One year ago, Canadian duo Amer Didic and Mark Anthony Gonzalez were battling just to find minutes on the field in the Swope Park Rangers’ inaugural season. Now, the two have just returned from their maiden trip with the Canada Under-23 National Team.

A ruthless second half of the 2016 campaign for SPR saw Didic named to the USL All-League First Team and become a finalist for Defender of the Year, while Gonzalez racked up a team-high 12 goals in his rookie season.

After receiving league-wide recognition, national team consideration was seemingly a formality, though Gonzalez admits he was still taken aback by his inclusion.

“It was completely unexpected, just kind of in shock, but I felt honored to get the call up,” Gonzalez said upon his return to Kansas City. “It was very exciting. It’s an honor to be called up, no matter what level.”

The call-up was extra special for Didic, whose family had immigrated to Canada from a war-torn Bosnia when he was young.

“Growing up, I never had the opportunity to be a part of the U-17 or U-20 levels. I had a lot of teammates that would get called up but I never did,” Didic said. “It obviously feels good to get a chance to represent your country where you grew up – especially a country that took me and my family in, so that was a big thing that went through my mind as I got called up.”

The pair jetted out for a grueling journey to Qatar, where Canada would take part in a mini tournament, facing Uzbekistan and Qatar. Unfortunately, Gonzalez suffered a minor injury on the second day of training.

“It was frustrating, it was definitely frustrating,” Gonzalez said. “Traveling all that way to impress the coaches, show them what you can do and not being able to do so was disappointing but I’m still thankful for the experience.”

The 22-year-old was forced to sit out both games as Canada took a 1-0 victory over Uzbekistan and topped Qatar 2-0 to win the tournament without conceding a goal – with SPR teammate Didic anchoring the backline and playing every minute.

“Both teams were really good – really technical teams,” Didic said. “I think that in the first game, it was back-and-forth, but I think we were strong defensively and very compact as a unit which was tough for both teams to penetrate and find that goal. We stuck to our game plan and we scored when they were at their weakest – which is when they weren’t paying attention. We actually had one really good goal in the second game, a nice sequence. It was a good two games.”

Honor to represent Canada at the under 23 level in Doha, Qatar this past week 🍁 pic.twitter.com/iesVzc4rFk — Amer Didic (@amerdidic_) March 31, 2017

New Canada Men’s National Team head coach – and former Sporting KC assistant – Octavio Zambrano coached the team for the duration of the tournament. Gonzalez was excited to see Zambrano’s commitment to identifying younger players in the national team pool.

“Yeah for sure (it was exciting),” Gonzalez said. “That’s the main goal, to get up to the senior team, so having him there showing interest in the future of Canadian soccer is very good.”

Even though Gonzalez wasn’t able to share the field with him, Didic still appreciates having a friendly face around while in a distinctly unfamiliar environment.

“It was great, it’s nice traveling that far and having someone you know really close be there with you the whole time. We roomed together, it’s unfortunate that he picked up a knock in the second training session, but that’s the game, it happens. I’m sure he’ll be back in the mix next time.”

For Gonzalez, his frustration momentarily suspended when he met former Barcelona and Spain legend, Xavi Hernandez – who now plies his trade in Qatar – after the second game of the tournament.

“We weren’t expecting to meet him at all, but we knew going in that was his home stadium – the stadium that he plays in now in Qatar – so we were wondering when we were on our way there if he was going to show up to our game,” Gonzalez said. “At halftime we realized he was actually sitting on the bench for the other team, so after the game everyone went to the locker room real quick, got their cell phones and he was nice enough to take a picture with everyone and have a quick little chat – very nice guy.”

One of the players who made me fall in love with game ⚽️ #Xavi #tikitaka A post shared by Mark Anthony Gonzalez (@markgonzalez7) on Mar 28, 2017 at 1:42pm PDT

So what of the Rangers? Didic and Gonzalez each missed the season opening 3-1 victory over OKC Energy FC before getting into town just in time to catch the second half of SPR’s 1-0 win against Portland Timbers 2 last Wednesday.

“(They were) very good,” Gonzalez said. “Me and Didic were very happy to wake up that morning and see the result, it was like 3:30 in the morning over there so we didn’t catch the first game, but we were happy with the result.”

“I was sleeping,” Didic admits. “I woke up in the middle of the night and would check online what the score was and then I’d fall asleep. I finally fell asleep for good and woke up and found out we won so later that day I watched the game again.”