In Canada, football emerges from the cold

Unbeaten in 10 games of the World Cup qualifiers since the final round began last September, Canada lead the CONCACAF standings, an octagon that also has USA and Mexico, with 22 points and could seal a berth to Qatar when they play El Salvador away on Wednesday. Even if they don’t, that should happen in March. The top three teams get automatic World Cup berths and the fourth plays a qualifier with the winners of the Oceania region.

The last time Canada played the final rounds of the qualifiers was in 1998 and they won only one of their 10 games. The only time they played in the World Cup finals was in 1986. Their biggest achievement before that was winning the football gold in the 1904 Olympics. After 1986, the highlight of the men’s football team was winning the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup. 

Promised land

Headlining that change is Alphonso Davies, the Bayern Munich left-side player, who missed Sunday’s game because of myocarditis, a heart condition that is linked to Covid-19 for which the 21-year-old had tested positive. Davies’ story is well-known: to escape the civil war in Liberia, his family had come to a refugee camp in Ghana in 1999 where he was born. The family migrated to Canada when Davies was five. Davies joined Vancouver Whitecaps when he was 15 and transferred to Bayern for $22 million two years later.

But what makes Canada tick — or the reason why Herdman thinks the team has an “opportunity to leave a proper football legacy” — is a growing number of Europe-based players in the roster. 

Defender Scott Kennedy is in Bundesliga 2, centre-back Steven Vitoria plays for Moreirense in Portugal. Wide midfielder Tajon Buchanan represents Brugge; defensive midfielder Stephen Eustaquio Porto (he missed the game against USA); goalkeeper Milan Borjan plays for Red Star Belgrade; Jonathan David is a forward for Ligue 1 champions Lille; Ike Ugbo is another forward on loan to Troyes in the French league from Belgium’s Genk; left-back Samuel Adekugbe — one of the scorers on Sunday — turns out for Turkey’s Hatayspor, age-defying midfielder and captain Atiba Hutchinson, who is 39, is at Turkey’s Beskitas as is Cyle Larin, the Didier Drogba and Chelsea fan, who scored the first goal against USA. Like Davies, many of them started life as refugees in a country whose immigration policies are more inclusionary than most.

Trudeau wants a selfie

With these players as the nucleus, Canada breezed through the first round of the qualifiers between March and June last year: they beat Bermuda 5-1; Cayman Islands 11-0, Aruba 7-0 and Suriname 4-0. Over two legs, Canada beat Haiti 4-0 to make the final round where they began with a 1-1 draw against USA. The country was warming up to soccer.

Television audiences trebled from 340,000 when Canada beat Panama 4-1 in October to 1.2 million when Mexico were tamed by the odd goal in three in November. That was Canada’s first win against Mexico in a World Cup qualifier since 1976. “We can compete with anybody,” Larin told The Guardian in an interview.

By then most people in Edmonton were of the opinion that Davies and not ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky was the city’s most famous sports icon. By the time USA came calling in Hamilton, the game was sold out and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and rapper Drake were seeking selfies with the team.

To 46-year-old English coach Herdman goes the credit of getting these mostly young players to pull together, often in a 4-2-2-2 formation. “That spirit you see, we all want to get to Qatar,” he said in Hamilton. Herdman has coached the New Zealand and Canada women’s team (2011-18) too and when he took charge in 2018, Canada were 94th in the Fifa rankings (India were 96th in 2017 and 97th in 2018).

Canada, fizzing with attacking talent that has now grown two years older and a lot wiser, beat USA 2-1 in 2019 for the first time in 34 years and it was the beginning of a turnaround. One that has taken them to 40th in the Fifa rankings and adjudged the most improved team of 2021. One year after taking charge, Herdman had spoken to qualifying for Qatar and laying the foundation for 2026. His team is now walking the talk. “John Herdman, that’s it,” Borjan had said when asked how the transformation happened.

To this, add a new league, the eight-team Canadian Premier League (CPL), that began in 2019 providing players much needed opportunity beyond the three teams in USA’s Major League Soccer (Vancouver White Caps, CF Montreal and Toronto FC). CPL also corrected an aberration: Canada was the richest economy in the world without a men’s football league.

With USA and Mexico, Canada is also one of the hosts of the 2026 World Cup. At a time when there is so much attention on men’s and women’s football, enter Insigne on a long-term deal said to be worth $15m a year. A football revolution has begun and it isn’t a whisper anymore.