

Posted by

Sam Gregory ,

July 20, 2014 Email

Sam Gregory

Twitter

@GregorydSam Read this on your iPhone/iPad or Android device





World Cups serve as bookends for the cycle of international teams. Most countries spend four years preparing for them and once they are over a team’s focus immediately shifts to the next one. Sure there are continental competitions, youth competitions and other important games in between them but World Cups are always the main benchmarks in the trajectory of a national team. Given Canada’s rather unglamorous exit from 2014 World Cup Qualifying it’s tempting to say that Canada is starting this next cycle from rock bottom. However, it is worth looking back to the summer of 2010 as Canada was just beginning preparations for this past cycle to offer some context and to help answer the question, are we really worse off? As Spain was lifting the World Cup in South Africa, Canada was riding a seven game winless streak after announcing Stephen Hart would take over as full time manager of the national team. This winless streak which included losses to Poland, Macedonia, Jamaica and Argentina came after a promising Gold Cup in which Canada made the quarterfinals and were knocked out after a controversial penalty call against Honduras (of course it was Honduras, did I really need to specify?). In contrast, Canada is currently on a sixteen game winless run that dates back to their exit from qualifying in 2012. Although this looks significantly worse, it is important to remember that while Stephen Hart was at the helm for the 2009 Gold Cup, the 2013 campaign was led by Colin Miller after both he and Tony Fonseca had taken charge of the preceding friendlies. The poor lead-up, and subsequent goal-less Gold Cup in 2013, makes up a significant part of this winless run. Since Benito Floro took charge of the national team Canada is winless in seven. The streak is the exact same length as it was under Hart in 2010. The mood around the national team was not all that negative back in 2010 despite these results, partly because of the decent showing at the 2009 Gold Cup and almost certainly because there wasn’t a toxic “8-1” hanging over the team. As for goalscoring concerns, they were the same under Hart during his seven game barren run as they are now. Canada had scored only three goals in seven during that run and under Floro Canada has two in seven. What is important is what happened next. After the 2010 World Cup Canada’s results got significantly better. Canada went 2-2-2 in their next six friendlies in the lead-up to World Cup Qualifying in 2011. Canada beat Honduras and Belarus, tied Ukraine and Ecuador, were beaten by Greece in what many considered a solid performance, and lost to Peru. During this stretch Canada scored seven goals, a significant increase from the three in seven during their winless run. Essentially it was at this stage last cycle when Canada really changed their approach from a developmental one to a results focused one with qualifying on the horizon. For Benito Floro and the Canadian national team looking towards qualifying for both the 2018 World Cup and the 2016 Copa Centroamericano, they will need to take the same approach. People have been patient with Floro, myself included, and I think this is the right approach to take with a manager who has to rebuild a team that suffered one of the worst losses in the history of the program. Looking at Canada’s results before and after the 2010 World Cup, Canada’s current form should not be something to worry about. After all, the national team’s preparation did seem to be satisfactory given they were a point away from going further in qualifying than they have since qualification for the 1994 World Cup. That is why it is important that this is the moment when the acceptance of poor results comes to an end, and supporters start demanding more than just improvement. As we leave the 2014 World Cup behind us the rest of CONCACAF will be putting together their blueprints for the path to Moscow, and we should be too. Importantly, this starts with getting results against CONCACAF opponents Jamaica and Panama in our next two friendlies - for more than just points in the FIFA rankings.