Canada has everyone’s attention

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This article was published 25/11/2022 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There are two ways to get your opponent’s attention at a FIFA World Cup.

One is to play well enough to make them sit up, take notice and intensify their preparation. The other is to insult them.

Going into Sunday’s Group F showdown with Croatia in Al Rayyan (10:00 a.m., TSN), Canada have managed to do both.

However you measure it — whether by xG, quality possession, goal-scoring opportunities or simply the eye test — Canada outworked, out-chanced and generally out-performed Belgium in their first World Cup match in 36 years. The result may have been a 1-0 loss, but it made an international impression.

To that end, this country’s default inclination to assume the role of dismissed, underestimated co-participant simply doesn’t work. It may have its use for, as one example, the Toronto Raptors in an otherwise American NBA. International football, however, and especially a World Cup, is another proposition altogether.

Regular readers of Belgium’s sports pages will have known our lineup left to right, top to bottom, some months before Wednesday’s encounter. Introductions to Alphonso Davies, Jonathan David, Stephen Eustaquio et al may have been necessary here, but certainly not there.

That’s all to say the rest of the world is likely some way ahead of us when it comes to recognizing Canada’s ability on a football pitch. Yes, the performance against Belgium was mighty impressive, and Croatia will have no doubt acknowledged the same. However, they won’t have been stunned by it. No, they’re feeling something else at the moment.

Which brings us to the second attention-grabber.

“S*ebat cemo Hrvatsku!” It is, as per a headline in Zagreb sports daily Sportske Novosti, “the statement Croatia is buzzing about.” We heard it as “We’re going to go and f—- Croatia next,” which Canada boss John Herdman exclaimed in the immediate, heated aftermath of the Belgium defeat.

Some may have found it worth a chuckle in the wake of a disappointing result, but no one in Croatia was laughing.

Yes, there was the inherent disrespect of the remark — especially, as 24sata reminded, given Croatia’s status as 2018 runners-up. It’s an achievement they’re immensely proud of, and not long after their run to the Moscow final they commemorated it with a museum in central Zagreb (which this writer has visited). Herdman’s son, as it happens, trained briefly with capital side Dinamo.

Not to be outdone, the tabloid ran a Friday front page depicting Herdman completely nude, but for a large maple leaf over his lips and a tauntingly smaller one over his mid-region. The headline: “You have the mouth. Do you have the balls as well?” Clearly, we’re not in for a contest of maturity.

It’s also worth mentioning Sunday’s encounter was always going to have a bit of fire about it. Geopolitics would see to that.

Following the Belgium match, around 2:00 a.m. local time, a group of Serbian reporters awaited Canada goalkeeper Milan Borjan outside Ahmad bin Ali Stadium. Borjan, of course, plays his club football in Belgrade, but he was born in Knin, in the Dalmatia region of Croatia. As a Sportske Novosti journalist noted, that “is an incendiary story in itself.”

Knin, during the Croatian War of Independence, was the capital of Krajina, an unrecognized Serb proto-state. And it was shielded, incidentally, by the United Nations Protection Force, of which Canada was a part.

So when Herdman says what he did, he turns everything tangled up around a seemingly harmless remark into a fuse. Yes, it’s obviously just football. And no, it’s definitely not. Canada should be mindful of the paradigm.

We’ve been hearing a lot about a “New Canada” and how we “belong” at the 2022 World Cup. Fair enough. If we actually believe those things, we shouldn’t need Canada Soccer’s social media spouting off about how we should have beat Belgium, or our manager inspiring us to go and “f—- Croatia.”

Yes, we belong. Yes, we deserve this platform.

It’s time to act like it.

World Cup Notebook

Jogo Bonito

Richarlison scored the goal of the World Cup’s first week when he deftly controlled Vinicius Junior’s hard cross with his back to the target, flipped himself upside down and scissor-kicked the ball past Serbia goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic.

It was a strike that captured the spirit of Brazil’s performance — one that combined occasionally beautiful football with a tempo that left even viewers breathless.

Most managers would’ve been hard-pressed to make sense of the XI deployed by Tite, but Tite is not most managers. He’s doing something very special with this team, and a record-extending sixth star could well be the result.

Brave Team Meli

Iran generated no shortage of headlines during the first week of the 2022 World Cup.

Ahead of their opening match against England, its players refused to sing the national anthem in solidarity with anti-regime demonstrations led by women and girls. Then they were thumped 6-2. Four days later, Qatari authorities confiscated a female supporter’s shirt with Mahsa Amini’s name on the back. (Amini died in police custody following her September arrest by Iran’s morality police.) Team Meli then beat Wales 2-0.

Between the two matches, Foolad right-back Voria Ghafouri was arrested for engaging in “propaganda against the regime,” according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Iran will next face the United States on Tuesday (1:00 p.m., TSN) and could potentially advance to the round of 16.

With every match they play, nevermind win, they further embarrass a religious administration increasingly wary of football as a destabilizing force.

Mullet-football

The second half of Portugal-Ghana was thrilling for the neutral. If Portugal hopes to live up to its tag as a pre-tournament favourite, they’ll have to tighten things up considerably against Group H rivals Uruguay on Monday. It’s not often you get 45 minutes of such unruly mullet-football. Another party in the back and the EURO 2016 winners won’t be in Qatar much longer.

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