so much wasted, and this moment keeps slipping away"
- Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes"
I think I am a glutton for punishment. I cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto FC, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Toronto Raptors, all bastions of shit in the cesspool that is the Toronto professional sports scene. It's been almost 20 years since Toronto saw a championship out of one of these teams and none of them have really been plausibly close since Pat Quinn's Leafs teams in the late 90's.
I also cheer for the Canadian men's national soccer team, a side that was embarrassed a few hours ago by Honduras, dropping a must-win game 8-1. Canada will once again fail to qualify for the World Cup, extending our drought to at least 2018 - a full 32 years since our qualification in 1986. I made the mistake of having hope and belief in this squad that they could make the next round of qualification, where they faced a fair chance of qualifying for Brazil 2014. They couldn't have dashed my hopes in a more spectacular fashion.
I can live with a loss. I can't live with a complete capitulation to a backwater hellhole country like Honduras - or Panama for that matter, where the team lost 2-0 in another game of shame. I accept that the conditions are bad, the crowd is loud and threatening and there's an outside chance you'll get hit with a bag of piss or a battery. But for the love of God, if you're donning our national colours please show some pride.
I suppose I make the mistake of viewing our soccer team through a hockey lens, since I grew up watching the Leafs first and foremost. The Leafs have never been a team with an A-level superstar (such as Gretzky, Lemieux, Crosby, Ovechkin) but filled with some B-Level guys (Sundin, Gilmour) and a cast of plumbers and grinders. Toronto Maple Leaf fans as a result have always embraced the players that play with more heart than talent, and elevated to cult status players like Wendel Clark who demonstrate incredible toughness and spirit with their useful but limited talents. As a Leaf fan, I cling to players like Clark because I know they care and I'm willing to invest my passion into supporting them because they'll return it with effort.
That's why I want a soccer team that gives a shit. I don't care if it's the most talented team in the world, because our development system fails to produce the most talented players - more on that in a moment. If you're putting on the Canada kit, then go out there and play like you mean it. A guy like Terry Dunfield is a classic example of this. He's a player who is honoured to be selected for the team, and even for his club side TFC leaves it all out there every match. He's willing to take any punishment to get the job done, and while he isn't full of talent, he tries and he cares. Did Julian De Guzman leave it all on the pitch? Did Simeon Jackson? Did Andre Hainault? I don't think so.
In the absence of transcendent talent, we need the type of player who will stand up for his jersey when Honduras celebrates their 8th goal. At the next opportunity, you go for a tackle with both feet and snap someone's ankle. If a Central American player has the balls to dive, stomp on his wrist. Red card? Sure. So what? If Canada can get so intimidated by playing Honduras or Panama, then let's turn it back on them so they know that if they want to win they're going to have to have bones broken to do it.
In the end, if we ever want to be good, we need to develop talent. I don't know how or why the system doesn't work, but the proof is in the pudding. We're a country of 35 million people getting utterly curbstomped by an impoverished country of 8 million. We lose with regularity to all sorts of western hemisphere backwater countries and it just doesn't make sense. As the saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while - where the hell is our nut? How can we have not produced a player making a significant impact?
I know some smart soccer minds are trying to solve this problem, but it's going to take time to produce talent. First thing we need to do is lock young players up for playing with Canada. If we are putting money into your development, you sign a contract, legally enforceable or not, that you'll play for us. If you won't sign it, GTFO.
We also must stop all the crying and bitching about guys like Jonathan De Guzman, Junior Hoilett, Owen Hargreaves, Teal Bunbury, et al. Issue an invite to play for the team - if it's rebuffed, cross that person off the list forever. You get one chance - if you decline, your chance of playing for Canada in the future is non-existent.
Certainly that approach smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Had Canada advanced to the next round of World Cup qualifying, it seems likely that Jonathan De Guzman and Junior Hoilett would have come on board. But holy shit guys, maybe we actually would have qualified if you had played in the first place. Bottom line for me - if you don't bleed for the chance to play for Canada, fuck off. We don't want you because you're playing for yourself, not for the country.
If we do somehow solve our development issues, we're still years away from producing enough homegrown talent to be competitive. I accept that. In the meantime, let's stock our team with young guys and veterans who are burning to prove themselves to Canada and are willing to do what's necessary to make us a difficult side to play.
End rant. Editing/second draft? No!
