Two years ago, Ryan Telfer thought he was out of options. He was on the York University soccer team, in Toronto, but it had become something he “did on the side,” because without a future in the game, he was starting to focus more on his pending life as a civil engineer.



There was nowhere else for him to go, unless he wanted to toil in the Toronto FC Academy, or head off to play semi-pro in the Canadian Soccer League. Carmine Isacco, his coach at York, believed “he was a late bloomer,” and urged Telfer not to give up on the sport.



“It’s the old adage: You’ve got to give these guys an opportunity to fail,” Isacco said. “Most of these guys don’t even get an opportunity to fail.”



In this case, “these guys” are the Canadian players who slipped past one of the few open portals leading to the national team. And once they slip, it is easy to disappear, which is how the story might have...