Following the most recent World Cup qualifier Julian de Guzman played in, the Canadian midfielder stared blankly at a small group of reporters in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

“We pretty much embarrassed ourselves,” the 34-year-old said following an historic 8-1 loss to Honduras back in 2012.

Three years later, de Guzman, a staple in Canada’s lineup for four straight World Cup qualifying campaigns, will lead Canada into another on Thursday in Dominica, the end goal being qualification for Russia 2018.

“The guys who were involved in that (loss in Honduras), we definitely want to forget that and the best way to do that is by getting results and changing the mentality,” de Guzman said during a Tuesday teleconference.

“That’s something we’ve been working on since (head coach Benito Floro) has been in charge. You can see it’s a different approach in every camp. There’s always room for improvement but the guys are more on his page and it seems to be working out.”

With a population of less than 100,000, Dominica shouldn’t test Canada during this opening, two-leg stage.

Canada will host the return leg next Tuesday at BMO Field. Assuming they easily dispatch the island nation, the Canadians will advance to the third round of CONCACAF qualifying where they’ll play a second two-leg series with another Caribbean or Central American side in September.

After that, it’s potentially on to the fourth round of CONCACAF qualifying, where Canada was eliminated from Brazil 2014 contention in Honduras, where they needed just a draw to advance at the time.

Now the entire process starts over.

“My feeling always is the same as a professional — to take these games with a lot of seriousness and with a lot of intensity because first of all, we need to win (this elimination series) and to take advantage of these two games to practice our pressing,” Floro said.

With that in mind, Floro is undoubtedly using these two qualifiers as preparation for next month’s Gold Cup.

Canada will face El Salvador, Jamaica and Costa Rica in Group C at the confederation championship.

For de Guzman, though, it’s first things first. Conditions in Dominica are expected to be horrendous at Windsor Park, a facility largely used for cricket. As always, the Canadians will expect the unexpected while playing on the road in CONCACAF.

“It’s something you don’t want to overlook,” de Guzman said of playing in Dominica. “These are very important moments for the team in terms of improving on things we need to work on and because it’s an official match, we also need to get the result.

“It’s important to get everyone on board and understand the importance of this game. Being involved in qualifiers for the fourth time, it’s important for myself to give that example and leadership to the guys that haven’t been involved and know the seriousness of what this means for the national team.”

Makes you wonder what happened the last time around.