For the first time in 36 years, Les Rouges have earned a spot in the FIFA world cup finals. As much excitement as this has mustered amongst Canadian soccer fans, it bares with it an underlying concern for what some of FIFA’s top nations have in store for us at the next level.
Canada’s squad have shown no lack of resilience and passion in the qualifiers, proving to be one of the best squads in CONCACAF if not the best. That begs the question, can they do it against the best of the best?
While the back line has provided strong performances and a clear adaptability throughout the qualifiers despite a few alterations resulting from injuries. When questions were asked of them against the world class quality of Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, Darwin Nuñez and Federico Valverde they seemed a step behind the opposition. The Reds lost 2-0, but the game didn’t get out of hand and despite the pressure from top quality strikers, Canada was able to retain 55% of possession and left fans with plenty of positives to focus on.
The striker group for Canada has been breathtaking and debatably world class for most of 2021 and ’22. Alphonso Davies has provided a bulk of attacking support for his international side, acting in many roles but predominantly in an attacking midfield or winger position. Having such high quality vision, speed and recovering abilities Davies opens up a plethora of lanes for the lethal Canadian striker duo of Jonathan David and Cyle Larin. Larin and David sit 1 and 2 atop Canada’s all time leading scorers list with 25 goals in 54 matches, and 22 goals in 34 matches respectively.
With a strong attacking force and reliable back line, how can Canada not feel anything but confident leading into our 2nd World Cup? Well, unfortunately there have been some struggles in the midfield when up against high motor, talented teams that play at a fast pace and keep a strong structure namely Mexico, Uruguay and at times the United States.
While Stephen Eustaquio has been arguably the most underrated Canadian to grace the pitch in red since I can remember, his creativity and defensive prowess have often been overshadowed by our formational weakness in the midfield. When teams are able to control our pace on the wings, our midfield can quickly become vulnerable in our 5-2-3 formation.
Questions have been swirling in the media about potentially dropping Alphonso Davies into a full time midfielder role in order to compensate for Piette and Eustaqiuo’s dilemma of coming up against strong midfield 3s and even 4s at times. What we do know is, Gaffer John Herdman has plenty of options in the midfield with bench depth as strong as Ugbo, Koné, Kaye and Millar.
(Photo: Gilbert Ngabo/The Star)