He came to Canada in 2011, coached the women’s national team and led them to bronze medals at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Games. Although Herdman has been coaching the men since the beginning of 2018, it is said that he played a large part in the Canadian women’s gold in Tokyo last summer. Now the 46-year-old is the first coach in football history to lead a women’s and a men’s team to the World Cup.
Alphonso Davies cries with happiness
Herdman’s star is Alphonso Davies. The 21-year-old from Bayern Munich, around 6,500 kilometers from Toronto in the Bavarian state capital, was sobbing when the game was over. Davies has missed the last five qualifiers with a heart problem. Nevertheless, Canada’s path led straight to Qatar.
Because the team has Milan Borjan (Red Star Belgrade), Stephen Eustaquio (FC Porto), Tajon Buchanan (FC Bruges) Jonathan David (OSC Lille) as well as Captain Atiba Hutchinson and Cyle Larin (both besiktas Istanbul) meanwhile numerous players who play for well-known European clubs.
Long suffering
Hutchinson called the qualification the “best feeling ever” – and spoke of the fact that one “waited a long time for this momentHe couldn’t say more as fellow players jumped into his interview and poured champagne over his bald head.
Hutchinson is the only player alive when Canada qualified for the World Cup in Mexico a year later after beating Honduras 2-1 at home in 1985. But that was hardly of interest in the second largest country in the world at the time. On the contrary. The team became, as then-national coach Tony Waiters once lamented in a documentary, “chased from the training ground more often because someone came up and said we weren’t allowed up there.”
Some professionals played indoor soccer
Canada at that time had some players who mainly played indoor soccer because after the cessation of the North American Soccer League (NASL) In 1984 there was no longer a professional league in North America. And since the group opponents in Mexico were European champions France, the Soviet Union and Hungary, the most frequently asked question before the start of the tournament was not whether the World Cup newcomer could win a game, but whether he would even score a goal. The odds of some bookmakers were 300:1. Rightly so, as it turned out. Canada left with three defeats and 0:5 goals.
what was left “nothing“recalls Bob Lenarduzzi, top performer at the time. “There was no significant WM effect. Because we hadn’t qualified for a World Cup for decades“, said Lenarduzzi. Small nations like Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago or Panama had made it onto the biggest football stage. Canada, on the other hand, often failed early in the qualification.
Departure from Honduras and cancellation of Hargreaves
The low point: an 8-1 defeat in Honduras in 2012. Perhaps Owen Hargreaves could have ended the years of suffering sooner. Born in Calgary, he was considered Canada’s greatest talent. But the midfielder, who later played at Bayern Munich and Manchester United played, chose England, his father’s homeland.
“sportsnet.ca” wrote after the booked Qatar ticket from a “Moment of fundamental change for sports culture in the country.” The numerous successes in ice hockey, Canada’s national sport, are all well and good, it was said. But they were achieved in a sport that not too many nations practice.
Team as a reflection of the immigration country Canada
The soccer World Cup, on the other hand, was “the most important sporting event in the world“At the same time, interest in football in Canada is greater than ever. This is also due to the composition of this team. It is a reflection of the immigration country Canada. The families of the players once came from Haiti, Portugal, England, Colombia, Serbia, or, as with Alphonso Davies, from Liberia, devastated by civil war, to Canada.
Among other things, her sons would now have “Soccer to the national sport” made, wrote Canada’s second largest newspaper, “The Globe and Mail“. With the exception of captain Hutchinson and goalkeeper Borjan, all the top performers are still young. Led by Davies, they could therefore form the framework for the 2026 World Cup. Canada has already qualified as hosts along with Mexico and the USA.