After 36 years, the Canadian men's football team has finally fulfilled its Dream of the World Cup again. On March 28, in the 13th round of the World Preliminary Tournament in Central America and the Caribbean, Canada defeated Jamaica 4-0 at home to advance to the World Cup in the first round.
As one of the northernmost geographical powers on Earth, Canada's first sport was ice hockey. Football, although it has a certain foundation with the arrival of British immigrants, has never been a popular group sport in this country covered in snow and ice for many years. After the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 2007 U20 World Youth Championships, Canadian football finally achieved a re-entry into the World Cup.
Canada first entered the World Cup finals in 1986, but mexico, the strongest in Central and North America, was the host and did not participate in the qualifiers, and Canada won the World Cup ticket by winning the Central and American Nations Cup, which somewhat lacked gold content. In 1994, it was the turn of the United States to host the World Cup, and Canada almost entered the World Cup, but unfortunately lost to Australia in the first round of the intercontinental play-offs.
In the 21st century, with Canada winning the 2000 Sino-American Gold Cup, Canadian football began to accumulate momentum and hoped to make a breakthrough. Hosting the U20 World Youth Championship in 2007 played a key role in popularizing modern football in Canada. Although Canadian football was unable to qualify from the CMBC Gold Cup group for four consecutive years, and the World Cup qualifiers were defeated to Honduras 1-8, youth football began to exert strength, which also laid the foundation for the outbreak of national team results in recent years. Traditionally, Canadian players have mostly started their careers with Major League Soccer clubs such as Vancouver Waves, Toronto FC and FC Montreal, or entered other major League soccer teams.
In addition to the "near-water platform" of The North American Professional League, immigrant and naturalized players are also an important reason for the rise of Canadian football in recent years. Many of the main players of the Maple Leaf Army, who are invincible in this qualifier, are immigrants or naturalized players. Canada conceded just 6 goals in the 13 rounds of the Central and North American qualifiers: Serbian goalkeeper Bojan's football enlightenment in the former Yugoslavia, immigrated to Canada with his parents at the age of 13, went to South America at the age of 18, and then almost always played in the Balkans until he joined Red Star Belgrade 5 years ago; centre-backs Henry (Jamaica), Victoria (Portugal), Adecube (Nigeria), La Rea (Ghana), Gutierrez (Chile) are all immigrants, only Kennedy, Johnston and Miller are native Canadians.
The 39-year-old captain Hodgson, who has played five World Cup qualifiers, is the spiritual leader of the team and a descendant of Trinidadian immigrants, but has been playing in the Europa League for 18 years, which is a totem legend of Canadian football. Midfielders Estakio (Portugal), Cone (Côte d'Ivoire), Osorio (Colombia), Cabarini (Argentina), Ugobo (Nigeria), Hoyle and Larin (Jamaica) are also immigrants, including Ugobo, who is from Chelsea's youth, and is a naturalized player that Canada has stolen from the England national youth team. This Canadian team, which has jumped to a dimension, is essentially very similar to France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland in Europe, relying on the talent resources of immigrant descendants and the youth training and professional league training system of major League North American professional leagues. After all, Canada's local professional football league has only officially opened in 2020, and it is simply impossible to support the strength of a World Cup team.
Of course, the biggest focus of world fans on Canadian football in recent years has been on two supernovas: Ghanaian left-back Alfonso Davis, who plays for Bayern, and Jonathan David, a Haitian-born scorer in the United States. The two have won the Champions League, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 titles respectively, and are the protagonists of Canada's blockbuster in this qualifier. Alfonso scored 6 goals and 8 assists in the two-stage World Cup qualifiers, and although he missed the last 6 games due to heart problems, his contribution from the previous 7 games was enough to lay the foundation for Canada's qualification. David delivered five goals and three assists for Canada in qualifying, and was involved in almost 1/3 of the team's goals.
Both are highly priced, both over 50 million euros, which are hot in the European market today, and they are also representatives of Canadian football encouraging players to stay abroad to improve their strength. In addition to the natural North American Major League, Canadian players are more willing to play in the higher-level Europa League, and 15 of the 25 members of this Canadian team play in Europe, not counting Alfonso, who is absent due to illness. Victoria, Estakio, Cabarini, Alfonso, and Jonathan all moved to Europe as soon as adults, and Ugobo and Hoile returned to Europe even as children. In addition to the talent resources brought by immigration, the complete stay in the foreign "Daipei" is the fundamental reason for the rapid growth of the Canadian team's strength.
There will be no foundationless success in the football world, and behind any so-called dark horse there are solid talent resources and high-level league experience as a booster for take-off.