCAF's Copa Centroamericana and made it an 8 team tournament with 2 groups of 4, Canada could qualify by finishing in the Top 2 in its group or finishing third and beating the third place team from the other group. Each group would have one of Belize or Nicaragua. If Canada was better than Belize and Nicaragua all the time and better than at least one of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador every time, Canada would qualify. The CFU qualifying has multiple rounds with different teams starting in different rounds. There are four CFU teams ranked ahead of Canada in the FIFA Rankings, so if Canada joined CFU qualifying and CFU had 5 spots, Canada would have a good chance at qualifying. The CFU qualifying has areas that are not members of FIFA, but Canada is eighth in CONCACAF in the ELO Ratings, and ahead of all the CFU members who are not members of FIFA. I'm not trying to say Canada is deserving or is not deserving of an automatic spot. I'm just trying to evaluate Canada's chances of qualifying if they had to. Note that the WCQ Semifinals have the same amount of teams as the Gold Cup, and Canada has qualified for every WCQ Semifinals since the current format started for World Cup 1998 without getting to start in the last two Semifinals like the USA did.

 

The only reason Canada is given an automatic spot is the same reason the tournament is held in the US every iteration.

As the 11th best team in CONCACAF, there is no justification for Canada receiving an automatic bid while a nation like Costa Rica has to qualify. Zero.

It doesn't really matter what the format of their qualification will be.
They'd round out the Copa Centroamericana field to 8 teams. The tournament is held in the United States anyway.

And yes, you'd EXPECT them to advance. However, as the 11th ranked team from CONCACAF...............they should have to prove it on the field.

 

I don't want to be mean about it, but I do get the impression that Canada feels that it's owed something. It seems that they feel that it's partly the responsibility of the United States to guarantee their development. Because they have a few soccer hotbeds and their country is wonderful and we can benefit from the rivalry and Concacaf will be that much stronger and the world would love for them to be part of the mix, etc.

But when it comes time to really go for it, they lay on the excuses - the CSA, lack of corporate support, a dispersed population, Concacaf officiating, the supposed anti-Canadian bias of MLS rules, etc.

I see very little heart and commitment up there. No initiative at all. And the latter really is part of the problem. Sure, the United States can learn a lot from Canada. But the US has a much greater tradition of philanthropy and prescient, daring investment. MLS was born of that. We didn't sit around waiting for someone to start a league where teams from only a few of our cities might play. And we didn't wait for the next Maradona to emerge from his parent's high-rise tenement and lead us to glory.

Canada, for all of its noble progressivism, is, in many ways, a complacent, conservative, dependent society. It doesn't know how to go for it.

 

I don't know about all that.

Canada has good players. They just don't have enough of them. They only have the three MLS academies, plus another couple, that are really of high quality. Their academies probably match those of just Dallas-Fort Worth (where there are three good USSF development academies plus a bunch of other good youth clubs).

When I hear people say CONCACAF needs a third power, and it MUST be Canada.......................I wonder if they're paying attention. What's wrong with Costa Rica? People realize Panama has a higher GDP per capita than Mexico? If a 3rd "power" in CONCACAF must be crowned, its much more likely to come out of Central America where they ARE soccer crazy (for the most part) and have a history with the sport. People must know that Honduras is soccer mad and has a population larger than Croatia, Uruguay, and Denmark. Surely.

And why must we have a 3rd "power" in CONCACAF anyway?
To be horrifyingly blunt..............Mexico is the current U17, U20, U23, and Gold Cup Champions of CONCACAF. And they dominate the CONCACAF Champions League. There have been 32 winners of the CCL/CCC and 16 Runners up from Mexico. The next closest is Costa Rica with 6 winners and 5 Runners up. Not a contest in club soccer.

I wonder if fans from other nations think there are two "powers" or only the one........................

 

As one who studied Latin American affairs, I am aware of those statistical curiosities.

Regarding what I said about Canada, I stand by it. Most of all that is a consequence of the monarchist tradition: waiting to be led, looking to those above for solutions, knowing your place. Some of it is virtuous, mind you. Canadians tend to be responsible with money. In coastal New England, in fact, they're considered cheap and joyless. Ask a waiter or bartender. And I didn't mean that they're politically conservative but just conservative in the classic sense: they cling to what they have and don't always see the need to be daring. And it's all so very obvious in their soccer culture.

Perhaps many US fans would just like to enjoy another rivalry, one with a country with which we have greater cultural kinship. I am always impressed at the decency - relative decency, anyway - shown after US-Canada games. (The Latin boilovers do get old). Indeed, I'm all for the rivalry. Canada has to play its part and work at becoming something.

 

Do you mean the reason is money? How much less money would the Gold Cup make if it had Antigua and Barbuda instead of Canada? If USA, Mexico, and Canada had the same population and soccer quality, but Mexico and Canada switched locations so that Canada was closer to Central America, I wonder if Canada would be grouped with the Central American countries.

