The Only Canadians in Jamaica Who Didn’t Get High

When Honduras’s Bryan Rochez buried a rebound from a spot kick in the 72nd minute of their CONCACAF men’s U-20 championship match against Haiti, he sealed the fate of the Canadian team. Coming off a 2-1 loss to the Cubans – appalling even by our standards – Canada is now eliminated with a game to go in the group stage. I was a pessimist before this tournament began and even I am horrified by this abject failure.

There’s a game left for Canada; not quite a dead rubber with Honduras playing for position, but to hell with it, the guys who count are done. What the flying fuck happened? This over-ballyhooed team, supposedly the best men’s U-20 crew we’ve ever assembled, produced our worst CONCACAF U-20 result since 1988, when we not only lost to Cuba but drew Bermuda. Even then we had a crumb of comfort: the Mexicans who won the group were cheating on their age. This year there will be no excuses.

Yes, two leading Canadians, Fraser Aird and skipper Dylan Carreiro, were held back by their Scottish clubs. This is trebly bad in Carreiro’s case, since he was pulled at the last minute and has been an unused substitute by Dundee all tournament long. But two players, however talented, should not be the margin of defeat to fucking Cuba.

We’re Canadians, and our tradition is to blame the coach. Rob Gale is making it awfully easy. His background is one some Canadian fans love to hate: English-raised and trained, a longtime Canadian staffer who was technical director of the Manitoba Soccer Association and bounced his way up the CSA ladder. Many fans believe Canada is so deficient technically that only outsiders, or at least Canadians with a non-CSA background, should be in responsible positions. This tournament will give them ammunition.

After the Cuban debacle, Gale made a couple curious comments in his press conference:

Unfortunately I think it was a case of that early mistake and the fragility of the team mentally after conceding late in the last game, and we didn’t put the heart and the effort in that is usually associated with us. [. . ] When they put in the effort and commitment and drive [. . .] that has to be the bare minimum at this level. And that’s where they’re looking at themselves now, and the mental fragility (again) of the players in these conditions, and against these oppositions.

So much for a coach protecting the team. Maybe Gale didn’t mean to blame his players but he went without a word of personal responsibility.

Frankly, who thought the Canadian players were dogging it? There was honest effort and few conspicuous slackers. The problem is that the effort was all individual: there was no linkage, the forwards were too high up, the midfielders were trying to beat everybody with their feet, the defenders lacked outlets, the closest Canada came to building an attack was playing it around the back for a while, then if they were very lucky driving down the flanks and flinging in a cross. There was plenty of possession, almost all meaningless. We were playing Cuba and we couldn’t turn the heavy artillery on them. Against El Salvador we kept punching against rampant time-wasting and dodgy tactics, but while we scored on a couple moments of individual brilliance the players’ inability to work as a unit was exemplified by the 90th-minute El Salvador winner. “Effort and commitment and drive” is an easy excuse, but only that.

Gale’s lineups were equally dodgy. With respect to two good young goalkeepers, I’ve spent a lot of time watching both Nolan Wirth and Marco Carducci, I know several other people who have spent a lot of time watching both Wirth and Carducci, and Rob Gale is just about the only guy in Canada who’d take Wirth over Carducci. Carducci, a full-time professional who’s played magnificently at the USL PDL level, started the tournament’s first game against Haiti, allowed a very bad goal, and has been benched ever since. Wirth, an NCAA amateur whose USL PDL record was mixed, did well against Mexico but had a horrible time against El Salvador. Yet while one bad goal finished Carducci, Wirth got the nod against Cuba… and made a back-breaking mistake for the first Cuban goal. “Squad rotation” won’t do; Cuba was Wirth’s third game on the trot. And if Wirth was “mentally fragile”, which I doubt, shouldn’t the coaches have caught that?

Then there’s Hanson Boakai. One of the few regularly-playing professionals in Gale’s arsenal, Boakai was coming off an injury in December and not fully match fit. Boakai did not play against Haiti (but was not needed) and saw only thirteen minutes against Mexico in an impossible situation. Then the Handsome Bowtie came in at half against El Salvador and nearly saved the game for Canada single-handed, scoring the Canadian goal of the tournament and providing Kianz Froese with a lovely marker. It was an electrifying display and surely earned Boakai a start in the effective must-win against Cuba. Yet he did not appear at all, with the final substitution going to the invisible Calum Ferguson. There have been rumours (and relying on the rumour mill for this is condemnation in itself) that Boakai aggravated his injury, but there are other rumours this is incorrect, and Boakai was listed as available. There was no “tomorrow” to save him for.

This isn’t to absolve the players entirely. Many highly-hyped hopefuls did nothing. Cyle Larin was in over his head. Jordan Hamilton pushed Haiti around but against determined opposition couldn’t find space. Sam Adekugbe’s tournament was hit and miss, but his utter pummeling at the hands of Mexico’s Hirving Lozano showed a gulf in class. Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé had a terrific assist against Haiti but that was his one moment of quality. Michael Petrasso got unjustly bad reviews: he was at least generating offense and getting into position but his shooting was wildly off, exemplified against Cuba when, undermarked, he stroked a B+ chance from within the eighteen into the Caribbean.

The thing is, these tournaments matter very little in themselves. What matters is the players they produce. Many of the Canadian individuals were up to snuff, at least compared to middle powers like El Salvador (Mexico throttled us but only the insane dreamed we deserved to compete with them). There were fleeting moments where Canada’s opposition lost cohesion and gave room for individual talents to work, and in those moments (I think particularly of the first half-hour against Haiti and much of the El Salvador second half) Canada kicked ass. Am I wrong to take hope from that? Disaster though we were, talented players will now return to clubs and coaches that seem to have done decently nurturing their abilities so far.

I leave this tournament as confident as ever in Petrasso and Boakai, a little more hopeful for Farmer, Serban, and Bustos, and with slightly larger question marks drawn beside a few names. I mentioned Canada’s 1988 team earlier: those U-20s were a disaster on the field but brought useful players in Paul Fenwick, Carl Fletcher, Eddy Berdusco, and most famously Paul Peschisolido. If the 2015 team generates a similar hit rate, which it easily could, we’ll look upon this generation of players with a smile.

Clearly, the Canadian Soccer Association needs to take this level more seriously. They got the U-20s a host of training camps and warm-up friendlies, including the prestigious Milk Cup, and the investment sunk without trace into a Jamaican swamp. A coaching staff of Paul Stalteri, Ante Jazic, and Bob Gale was an inexperienced crew: there was no professional hand on the tiller, not even a Pesch or a Nick Dasovic. It’s important for the CSA to develop its coaches as well as its players, but those coaches need somebody to follow and learn from. Even an out-of-season NASL coach like Colin Miller, Marc dos Santos, or Alen Marcina would have been useful. Failing that, even a college coach who knows young players like Alan Koch or Mike Mosher. Just not the same old Canadian Soccer Association echo chamber and a vain hope that our staff will learn on the fly.