Within a short time, unprecedented football excitement broke out in Canada, culminating in the men’s national team qualifying for the World Cup. A lot is happening in the background: among other things, the organization of women’s Olympic gold, a new professional league, the signing of a European champion and a World Cup.
Alfonso Davies jumped wildly through his Munich apartment, then collapsed to the floor in tears, repeatedly clutching his Canadian flag. “Oh my god, we did it,” he shouted over his twitch stream. Canada has qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1986 and only for the second time overall.
Before the final game against Panama, Canada leads the North American qualifying group. The chasers USA and Mexico are as good as they deserve. They could only theoretically be stopped by Costa Rica. Fourth place is entitled to participate in an intercontinental playoff against an Oceanian representative.
Canada finished the final leg on Sunday with an easy 4-0 win over Jamaica. Davis missed the game due to his heart attack rehab. Recently he expressed optimism about an early return. It remains to be seen to what extent his emotional outburst is beneficial for the healing of the heart.
The 21-year-old is the undisputed star of the triple-winning team. Davis did justice to the role with his emotional recordings without even participating in the decisive victory. Ultimately, arguably more people saw Davis’ celebration than his allies’ goals against Jamaica. But there is much more to Canada’s football revival than just Davis.
John Hurdman: Success with women and men
A 46-year-old former sports teacher from Durham, north-east England, played a key role in the positive development. John Hardeman never played football professionally, his passion has always been coaching. He wanted to prove it, Harderman once told him GuardiansThat “a man who reads 400 books can be as successful as a coach as a man who has played 400 games”.
Hardman received his first coaching experience at the AFC Sunderland Youth Academy, where he worked during his studies. At the age of 26, Hardeman left for New Zealand and became the women’s national coach. He stayed there for ten years before ending up on the other side of the planet in his role.
In 2011 Herdman took over the selection of Canadian women, with whom she celebrated considerable success. Bronze twice in a row at the Olympic Games, and then also gold in Tokyo last summer. By then Harderman had already switched to men, having since moved up from 94th to 33rd in the world rankings. No other country has improved much in this period, and Canada has never been better.
John Herdman made Canada a football nation
“Canada can,” Herdman declared poetically after qualifying for the World Cup, as if someone had read 400 books. “It’s a real football nation.” The world’s second largest country in terms of area has only been discovered in the last few months. During World Cup qualification, real football excitement erupted for the first time in the history of ice hockey nation Canada.
An example of this is the development of TV viewing figures when qualification for the World Cup in Qatar exceeded that of the previous autumn. About 350,000 people watched the victory against Panama, the following victory against Costa Rica almost twice and a few days later against Mexico 1.2 million.
According to eyewitnesses, the only participation in the 1986 World Cup would not have interested the general public, the rest aimless and pointless elimination did. The 1:8 draw against Honduras in 2012 is considered the lowest point in national football history.
Probably the most famous Canadian-born footballer of all time did not want to suffer this misery: Calgary’s Owen Hargreaves, previously active at FC Bayern Munich and Manchester United, preferred to choose his father’s homeland – the England national team.
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