VAN DIEST: Key for Canada Soccer to improve is to incorporate lessons

DOHA, Qatar — A day after a disappointing loss at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, reality started to settle in for Canada and its fans.

While the team did well to get to this point, qualifying at the top of Concacaf, they are still a way away from competing against the best in the world, both on and off the field.

The consolation of the 4-1 loss to Croatia at the Khalifa International Stadium on Sunday was the fact Canada scored its first ever goal at a men’s World Cup.

Fittingly, Canada’s best player, Alphonso Davies, scored it 67 seconds into the contest to give his team the lead. In its lone previous appearance in 1986, Canada failed to score a goal and was also shut out in its opening game against Belgium last Wednesday.

And while all the talk after the game and into the next day should have been in regards to the goal, which made Canadian soccer history, Davies was not made available to the international non-rights holding media after the game, walking past the throng of journalists in the mix zone.

Davies did talk to the television rights holders, but left the international contingent of print journalists, with readership around the world, wondering what it felt like to made Canadian sports history.

That’s more on Canada Soccer and Davies’ representatives than it is on the 22-year-old from Edmonton. But the fact he was not made available the day after, on Monday, says something about entire organization, which has been dodging one landmine after another during what will be a brief stay here in Qatar.

Not having been at the World Cup in 36 years, it’s understandable there’s a learning curve when it comes to how things are done at the biggest single sporting event in the world, but for an organization whose coaches talk incessantly about learnings (which is not even a word) there seems to be little of it actually being done here.

Canada was 40 minutes late to its introductory news conference, leaving journalists from all over the world waiting while they fought traffic in Doha, somehow not anticipated in a city of three-million people and with a game scheduled for the same time at the Education City Stadium a few miles away that it would take more than the half hour to get to the main media centre.

Live and learn.

Canada was on time for its second official pre-match news conference, but subsequently late for every other held at its training facility in Umm Salal, just northwest of downtown Doha.

On Monday, they were 40 minutes behind, likely because they invited family and friends to the training facility, which was actually a nice touch.

Yet, not making Davies available again for the strictly Canadian journalists in attendance (international journalists stop caring and have moved on) was revealing on how the operation is run and who is calling the shots.

It has been easier to get an audience with Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Kane at the World Cup than it has for non-rights holders to talk to Davies.

Now, if they bring him out, it will be moot because Canada has been eliminated from the tournament; and Canada Soccer, along with Davies’ representative missed out on an opportunity to promote their star.

That’s what other countries do. That’s what Canada needs to do if they want to be on the biggest stage on a regular basis.

“We are all different personalities,” said Alistair Johnston, who is a media dream but seems to be the only player regularly made available. “You know what you’re going to get from myself and Ismael (Kone), and everyone on the team is very different.

“Some guys are very comfortable in front of the camera, some guys are just comfortable with the ball at their feet and that’s just the way it is. Not every single person is outspoken and a lot of them actually are pretty timid. It’s a different life being a professional athlete and it can be very challenging when people want a comment that can fuel that challenge even more, and sometimes guys have trust issue and that kind of stuff, so I can completely understand it.”

What Canada Soccer, Davies and his management team need to understand is that at the World Cup there are hundreds of great stories to be told and the team’s first trip to the tournament in 36 years led by a refugee from Edmonton was one worth telling.

It was Davies who should have been on the cover of a Croatian tabloid paper, not a naked John Herdman.

Now, having been essentially been reduced to to playing an exhibition game in its third group contest against Morocco on Thursday, the tournament will be moving on without Canada, while Messi, Ronaldo and Kane will continue to talk to promote their team and their country.

Canada’s legacy, regardless of what happens Thursday, will be of a coach showing up late to its official pre-game news conference, then nearly setting off an international incident by revealing he told his team to “‘F’ Croatia” in a post-game huddle after a tough loss to Belgium.

Croatian striker Andrej Kramaric thanked Herdman in his post-game news conference for the motivation to go and score two goals in the game.

Then Croatia head coach Zlatko Dalic said Herdman did not shake his hand after the game.

“I did not see the other head coach after the match. When I lose or win, I always congratulate the winner and he was not there, I guess that’s his way of doing things,” Dalic said through an interpreter. “He’s obviously mad. He is a good coach, he is a high-quality professional, but it will take some time for him to learn some things.”

The key for Canada Soccer is to actually learn them.

Email: dvandiest@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @DerekVanDiest

Postmedia’s soccer expert Derek Van Diest is on the ground in Qatar to cover every kickoff of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Subscribe today and get access to all his coverage.

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