Considering Canadian Priorities

“To be very honest, at first [using Canadian players] was done in a very conscious manner. I thought that by doing something like that, I was going to actually help Canadian soccer, I was going to help young Canadian players have another option to grow and all that. So it was in our hearts, in our minds. The intentions were good.” “But ultimately, this is not something that is widely recognized. You do not get much praise at this level as we would have thought, not as much respect as one would think we’d have the right to from some people because of the work we did with Canadian players.” Although the Fury came to exercise the contract options of two Canadian players, Haworth and Eustaquio, the order in 2015 will be more to pick the best players available, regardless of nationality. “The fans, they want to win. And we, we are Ottawa Fury FC, not Mother Teresa FC,” said MDS. “What will make the fans happier: miss the playoffs with just Canadians, or win the championship with strangers?” “So we had good intentions but now our intentions are to win as much as possible, with Canadians, Québécois, or players from other countries.”

Compare and contrast. Yesterday, two major Canadian soccer bosses spoke to the media about domestic players on their teams. Here is Ottawa Fury head coach Marc dos Santos, as quoted by La 90minute‘s Marc Tougas and translated from French by me

Second, the words of Vancouver Whitecaps’ ashen-faced supremo Bob Lenarduzzi, quoted by AFTN Canada’s Michael McColl[2]:

“It’s nice when you look at [Whitecaps on Canadian youth national teams] and you look at the representations from the other professional clubs, it’s something at this stage that we can be proud of. But we’re not going to rest on our laurels. We’re going to continue to put the emphasis on development and I think as much as we want to be a club that develops players, we need for the coaching staff to play those players.” [. . .] Lenarduzzi admits that there isn’t too much point developing all this young homegrown talent if they’re not going to get too many minutes on the pitch and sees that as the next step for the Whitecaps to take. “We’ve stayed the course and now we’re starting to see the dividends from it,” Lenarduzzi feels. “Ultimately, we will see the dividends from it when we have three or four or five of those guys in our first team on a regular basis but I’ve always suggested that development is time consuming. It takes time for players to come through and do what you want them to do at the first team level. You don’t just snap your fingers and have players go from not playing to playing. We’ll continue to do what we’re doing.” [. . .] But what of all those naysayers out there who like to say that the Whitecaps hate Canada and do nothing for Canadian football? “It’s shocking to me, but that comes from a very small circle as far as I can gather,” Lenarduzzi said. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to that but whenever I hear that and I hear that we’re not playing Canadian players, what I often do is turn that question back around on the person that’s making those comments.” “[I ask them] tell me of a player right now in Canada, that’s not in our Residency program, that should be playing in our first team? And more often or not I get silence. I also believe that if you’re going to make comments like that, you should also have the ability to back them up. A lot of people say it but a lot of people can’t back it up and that’s frustrating.”

Set aside whether it is better to win or to play Canadians. (The Whitecaps, I remind you, used to do both and now do neither.) Lenarduzzi makes good points, and it’s true that only a tiny minority cares about his team’s Canadian content. He also makes poor ones, saying a team founded in 1986 with a Residency program from 2005 needs more time to develop talent and implying the only domestics he can sign already play within Canada. I guess bringing Canadians home from Europe is for giants like Montreal and Edmonton, but if Bob wants my ideas for domestic-based Canadian players he need only ask.

Dos Santos rightly says the 2014 Ottawa Fury were the most Canadian team in the world without much credit from the public and no calls from the Canadian national team. He’s wrong sometimes too. Only a handful of the Fury’s Canadians were in any sense developmental projects (Phil Davies is 24 for God’s sake) and not many NASL fans I met in Ottawa were interested only in results; if they were they wouldn’t have been there.

So what’s the difference?

Last season, Marc dos Santos actually played his Canadians. According to the venerable Out of Touch, Ottawa’s Canadians saw 8,250 minutes in the regular season last year, 30.9% of the team’s total compared to Vancouver’s 2,209 minutes for 6.6%[3]. The most prominent members of the Fury’s Canadian contingent were defenders Mason Trafford and Drew Beckie, midfielder Philippe Davies, and forwards Pierre-Rudolph Mayard and Carl Haworth.

Most of these Canadians did not perform. The Fury defense was average, their midfield was saved only by their imports, and the attack was led by Brazilians Oliver Minatel and Vini Dantas with Mayard more a hindrance than an asset. Canadian bench players such as Andres Fresenga and Kenny Caceros saw the field but did nothing to stay there. Only Haworth and Trafford stood out positively and both are on the 2015 roster. I would take Beckie over Omar Jarun, but he didn’t exactly impress.

Some of these failures were predictable (seriously, Marc, Pierre-Rudolph Mayard?!), some were gambles that didn’t pay (if Phil Davies recaptured his 2010 form he’d have been perfect, but that was ever so long ago), but there were no clear cases of a Canadian performing below his ability. They were plain lousy players.

Even so, smart money says Ottawa will again be more Canadian than Vancouver in 2015. Trafford looks like a starter, Haworth and youngster Mauro Eustaquio ought to see more playing time, and with only nine players signed including five internationals* some of Ottawa’s additions will be Canadian through sheer necessity.

Meanwhile, as McColl points out, no Whitecaps Canadians look likely for the first eleven in 2015 and few will regularly make the bench. Lenarduzzi’s own comments shows he realizes Vancouver has Canadians on the roster but not on the field. The recent release of Bryce Alderson, member of many a Canadian U-20 national team, source of look-at-all-the-players-we’re-developing bragging rights, and player of zero MLS minutes, is merely the most recent example. While in Ottawa international players brought most of the quality, in Vancouver Canadians were and are ranked behind foreign flavours-of-the-month of indifferent commitment or limited skill. Mediocrities Jun Marques Davidson and Erik Hurtado played more as a Vancouver Whitecaps than every one of their MLS Canadians combined†.

Dos Santos gave his domestic players a fair opportunity: his frustration comes from legitimate disappointment. Apart from, here and there, Russell Teibert, Canadians in the Whitecaps MLS years have not gotten the same chance. Obviously the Whitecaps have good intentions, but when Vancouver is compared to its rivals Lenarduzzi’s cavalier condemnation of concern seems less-than-earned.