Jack Todd: Despite losses, Canada's World Cup team is triumphant with The Goal

It was a day to enact that timeless Canadian ritual, gathering around our television sets on a November Sunday to watch our national men’s soccer team play a critical World Cup match in a tiny theocracy on the other side of the world.

OK, it’s a tradition as old as this weekend, when the nail-biting started over breakfast as we waited for Team Canada to take the field in Qatar needing a result against Croatia, one of the finalists at the 2018 World Cup.

The wait wasn’t long. One minute and seven seconds into the match, Canada’s black-shirted wonder Alphonso Davies took four or five long strides, turned himself into a guided missile and delivered a sizzling header off a cross from Tajon Buchanan for the first World Cup goal in this country’s history.

For the record, that was a 22-year-old scoring on a brilliant pass from a 23-year-old.

It could as easily have been a deflection off someone’s rump during a scrum in the box — but Canada’s debut goal was magisterial, an otherworldly talent delivering a strike so emphatic it will live in legend as long as soccer is our national sport. Davies, in case you were wondering, is full value for all the hype, a transcendental athlete who was unfairly criticized for a less than stellar penalty attempt against Belgium.

With Davies driving the bus, Canada was the better team for the first 20 minutes of the match. Croatia had trouble containing Davies with his superior speed and his slashing runs up the left side. Canada was defending well and attacking with bad intentions, and it seemed almost possible that the 1-0 lead would hold up.

But quality will out — that and World Cup experience. Croatia, which lost the final in Russia to France in 2018, has plenty of both. Beginning about 25 minutes in, they were able to put sustained pressure that the Canadians could not break, leading to a pair of goals from Andrej Kramaric and Marko Livaja in less than 10 minutes to give Croatia a 2-1 lead.

Canada wasn’t done. Early in the second half, Jonathan Osorio’s strike from directly in front curled just wide left. Still, the Canadians had at least two more good chances — but it wasn’t to be. Kramaric scored his second of the match at the 70-minute mark and Canada’s World Cup was effectively over. With Canada still pressing at the end, Croatia scored again to make the final score 4-1.

Canada will bow out of this World Cup after its match with Morocco Thursday, but it has now faced two of the giants of European soccer on pretty much equal terms. If it’s possible to make a statement while losing a match, Canada did so in its first World Cup match since 1986 in a 1-0 loss to Belgium in which the Canadians had the better of the run of play for long stretches and appeared to have more speed and skill on the ball than one of the pre-tournament favourites.

Some of the lustre from that performance faded when a flat Belgian team surrendered to Morocco earlier Sunday, 2-0. Perhaps there’s something to the theory that the big European and South American teams have arrived at this World Cup more exhausted, beat up and unprepared than usual because the majority of their players are caught on that never-ending, year-round treadmill of league games, championships, trophies, friendlies and all the rest of it.

It certainly looks that way when you see tournament favourites like Argentina, Germany and Belgium lose to the likes of Saudi Arabia, Japan and Morocco. Or perhaps there has simply been a global levelling, with the have-not nations approaching the quality of the longtime powers.

Canada is one of those nations nearing the quality of the European and South American giants. The Canadians may leave Qatar with little more than The Goal to show for it, but this men’s team has galvanized the country, going back to the CONCACAF qualifying rounds when Canada emerged as the best team on a continent that includes Mexico and the U.S.

Make no mistake: Qatar and FIFA are both taking a much-deserved hit with this farcical, misbegotten World Cup. FIFA looks corrupt and spineless, because it is. Qatar appears tyrannical, petty and intolerant, because it is. Neither is coming across at all well on the world’s biggest stage.

It was like awarding the Summer Olympics to Reykjavik in January. It’s the wrong place and the wrong time, farce welded to tragedy.

None of that is the fault of this stirring Canadian team. This World Cup appearance, following on the heels of the gold medal Canada’s women won at the Tokyo Olympics, has established Canada as a player in the world’s most popular sport.

Heroes: Alphonso Davies, Tajon Buchanan, John Herdman, Canada’s Davis Cup team, Kirby Dach, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Sean Monahan, Arber Xhekaj, Samuel Montembeault, Wilfried Nancy, Lindy Ruff, Patrice Bergeron, the Montreal Force, Börje Salming &&&& last but not least, the heroic players on Iran’s national team.

Zeros: Qatar, Gianni Infantino, FIFA, Soccer Canada, David Beckham, Idris Elba, Morgan Freeman, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Joey Saputo, Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.

Now and forever.

jacktodd46@outlook.com

twitter.com/jacktodd46

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