There's no disputing Mexico's dominace in the CONCACAF Champions League. Mexico being the current Champions of CONCACAF in U17, U20, U23, and the Gold Cup is impressive, but other CONCACAF countries have done better than Mexico in worldwide competitions. Honduras did better than Mexico in the current Olympics. Mexico has been the top team in CONCACAF in only one of the last four World Cups, which was in 2006. USA was best in 2002 and 2010 and Costa Rica was best in 2014. In 2010 Mexico and USA both lost in the Round of 16, with USA finishing 12th and Mexico finishing 14th. In 2002, 2006, and 2014 the top CONCACAF team went to a farther round than the next best team.

 

I was thinking about the all-time count as a way to think about why folks believe Canada has it in them to be the "3rd CONCACAF power".

All-time medal count (summer plus winter) according to Wikipedia. I don't know if this was before or after the current games, but that's not the point. Canada has the athletic base to become a strong soccer nation. The question is whether they want to be. Cuba is also an interesting case One can imagine a future Cuba becoming strong at this sport as they have a "culture of athletics."

USA 2681
Canada 449
Cuba 209
Jamaica 67
Mexico 62
T&T 18
Bahamas 12
Puerto Rico 8
Dominica Republic 6
Costa Rica 4
Panama 3
Haiti 2
Barbados 1
Bermuda 1
Grenada 1
Guatemala 1
Netherlands Antilles 1
Virgin Islands 1

 

Sorry, I know I'm late on this, but I have to respond because I feel like you are misinforming people.

Larin is a very good player. He's one of the best young players in MLS. Wales is worse at football than England (don't bring up the Euros, I don't think thats proper evidence), yet their best player is better than England's best player. Would it mean we are bad at soccer if the best young player in MLS was Canadian? I also am not sure that Larin is the best young player in MLS, but there's a good argument that he is.

You are completely exaggerating about the other two players. Hamilton is a decent young player, but he's not even worthy of starting in MLS yet. There are plenty of American players a few years older or younger in MLS that are better players than him. On Davies, you just aren't paying attention, if you don't think the USA has players to match him in his age group. Try watching some games of the young American that recently signed with Atlanta and the one that recently signed with DC. They are also 00's who if eligible could be playing minutes in MLS this season, like Davies has.

 

I truly believe this is a function of Mexico mind-********ing themselves like the English do. They are better than their results. Debatable? Not much isn't but that's just my gut feeling. We should be glad they underperform because it fosters the feeling we are one or two steps away and that helps us stay motivated. If they were blowing the doors off us at the senior level then I believe it would have a negative impact in not only interest in the USMNT but also affect us at the youth levels.

 

Plus..................Canada has always had some good players. Those of us of a certain age remember Tomasz Radzinski (of Anderlecht, Fulham, Everton, etc.), Paul Peschisolido (who played a long time in England for Birmingham City, Fulham, Stoke, West Brom, etc), Paul Staltieri (of Bremen and Spurs). The list goes on.

In international football, though, you need 30 good players. If they have Larin, that's outstanding.................but where are the internationl-caliber Canadian defenders? At one of the recent Gold Cups they had some illnesses, and they were scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as the quality of players in their midfield.

And we all know what the "failure rate" of prospects is. Its high, whether we're talking about the United STates, Argentina, or Canada. The failure rate amongst the kids promoted from Canadian MLS academies has been quite high. Most of TFC's homegrown signings haven't developed, for instance.

 

I think on Friday we will see what the problem is (many problems are) with Canada.

 

In general, for the money invested and the number and quality of the sporting facilities across the country, Canada is an underachiever in sports. Cf. Australia, a much smaller country (population-wise) with a similar culture & similar ethnic profile.

Canada does well in a handful of winter sports very few countries care about, and has a good record in ice hockey --but even there it underachieves, considering ice hockey is THE sport here.

I just think it's cultural. Most people here are collaborators rather than competitors. It may be the price to pay for having a quite harmonious society.

 

Canadian teams may also have an easier time signing players under 18 because American players often try to keep their college eligibility intact. I'm pretty sure Canadian college sports aren't bound by the same amateurism rules as the NCAA because I recall one player playing for the University of British Columbia while under contract with Toronto FC. (He was TFC's second or third string keeper, IIRC, so wasn't really getting minutes in Toronto.)

 

A lot of the best Canadian players that play college athletics play in the NCAA.

 

There really aren't many American players who are attracting interest from top 4 leagues. Larin is one of the few. Davies is getting decent minutes in MLS at 15 years old. I'm going with him being a top prospect. Sorry.

I mean, who is the best American prospect in MLS right now? What American MLSer has a bright future in European. Maybe Jordan Morris. Possibly you would say Nagbe. That's it.

 

But when that player steps on the field for the US, he will go for it, lead, and fight.

 

You think Canada's passing us? Great. Time will eventually tell. I'm just trying to help you out, but if you want to believe that, I won't stop you.

 

Teams in "top 4 leagues" aren't signing MLS players (other than the Miazga types).

They're signing 18 year olds by the dozens. They want the raw materials.
[And 16 if they have Euro passports like Pulisic, Danny Barbir, Kyle Gruno, etc...............]

 

True, but Canadians may be more likely to take risks like signing pro contracts early because they don't lose the college option if they wash out.

 

Holy fxck I'm old.