Other countries have benefited in a big way from the development of MLS. If Canada hasn't, that's on them.
No development of player personnel is in the hands of professionals at Youth Clubs. Only they the Clubs can make a significant contribution.
Actually there are many waysaround this. Here are a few, one of which is being heavily pushed by lawyers for CSA: 1) Create MLS Canada branch in Canada and allocate players and paychecks from there. 2) MLS is a business in which they solely operate out of 2 countries with no wish to expand beyond that. There is past case law (apparently) that would allow MLS to count workers from those two countries as domestic. 3) Count any player trained at a MLS Academy (plus usual laws) for X years as domestic. Its a proposal that could work. Those are the ones ive heard bandied about. Im sure there are other ideas out there. USSF and CSA have options if theyre willing to work together.
I don't understand. Mexico is the eleventh most populated country with between three and four times as many people as Canada.
How would #1 work? Set up the MLS Canada office and after that any player holding Canadian citizenship is paid from that office? Seems like that would be the best and easiest of the three options if the lawyers sign off (could be implemented virtually overnight).
Ah its the ups and downs of national fortunes, Canada was good there for a few years when they had DeRosario and Hutchinson, they won the Gold Cup in 2000. It seems like being the melting pot country they are they get a few stars (Hargreaves, De Guzman), better than even the US has ever produced that go on to play for other countries. Their fate is not to be a top 6 team in the region, just as our fate used to be, but they'll be back/get it together at some point.
Hargreaves had the best European career of any of them even if it was short. De Guzman has not reached the level that Subotic and Rossi did at their best even though injuries have sort of derailed their careers.
I wanna see Canada in 2022 or 2026. But with 3.5 spots that seems quite unlikely as CR will def be wrapping up that 3rd spot every 4 years. And then the likes of Panama/Honduras/Jamaica/T&T all good enough latching onto the play-off spot and doing well against New Zealand. Poor Canada
I dont claim to be an expert but that is basically what it seems like would happen. Many Canadian lawyers are who are experts on this matter believe such a thing could work. If you want more details check out Duane Rollins and Kevin Laramee from Canadian Soccer News and Sports Podcasting Network. Theyve covered this topic in detail over the years.
I'm not sure why there would be much case law around the subject. It's extremely rare for a business to need to differentiate between US eligible workers and workers from outside the country. Sports is one of the few and soccer leagues are the only ones of any size that bother with international roster slots. USSF sets the number, so doesn't have a lot of incentive to compromise on this, especially since there is no penalty to Canadian squads to have US players. Plus, USL doesn't count Canadians as imports (leaving aside if that's legal or not for paid players). The Canadians who cover this seem to have a blind eye toward the legal implications in the US of giving one nationality favored status over others (absent a treaty). One of the Canadian writers did an article or two in which they talked to Canadian legal experts who said the MLS designation of Americans as equal to Canadians for roster purposes on Canadian teams was probably illegal in Canada. So why wouldn't a similar situation also be illegal in the US?
Canada is improving at a slow and steady pace. The problem is that the Central American nations have been improving at a faster rate. Canada doesn't just need to catch Mexico and the US. They need to catch Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, etc. Jamaica is coming on strong..................... I mean, Canada's not going to catch their CONCACAF rivals with a couple of MLS and NASL academies. They're developing some good players that will help them beat some big teams on "any given Sunday." Its very difficult for them to build depth, however. You get past the "Best 18" of Canada, and you're really looking at marginal players. In order to catch their CONCACAF rivals a "culture change" has to occur. Its going to be a huge challenge. Sad? Not really. Why can't Costa Rica be that "3rd big team?" They have a larger population than Croatia (and by the way are ranked higher as well), Uruguay, etc...............and they're soccer crazy. They also have results to back up that status. Just beating the #3 ranked team in the World at a FIFA competition (a team that made the USMNT look impotent) was another feather in their cap. We can talk about wanting team X or team Y to be "big teams," but results can speak for themselves.
They have more talented young players than ever. Whether they have talent at all positions and can put together an effective team in the near future is another matter. Not sure about their centerback and deep-lying midfield talent in particular.
They just need to express themselves on the pitch and push themselves out of their comfort zone a bit, and they should be fine.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about Canadians abroad. In MLS, there's '95 Cyle Larin of Orlando, who set the MLS rookie goalscoring record last year with 17. Can be raw, but has a very good shot with both feet. All three Canadian MLS teams have promising young players. TFC: '98 attacking midfielder Malik Johnson has scored 4 goals in the USL. '95 midfielder Raheem Edwards is also worth watching. Vancouver has '95 leftback Sam Adekugbe, who has talent and has played some for the first team, but hasn't progressed as quickly as I would have thought. Also interesting is late '00 attacking midfielder Alphonso Davies, who already has 2 USL goals this season. I don't know as much about Montreal's young players, but '99 Ballou Jean-Yves Tabla, a midfielder or attacking midfielder, has 2 USL goals and has been publicly linked to the EPL. It may not seem impressive to score some goals in the USL, but to put things in perspective, I'm pretty sure the youngest American to score in that league is a '98 (Pierre da Silva) and only has 1 goal. I'm sure there are other decent prospects, but as someone with no direct interest in Canada, I've given you what I know.
Josh Doughty, '97 forward at Manchester United, former RSL youth player and also eligible for the USA. Forgot to mention him.
None of those four countries are nearly as cold as most of Canada in the winter. For that matter, a third of the US cities in MLS get colder than those countries. Also, North America is generally snowier than Europe -- not so much a temperature thing as just having more precipitation in the winter months.
We also need to keep in mind that Canada's depth in the past had been such that they consistently had a few players from the US lower leagues in their national team. I'm pretty sure a couple of TFC's Homegrown players over the years even got senior national team caps before they signed pro contracts.