On paper, Canada should advance to Qatar

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/03/2021 (1956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canada’s route to the 2022 World Cup is as follows.

Having beaten Bermuda 5-1 on Thursday, they’ll face Group B opponents Cayman Islands on Sunday and Aruba and Suriname in early June. Then, after topping their group, which they will, they’ll face the winner of Group E, likely Haiti, over two legs on June 12 and 15.

It’s at that point that things will get a bit dicey. Haiti, after all, knocked Canada out of the last Gold Cup before giving Mexico a game in the following round. Still, home and away, it’s a series Canada should be winning. If they don’t they have no business being at the World Cup, and this time, with this group of players, they should at least contend for a spot. On paper, they should be in Qatar.

So let’s assume they get past Haiti.

And let’s stop right there for a moment. “Assume they get past Haiti?” What manner of expectation is this exactly? Is it possible that we’re at the point where we actually expect the men’s national team to do well? After all, it wasn’t that long ago that merely advancing from the initial group stage of qualification wasn’t a given, never mind the subsequent rounds.

The thing is, when you take a serial winner like Alphonso Davies and add Besiktas midfielder Atiba Hutchinson and one of Europe’s form goal-scorers in Cyle Larin, you already have a team with three of the best players from the CONCACAF region. Put reliable Red Star Belgrade goalkeeper Milan Borjan between the sticks and place defender Steven Vitoria in front of him and you’ve suddenly got the core of a very good team.

It’s also a team — and this is a rather new phenomenon for Canada — with competition for places in a number of positions.

Once Major League Soccer gets underway and he has some games under his belt, you’d think Mark-Anthony Kaye would be first choice to partner Hutchinson in the centre of the park. And yet, not so fast. Pacos de Ferreira’s Stephen Eustaquio is playing in the Portuguese top flight, and he started ahead of both Kaye and Samuel Piette on Thursday.

Then there is Scott Arfield, the previous captain who has endured an injury-riddled season and yet helped Rangers to a first Scottish title since 2011 earlier this month. From here he’ll likely be called upon for Canada’s most important games, two of which will almost certainly be the matches against Haiti.

There is even competition up top.

Lille’s Jonathan David was Canada’s first-choice centre-forward until Ligue 1’s COVID protocols prevented his participation against Bermuda and Cayman Islands. He’ll be available for the June matches, at which point manager John Herdman will have to decide whether to start one of David and Larin or deploy them both in a 4-4-2.

It’s a nice problem to have, and if anything Theo Corbeanu complicated it further with a goal-scoring debut on Thursday. The Wolves attacker can play as a striker or wide attacker, which means Hoilett will have to play at a high level in order to keep his place.

In defence, Alistair Johnston of Nashville FC and Derek Cornelius of Vancouver Whitecaps (he’s currently playing with the U-23 squad vying for a place in the Olympic Games) are options should one of Vitoria or Kamal Miller go down to injury or hit a poor patch of form.

But there is another, rather more intangible quality to this Canada squad that can only bode well for them in June and beyond: they enjoy playing together.

“It’s fun to play (with my teammates), it’s exciting,” remarked Larin after the Bermuda win. “We haven’t played in a while, but you see when we get together we are ready, ready to fight for each other, and we know our goal. Our goal is to take each game step-by-step, and then to make the FIFA World Cup, and I believe we can do that.”

Yes, this team should beat Haiti, after which will come the big-boy phase of World Cup qualifying.

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Mexico, the United States, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Honduras await in the third and final round, likely to be joined by Panama and Trinidad and Tobago. Only three will make it to the World Cup, and assuming Mexico and the U.S. are two of them, Canada will have to beat some very good teams in order to join them.

They’ll get right down to it in September with a showdown with Honduras, after which they’ll face the Americans. Then it’s likely Trinidad. Anything less than four points from those initial three matches will likely mean a quick elimination — something with which Canada fans are all too accustomed.

But this team is different. It plays different; it has different options; its confidence is different than in the past.

Yes, Canada’s route to the 2022 World Cup is a difficult one, but given the players in the squad and the way in which they play, there’s no reason to believe they won’t be part of making their rivals’ routes rather difficult as well.

jerradpeters@gmail.com