Canada’s draw with Mexico may be turning point in sad history of our national men’s soccer team

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This article was published 08/10/2021 (1820 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For a moment, it looked like the same old story.

Hope, followed by the inevitable heartbreak.

This was a reasonable fear. After all, the famed Azteca Stadium in Mexico City has been, over the decades, as much a graveyard for Canadian national men’s soccer teams as Ivor Wynne Stadium was for the Argonauts. Or Court No. 2 at the All England Club was for so many years to past Wimbledon champions.

In five previous visits going back to 1980, the Mexicans had beaten Canada all five times by a cumulative score of 20-0.

Gulp.

So on Thursday night, with the two sides tied 1-1 and 25 minutes still to be played, it was understandable that when Canadian defender Alistair Johnston found himself in a difficult position and tried to head the ball to safety in the general direction of his own net, disaster was at hand. Maxime Crépeau, the Canadian goalie, watched helplessly as the ball sailed over his head.

And glanced off the crossbar. Disaster avoided, for a change.

Instead, Canada held on to forge a come-from-behind draw with the Mexicans, the No. 9 ranked national squad on the planet. It kept Canada’s hopes very much alive of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but more important, may have truly signalled a turning point in the rather sad history of our national men’s team.

For years, of course, the Canadian men’s team has been held up as a puzzle of mediocrity. How could a country with so many soccer participants, and so many fans of the game that had come to the Great White North from other countries, be so bloody bad?

No World Cups since 1986. No Olympic tournaments for the men since 1984.

The national women’s team had added an exclamation mark to the futility of the men’s program by becoming one of the best international sides in the world. This past summer the country went mad once more for our women’s team as it marched to a historic Olympic gold. Players like Christine Sinclair and Kadeisha Buchanan had been well-known for years to anyone who bothered watching, but as the nation watched the brilliance from Tokyo it revelled in the play of others like Stephanie Labbé, Jessie Fleming and, of course, Quinn.

The pecking order of soccer in this country couldn’t have been made more clear than in 2018 when John Herdman, the much admired coach of the national women’s team, was hired to coach the men. That just doesn’t happen among the soccer powerhouses of the world. The chauvinism of the men’s game would never acknowledge that a coach from the women’s side who had never coached a male international squad would have something useful to contribute.

Canada, however, was a country that could afford to take a different look at things. There was just something about Herdman. The smell of a winner, maybe, having captured Olympic bronze medals with the women’s team in 2012 and 2016.

He had options and leverage. He also had a certain upbeat, positive personality. This was a Ted Lasso, outsider-with-no-chance story. Only the moustache was missing, and a humorous quote like “you could fill two internets with what I don’t know about football.”

“There will be doubters, for sure,” said Herdman, after the 13th coaching change in 15 years for the men’s program. “All I’ve got to do is make sure that I put my best effort into this.”

As of now, his hiring seems like a stroke of genius. It has coincided, as genius usually does, with the arrival of talent. There’s a group of young, speedy players with an attacking mentality that has created not only a Canadian team capable of challenging a country like Mexico, but playing interesting, exciting soccer.

Going head-to-head against NFL Thursday Night Football, the baseball playoffs and the pre-season debuts of newly signed Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes in Vancouver, the Canada-Mexico game attracted a lot of eyeballs and social media attention, particularly after Jonathan Osorio erased an early 1-0 Mexican lead late in the first half on a pass from Alphonso Davies.

The altitude was a challenge in the second half, but with the likes of Davies, Jonathan David, Tajon Buchanan, Richie Laryea and Stephen Eustáquio battling hard, it just didn’t feel like the same old Canadian men’s team. It felt fresh. Different.

Canada now sits third in its CONCACAF Olympic qualifying group, and three teams will gain access to the 2022 World Cup. There’s quite a ways to go to reach Qatar, including a biggie next month when Mexico visits Canada. In Edmonton.

“Remind me what the weather is like in Edmonton in mid-November. Asking for some friends,” read the official Canada Soccer Twitter feed after Thursday’s game.

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First, however, there’s a game on Sunday on the road against the 59th ranked Jamaicans, a game for which Buchanan, Laryea and acting captain Steven Vitória won’t be eligible after they picked up yellow cards against Mexico. Junior Hoilett and David Wotherspoon may join the team in Kingston after being unable to play in Mexico City because of COVID-related travel restrictions.

After that comes a home start against 68th-ranked Panama in Toronto next Wednesday, and the entire qualifying process won’t wrap up until March. Canada, never ranked higher than No. 40 in the world, has jumped from outside the top 100 to No. 51. There are clearly World Cup possibilities now that nobody was seriously talking about a year ago.

The players have delivered the performances, and Herdman seems to have caught the wave of a changing culture within the men’s program.

What would the fictional Ted Lasso say? Something like “I do love a locker room. It smells like potential.”

Damien Cox is a former Star sports reporter who is a current freelance contributing columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @DamoSpin