Canada Snubs the NASL; Should the NASL Snub Canada?

It’s been a rough week for those of us who worry Benito Floro is snubbing the NASL. Floro announced his roster for the senior men’s national team friendlies against Guatemala and Puerto Rico this month, and no NASL names were on it[1].

There are always excuses. The NASL teams are in preseason, though Edmonton’s camp is only a two-hour drive away from Canada’s. We are told that Floro wants to look at U-23 players for Olympic qualifying this summer and Ottawa’s Mauro Eustaquio, who should be in that pool, has been battling injury. I take the view that the time to examine U-23 depth is in U-23 camp and the senior team should worry more about the Gold Cup and World Cup qualifying. But if Floro wants to run the rule over young players then why call Toronto FC reserve captain Chris Mannella and Hungarian league defender Manjrekar James? Neither has played a minute in a top league and both already have two caps. Mannella, a defensively-oriented central midfielder, joins a roster that is full of defensively-oriented central midfielders but lacks Hanson Boakai-esque attacking flair. If Floro is testing his top team neither player is yet near it.

Then, a few days later, defenders Sam Adekugbe and Andre Hainault were obliged to withdraw due to injury. Adekugbe is a youngster, though one who earned his call-up on merit and was finally getting MLS starts at Jordan Harvey’s expense. Replacing him with another kid is fair enough. But with Hainault gone Floro did not call another already-capped veteran like Nana Attakora or Mason Trafford. Nor did he call a veteran who he doesn’t know but really should, like Eddie Edward. Nor did he throw a bone to a player like Mallan Roberts, a good NASL centre back who could start for FC Edmonton this year, got his Canadian citizenship in February[2], and is very close indeed to giving up Canada as a bad bet and playing for his birthplace of Sierra Leone.

Instead the summons went to Jonathan Grant, out of the semi-professional League 1 Ontario. It’s great to see L1O getting a boost but Grant’s another player in a league below NASL level who Floro has already seen. The second injury replacement, Tyler Pasher, recently signed with USL Pittsburgh and is hoping to break though at a sub-NASL level after failing to stick in the also-sub-NASL Finnish second division. These decisions only make sense if the NASL is so, so low on Floro’s radar that anybody in the U-23 pool beats it.

Steven Sandor reports that Julian de Guzman has offers from NASL teams[3], so this might be his Canadian swan song. Too glib? Given that James, Pasher, and Grant apparently thundered past Attakora on the depth chart the instant young Nana joined the San Antonio Scorpions, I don’t see why.

This post’s purpose is not solely to gripe. As this NASL scorn continues for year upon year, we will see NASL fans murmur about playing Canadians at all. What’s the point? Unless our players manage to catch on in the Colombian second division like David Monsalve they won’t get a cap. Why play Canadians if the national team’s not interested? Already the proportion of Canadian minutes for both FC Edmonton and the Ottawa Fury seems set to decline in 2015.

The Canadian Soccer Association is not synonymous with Canadian soccer. Developing the domestic game, and domestic players, is certainly more rewarding when those players may join the national team. But domestic players are worthwhile for their own sake. Ex-Vancouver Whitecap David Morris and ex-Whitecap/Edmonton Aviator Gordon Chin became local favourites despite never making a senior Canadian team. Eddies fans didn’t love Shaun Saiko or Paul Hamilton the less for being left out of the national squad. Albertans succeeding at Clarke Stadium was enough.

Having Canadian players on professional Canadian clubs should not be the means to an end, it should be the end. Every player that winds up on the national team is a bonus and a credit to his club, of course, but the development of a serious domestic professional player base, the presence of local and regional players we can cheer on from Victoria to Moncton, should be its own reward for fans. It is for this reason we shouldn’t worry about the short-term player strength in a Canadian “division 1A” league. It will be weaker than the NASL almost by definition, but over years of full-time professional development the gap will narrow and someday, hopefully, it’ll be too good to ignore.

Until that league comes, let us apply the same philosophy to our NASL teams. The more Canadians the better, and if Benito Floro doesn’t rate them it’s his loss.