Hey, at least they didn't get annihilated this time around.
Baby steps, right?
It still amazes me, how our women's team can be top five on the planet, while the men's team has been more or less spinning its' tires for the better part of the last three decades, providing very little aside from disappointment.
What gives?
No one cares about women's soccer so its easier to be good at it.
Even if Pep Guardiola was the coach of this team, what the hell could he do with a bunch of players with horrible technique, minimal soccer IQ and very little tactical nous?
The players are not good enough, period.
The smartest investment the CSA could make would be to pony the cash to have 2 or 3 hundred coaches across the country work full time in obtaining UEFA coaching licenses. No individual in Canada with the title of 'Coach' should be doing so without an UEFA license, ESPECIALLY those working with kids.
People keep pointing out the huge number of kids playing in this country but never mention the people coaching these kids. Potential is great but if you don't have individuals who can identify, unlock, develop and nurture that potential, you might as well not be in the business altogether.
I've said this many times before but if Xavi had been Canadian, he probably would have been phased out of the game by the time he was 13. Not big enough, not fast enough, blablabla.
Secondly, we desperately need some kind of identity. What the hell is Canadian football supposed to be? Physical players who can run hard? Terrible and clearly not good enough. Figure out what we would like to be and implement it from the u-14 to the senior level.
If I was in charge, no single player under the age 13 would play a second of football on a pitch or turf in this country. Futsal year round from 6 to 13 years old. Then and only then do you start breaking them in on grass. 10 to 15 years of this and we would no longer see so many mediocre players with brutal first touches and poor ball control on our senior side at the very least.
The wheels are already in motion for this, but its not like you just snap your fingers and a golden generation shows up. The CSA was in absolute shambles until say...2011 so its been five years and a true LTPD system has just been started to be implemented which means at least another 20 years before you truly see the results of it (if it goes well). Of course, you shouldn't need a full fledged LTPD system to beat El Salvador's C-team on the road (or if we want to be honest, to knock five past a totally disinterested El Salvador team on Tuesday but I digress).
The general problem with the men's team is barring an absolute miracle on Tuesday, its another 3+ years until they play another meaningful match (lol Gold Cup). So everyone stops caring about the MNT and then they drop back in for a couple of months etc