Canada must put best foot forward against Haiti

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/06/2021 (1867 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s so close now, so tantalizingly close, one shudders to think of the disappointment, the desolation, of coming up short when it’s well within reach.

No, the Canadian men’s national team is not on the cusp of World Cup qualification, although that, too, will hopefully be something near and realistic in March of next year.

But first things first.

Saturday afternoon in Port-au-Prince (4 p.m., OneSoccer), Canada will face Haiti in the first of two legs to settle a berth in the final round of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football qualifying, where regional heavyweights Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico and the United States await.

It’s the sort of hurdle that would have tripped up the Canucks in years past, and even now there are no guarantees. As a matter of fact, Haiti beat Canada in the teams’ previous encounter, so it’s appropriate that such a decisive test should come against them.

It’ll be the chance to right a wrong, to demonstrate progress and maturation, to enact a sort of exorcism before ascending to CONCACAF’s ultimate World Cup competition.

The shock of 2019 still reverberates.

In June of that year, Canada had hammered Martinique and Cuba and given Mexico a good game in Denver before progressing to a seemingly winnable quarterfinal, with a final-four rematch against Mexico the reward.

No one would have expected a triumph over El Tri in Glendale, so all Canada had to do was beat Haiti in order to meet expectations and bow out of a tournament with heads held high.

And through half-an-hour, things seemed to be going exactly to plan.

Jonathan David had opened the scoring in the 18th minute, and Lucas Cavallini doubled the advantage 10 minutes later. At the restart, the Canadian men were 45 minutes away from their first Gold Cup semi-final in six attempts.

That’s when it all fell apart.

In the 50th minute, defender Marcus Gondinho’s errant back-pass put Haiti forward Duckens Nazon through to score, and in the 68th Godinho brought down Herve Bazile inside the area, and the Le Havre striker equalized from the spot.

By then Haiti manager Marc Collat had his players running rampant in and from the wide areas, and Canada boss John Herdman simply couldn’t make the necessary adjustments. Tactically, he was shown to be well and troublingly in over his head.

In the 76th minute, Nazon danced inside from the left and played a pin-point pass to then-Qarabag playmaker Donald Guerrier, who did well to control the ball as he ran across goalkeeper Milan Borjan before scoring what proved to be the winning goal.

So what’s the lesson here? Why rehash what happened almost two years ago?

For one thing, it’s important that Canada not take any fixture for granted.

They’re simply not good enough — or at least don’t have the pedigree — to assume a result is in the bag before a ball is kicked; nothing in the history of this country’s men’s national team suggests it has any right to coast through an entire half of football, even when 2-nil up.

Secondly, Herdman still has to prove he can manage this team against middling CONCACAF opponents.

Facing the likes of Mexico and the United States in competitive matches, whether World Cup qualifiers or Gold Cup knock-outs, may be the goal, but to get there he needs to out-manoeuvre the likes of Suriname and Haiti. He passed the Suriname test on Tuesday. Next up is a series with a Haiti side that has previously made him look foolish.

Finally, if Canada place a marker on the capitulation in Houston, they can rightfully measure what has changed for the better between that encounter and today’s.

Most obvious is the level of talent.

Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David are two years older, and since losing to Haiti Davies has won the treble with Bayern Munich and become a world-class full-back while David has helped Lille to the Ligue 1 title.

Then there are the emergences of Stephen Eustaquio, Tajon Buchanan, Frank Sturing and Scott Kennedy, who impressed in his debut against Suriname.

This is the best squad of players Canada has ever had, which is why the final round of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup seems so very attainable.

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To see it through, they must get a result Saturday afternoon on a pitch that was waterlogged during the week and may sustain further thundershowers this morning. After that, they need to finish the job at their improvised home in Bridgeview, Ill., (June 15, 8 p.m., OneSoccer).

Do it, and a generation of disappointment will be put behind them and their supporters. Don’t, and they’ll be what they’ve always been.

That’s the reality. Those are the stakes.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @jerradPeters