It was a good week for Canadian soccer. The men’s national team managed to beat Jamaica 3-1 last Tuesday, ending a 16-game winless streak while scoring as many goals in 90 minutes as Canada had produced in the 23 months since being humiliated 8-1 by Honduras in World Cup qualifying. If that 2012 embarrassment wasn’t an entirely accurate portrayal of the dismal state of Canada’s national team, at least our current FIFA world ranking of No. 122 tells you all you need to know about Canadian soccer at the highest level. Naturally, the historic win over 85th-ranked Jamaica will push Canada up the FIFA standings, making 129th-ranked Afghanistan a little smaller in our rear-view mirror and possibly allowing us to overtake giants just ahead in the rankings, like Sudan and Lebanon (tied for 115th), Haiti (117), Niger (118), Liberia (119) and the Central African Republic (120). Most of these countries are near the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index which, more or less, identifies the worst places on Earth, and some of their soccer programs are likely to suffer as governments devote scarce resources to fighting the Ebola virus. “It’s heartbreaking,” former national-team player Carlo Corazzin said of Canada’s ranking. “It’s really difficult for me to put it into words, but the best way I can say it is Canadian soccer has lost its identity. It’s so hard as an ex-national-team player ... to see where they are now.” Asked about being ranked 122nd in the world, Canadian Soccer Association president, Victor Montagliani said: “I don’t really care whether we’re 122 or 22. I care about where we are in CONCACAF. We should be in the top six (and in the final stage of World Cup qualifying) on a regular basis.” Well, according to FIFA, Canada is ninth in its region, which encompasses North and Central America, and the Caribbean. In the last 40 years, the men’s national team has had only two fleeting moments of semi-glory: its qualification for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, and an improbable victory in the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States. That we are so continually disappointed by Canada’s team is not due to its failure to match these modest benchmarks, but because with the amateur players, money and facilities our country possesses, it’s almost inconceivable that we can be this bad at soccer. “In Canadian soccer, I feel there are just a whole host of people (in charge) who are in self-preservation mode and are not making the most of the talent that’s in Canada,” former Vancouver Whitecaps coach Martin Rennie, who is Scottish, said from his new coaching base in South Korea. “There are great athletes, excellent facilities, outstanding sports scientists, you produce world-class athletes in all sorts of disciplines and I just want to shine a light on the fact that soccer could be up there if things change. “I think a lot of people just complain about it, but they don’t really have any solutions. Or they say it’s a hockey country and this can’t be done. And that’s what I maybe thought, but it’s not true. It’s absolutely not true. You can play hockey and have a great soccer nation as well.” Fired by the Major League Soccer Whitecaps last October, Rennie remained in Vancouver through the winter and spring before accepting a job to build and coach a K-League expansion team in Seoul. His period of unemployment allowed Rennie to think about coaching, study what countries like the U.S. and Australia did to become more competitive, and connect with soccer’s grassroots in B.C. by conducting clinics for coaches and players.

Rennie wants to help reform Canadian soccer and has joined a few former national-team players in a group organized by William Cromack, a former UBC player who runs a soccer-education foundation called Play Better. Cromack has started an online petition, notdownthemiddle.com, and hopes to meet with federal government officials to lobby for structural change in Canadian soccer. The reform platform includes better coaching, a national “curriculum” for skills development at every age, the empowerment of private academies to recruit and train players, and the formation of a Canadian development league. “We need more people who bring solutions to the table and take action,” Cromack said. “Martin Rennie has a voice. He’s willing to put himself out there and educate the public about why we are where we are. There’s no reason for us to be No. 122 in the world. People are out there at the grassroots level burning little fires, but (reformers) have never been united.” “The last few months I was in Vancouver, I had a lot of time to see kids play,” Rennie said. “I did a couple of camps for friends, and the talent is absolutely there. But the system is betraying that talent. You can’t deny the results; they’re really not good. So what’s happening in Canadian soccer is not working. I don’t think anyone could really argue with that. If there was one thing — and there are more than one — I’d say that the governance has to be turned upside down.” Rennie said Canadian soccer has operated as an inverted pyramid, with provincial associations acting independently and beyond the CSA’s influence. “Up until last year, that was true,” Montagliani said. “But in 2012 ... we completely changed our governance model so there are no more provincial representatives on our board. That changed a lot of the mentality right there. The national body is there to lead, to mandate. We’re already starting to do that. There has been a lot of change. “It’s going to take some time, but the ball has already started rolling down the hill and is gathering momentum. We’ve always looked at the game from the bottom up, but we’re starting to look at it from the top down.” Montagliani, an insurance company owner from Vancouver who is halfway through a four-year, voluntary term as CSA president, said a national coaching curriculum is due to be introduced this month. He argues the future of Canadian soccer is brighter than it appears, pointing to the Canada’s qualification for the last two Under-17 World Cups. Corazzin, the former player who is a radio analyst on Whitecap broadcasts, doesn’t see much reason to be hopeful.