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Julian de Guzman is a warrior for his country.

The Ottawa Fury FC midfielder has donned the Red and White dozens of times and gone onto soccer fields around the globe as a member of, and even captain of, Canada’s men’s national soccer team.

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He doesn’t hesitate when called, as he was last week, by the new coach of the team the Spaniard Benito Floro.

But this soldier, more times than not, has been more like Don Quixote, tilting at a World Cup dream and not being able to reach it.

Perhaps this time will be the charm as the road to the 2018 World Cup in Russia begins June 11 against the tiny island nation of Dominica, but the road won’t be easy and it will begin in obscurity.

De Guzman, who will be 37 in 2018, says that Canada’s men’s team has changed in its make-up. When he was first involved, the players were coming from day jobs with the top divisions in world soccer, in countries like Germany, the Scandinavian nations and the United Kingdom. These days, the players are just as likely to come from MLS ranks in North America.