Ethan Dill
Staff reporter
The Qatar World Cup will be Canada’s second ever World Cup appearance and their first in 36 years. Canada’s journey to the World Cup has captured the imagination of Canadians across the country. In their last World Cup back in 1986, they lost all three games, giving up five goals without managing to score a single one.
Canada’s National team has been disappointing in recent years, as of January 12, 2017, Canada was ranked 120 in the world by FIFA, only two spots off their lowest ranking in history. Just this year, Canada reached their highest world ranking of all time, 33 in the world.
Qualifying for the World Cup is a huge achievement for Canada, but they can go a lot further than just qualifying. Canada’s World Cup group includes Belgium, Croatia, and Morocco, a very tough group. In order to make it to the round of 16, Canada will be looking to get results in games against Morocco and Croatia.
Canada is one of the most exciting teams in the tournament, with many young players in their squad. Alphonso Davies is already a star in world soccer, but he is not the only notable player in the squad, there are many other talented players. Jonathan David, Stephen Eustáquio and Tajon Buchanan, key guys who are playing at the top of their game. David, who plays for Lille, is up there at the top of Ligue 1 scoring in third place. Eustáquio for Porto, who won Liga Portugal player of the month back in September.
“We’ve got young star players that are going to be around for a long generation,” said John Herdman, head coach of the Canadian men’s National team. He was appointed head coach in January 2018 after being coach of the Canadian women’s National team for six years.
Qualifying for the Qatar World Cup was no easy task for Canada when viewed from the start, though they proved the doubters wrong. Canada finished the first round of qualifying top of group B winning all 4 games with 27 goals for and 1 against. In the second round, Canada played Haiti, where they won the 2-leg knockout 4-0 on aggregate. Then came the third and final round, Canada hadn’t made it this far since 1997. Canada finished top of the 8-team group with an 8-4-2 record along with 23 goals for and 7 against. Qualifying produced some of Canada’s most memorable games in Canadian soccer history such as their 2-1 win over Mexico, their 2-0 over the United States, and their 4-0 win over Jamaica to clinch a spot in the Qatar World Cup.
In a TSN interview in 2018 Herdman said, “We want to be ‘that team’ that everyone remembers in 2022”, it’s now 2022 and there’s no doubt people will remember this Canadian team. By the time this story hits the newspaper stands, we’ll know whether Canada was able to shock the world and change a nation with a result in their first game against Belgium. Tune into Canada’s second game against Croatia November 27.
Sources:
Canadian Eustáquio named Portuguese League Player of the Month – Video – TSN
“We want to be ‘that team’ that everyone remembers in 2022” – John Herdman – YouTube
Qatar 2022: How did Canada qualify for the FIFA World Cup? (bolavip.com)