TORONTO — Ottawa Fury general manager Julian de Guzman dealt firsthand with the hardships of holding a Canadian passport in the world’s game.

Now retired and sitting in the press box, de Guzman seems determined to ensure other Canadians don’t have the same issues.

In de Guzman’s first season as Fury GM, Ottawa has 17 Canadian players on its roster. Seven started in both legs in the Canadian Championship semifinals versus Toronto FC. Wednesday’s match even saw an all-Canadian defence.

For 75 minutes, Ottawa’s back line held Toronto FC to just eight shots with one on target, which turned out to be the opening goal of the game from Ayo Akinola. Eventually, TFC’s clinical finishing was too much to overcome and the Fury succumbed to a 3-0 defeat.

Even in defeat, a pair of Canadians stood out. Jamar Dixon was tireless on both sides of the ball, but especially defensively in closing down the right half-space.

Dixon's defensive actions in 66 minutes: – 6 interceptions

– 5 ball recoveries

– 4 tackles

– 3 clearances Pretty good… pic.twitter.com/K5BG0gh9To — Peter Galindo (@GalindoPW) July 26, 2018

Twenty-year-old centre-back Thomas Meilleur-Giguere, on loan from the Montreal Impact, also performed admirably. Meilleur-Giguere had six ball recoveries, which was only topped by Cristian Portilla’s eight.

Meilleur-Giguere’s defensive map. He completed six ball recovieres (in orange) versus Toronto FC.

“[Meilleur-Giguere] has been solid for us,” Fury goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau told Sportsnet. “He’s been important as well. Lots of clearances, anticipation. He dealt well with Jozy [Altidore] in the first half, I think. Nana [Attakora] and Thomas did well, really, to keep him off at the 18 … Thomas has been real solid. Even with the ball in our system, he’s been good at distributing balls and obviously his first job is to defend and he did it well.”

“I think [the defenders] were very compact, very aggressive,” said Fury head coach Nikola Popovic in his post-match press conference. “They were able to fight against one of the best teams in MLS, a team who went on to win this Canadian Championship last year, a team who won MLS Cup, a team who was in the final of the Champions League. They were very, very compact. They didn’t make so many mistakes. So I’m very happy with how all of the players played, and of course the Canadians, too.”

Meilleur-Giguere has yet to play for Montreal, but has been a first-team regular with the Fury, as has Crepeau. Those opportunities have been valuable for this Canadian-heavy squad as well.

“We have a few young players on the team, and for them to get this experience, it’s fantastic,” Dixon told Sportsnet. “Of course, we can have more and more and more happening, more young players coming in, it would be fantastic. But even the older guys, just to have a Canadian team, the majority of the squad is Canadian and this hasn’t happened before in Canada, so it’s impressive.”

With Canadians not counting as domestic players on American MLS rosters, it leaves players with fewer chances to earn regular first-team minutes.

In the USL, however, all Canadians have domestic status.

One of Canadian soccer’s biggest issues is players losing valuable playing time from the ages of 18 to 22. The Canadian Premier League, set to start in 2019, should help narrow that gap.

For now, Ottawa is providing an additional route.

“The project is going well and we’re capable of playing at this level,” said Dixon. “Guys just need to believe they have the talent and they play. We need to play against opposition like this to get better. We need to be able to lose. We need to be able to tie. We need to be able to win. You need that feeling, right? I think it’s been a great project, I think we have a lot of good players on the team, and the spirits are great and it’s great to have a Canadian group.”

“We know that it’s difficult sometimes to carry our passport because we’re not even domestic in the United States, which is really difficult for us,” Crepeau admitted. “You know that there are so many rules that can screw us. It’s important to really have more Canadians on the field, especially while the Canadian Championship is going on because there’s a feeling of wanting more.”

As for the Canadian Championship, this was the first season with an expanded tournament. It featured six teams instead of the usual four, thanks to the additions of the Oakville Blue Devils from League1 Ontario and AS Blainville of Première Ligue de soccer du Québec (PLSQ).

Blainville defeated Oakville in a dramatic two-legged affair to set up a quarterfinal date with the Fury. Ottawa edged the Quebec side 2-0 on aggregate, earning back-to-back 1-0 victories in either leg.

Popovic, who also coached academies in Europe, is encouraged by the new-look Canadian Championship because of how it will benefit the Canadian player.

“I think it’s a very, very important competition for Canadian football … I would like to see more and more Canadian teams playing before this stage. Not involving only six teams, but if we can have more and more teams and more Canadian players being exposed to this kind of level, giving them a stage to show themselves, I think we will find a lot of good Canadian players.”

Even Dixon, a Canadian international in his own right, is thinking big-picture with the CPL likely fielding teams in the competition as well.

“You don’t always need these kids to always have go to Europe and struggle. It’s better that they come here, they have a league that they can play in their backyard and they can grind in their backyard. It’s better that they have this opportunity so then they can move onto bigger and better teams in Canada.”