Saying Bad Things About Good Times

Canada Soccer

You’ve probably noticed all the positivity in Canadian soccer lately. Daniel Squizzato: “It’s different this time, this CanMNT — just hear me out.” (He means it’s better.) Steven Sandor: “Where does current CanMNT roster stand all-time?” (Got the potential to be the best; suck on that, losing to Jamaica two years ago!) Michael McColl, “Canadian national team marvel at ‘complete change of culture’ under Herdman.”

There is nothing more Canadian than unwarranted optimism about the men’s national team. With luscious attacking talents like Hanson Boakai and Kevan Aleman showing their excellence, Simeon Jackson plowing in goals in a good European league, veteran Dwayne De Rosario still performing at a high level with a club that considers him an icon, and the commitment of star dual national Tesho Akindele, Benito Floro will… wait, how do you delete a paragraph?

Not trying to be holier than thou. We’ve all done it. I once nicknamed a player “Canadian Soccer Jesus,” and if you don’t know which one don’t look it up. A Canadian soccer fan who is not temperamentally optimistic won’t last, he’ll wind up in a Manchester City kit before you can say “Janine Beckie.”

And we shouldn’t lose to French Guiana. Bookies make Canada 1-to-5 to win. French Guianan starting goalkeeper Donovan Leon, a professional in France, is suspended due to yellow card accumulation so the job will fall to either Soleymann Auguste or Jean-Beaunel Petit-Homme, both young men from the local league . They had to fly from Cayenne, French Guiana to Vancouver through Paris. French Guiana is no Saint Lucia-esque minnow but under the circumstances if Canada doesn’t win it’ll be because in sports shit happens.

Still, as people who dislike John Herdman keep reminding us, this version of the national team has proven absolutely nothing. If we look at our achievements after the last Gold Cup, Canada defeated New Zealand 1-0 in a friendly, which as these things go beats one point from six against Mauritania but isn’t exactly a ticket to Qatar. We also won several Nations League qualifiers we had no excuse to lose. Sure, there’s an optimistic outlook in the Canadian dressing room. You’d feel good too if you spent months beating the hell out of construction workers and soldiers in an official CONCACAF tournament. Turns out taking candy from babies is both easy and deliciously rewarding.

So, in the spirit of contrarianism, here are some black pills.

Alphonso Davies was removed from the Canadian squad because of “injury.” Supposedly he hurt himself celebrating his first ever Bundesliga goal last weekend; the first goal for Bayern by a Canadian since 2005. Bayern left him on for twenty more minutes in a game they were winning 6-0 over Mainz and their press release says Davies will rest for a few days when the club is taking three days off anyway. They are barely pretending this is real.

Herdman says Davies is heartbroken. Bayern obviously isn’t bothered, which could be a problem. For decades, Canadian players have been persecuted for answering their national team’s call. It hurt the career of Paul Stalteri and cost Canada the services of Davies-like talent Tomasz Radzinski in many a tournament. If Bayern is doing wink-nudge injury withdrawals for Davies when he’s a bench player, what’ll happen if he locks down a starting spot? And if he never becomes a starter does that mean he’s falling short of the expectations Canadians place upon him? There’s a lot of “whatever happens, we have got / Alphonso Davies, and they have not” from fans, and the performances it takes for him to meet those hopes may mean that we hardly get to see him.

Jonathan David is sometimes mentioned in the same sentence as Davies. Admittedly, not the same part of the sentence, but as of this writing David is averaging 1.929 goals per 90 minutes for the senior Canadian national team. This is a solid figure, surpassed over a CanMNT career only by Gavin McCallum’s 10.000. What we mean is that David, in 150 minutes of senior national team action, has got two goals against the US Virgin Islands and one against Dominica. Nothing wrong with that, you can only score against the teams you’re playing against . We know those gaudy numbers are a joke, but it’s not a joke at David’s expense. What’s worrying is that his club statistics, based on a scarcely larger sample size, actually are cranking expectations up.

David (who was born in the United States and was also eligible for Haiti) is currently co-top-scorer at Gent of the Belgian top division; a decent team, a good league, and a damned good result for a 19-year-old rookie professional. But, in shades of his obviously-silly MNT scoring rates, four of those goals came in his first four games (and 167 minutes). In his most recent 917 minutes David also has four goals, which is still pretty good but not circus stuff. Marcus Haber has had years like that at equivalent levels.

Gent scores by committee. Only one goal behind David stands centreback Dylan Bronn, who has scored a few goals every month since September despite a knee injury and suspensions. Prior to this David had been a part of the Canadian youth pool and the national training centres. A prospect, but nothing indicated an obvious blue-chipper. Obviously some players bloom late, and we shouldn’t hesitate to call him up while he’s hot, but it is way too early to say David is our goalscorer of the future rather than an athletic kid doing well in a system where lots of goalscorers can.

We have seen this movie before. Simeon Jackson scored 13 goals in the Championship one year. It happens, to good players and to indifferent ones on a hot streak. Maybe Jonathan David can prove it but don’t pretend he’s written in pen. David’s automatic vault ahead of Tosaint Ricketts, the best Canadian striker of the century, on everyone’s depth chart means that our optimism may do us positive harm.

Our defensive situation is lamentable. Herdman called up veteran David Edgar, currently with Hartlepool of English non-League soccer, and fans were upset we didn’t call Manjrekar James from his comfy bench in Norway. This bodes ill. At left back Marcel de Jong may have a career-ending injury and Sam Adekugbe happens not to be injured now but usually is. Right back? Marcus Godinho is enjoying a good run in Scotland but is hurt so often his club doesn’t let him play on artificial turf, while Zachary Brault-Guillard has proven nothing. Eddie Edward, the standby of the “call up a no-nonsense right back” set, has now retired, Nik Ledgerwood is aging and banged up, and you get into Juan Cordova territory awfully fast. Canada’s top fullbacks are, indisputably, Davies and Atiba Hutchinson. Which sort of says it all.

This site praised the Whitecaps’ signing of Derek Cornelius, but under admittedly tough circumstances his MLS career has started horrendously. Adam Straith seems to be the forgotten, underappreciated man, as usual. Steven Vitoria is falling off the face of the Earth, which is only a good thing because he should never be allowed near a self-respecting national team… there’s Doneil Henry, the human highlight reel both for and against us, and Dejan Jakovic, who happily is sort of hanging around at age 33 but can’t be counted on forever, and then we’re crossing our fingers with the Edgar/Cornelius/James class. Costa Rican attacks will be a problem.

Add on a bunch of little things. Atiba Hutchinson is on his way to retirement with no foreseeable heir. Cyle Larin’s career is tottering in Turkey, and while you aren’t going to close the door on the kid, combined with his indifferent performances for Canada it’s not looking good. We still can’t seem to play enough games, especially not against anybody even reasonably good. And, last but not least, while most everyone is pretending to love John Herdman now, there’s still a hater brigade out for him and if Canada totters he will be devoured like a limping antelope among the hyenas.

So don’t worry, fans. There’s still plenty of opportunity for a Typical CanSoc Disappointment. (Probably not against French Guiana though.)