Why does Canada suck at soccer?

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Anyone have a good reason why we're always so damn bad at soccer (men's team, I meant).

Is it because our country is so small?

Do we just not care enough about the sport?

Poor coaching?

To be honest, I'm not the biggest soccer fan myself, but I played quite a bit when I was younger. In fact, a ton of kids played in my area when I was younger.

I then quit when I got older to play golf more. Is that another reason.........people play when they're younger, but quit later in life to pursue other interests, maybe other sports?

Just curious what everyone thought............just depressing to see the men's team lose again tonight, I guess..........

[JiriHrdina]

I think a lot of the factors you mention are bang on but primarily I think it is the fact that it is the world's most popular sports and almost everyone else cares more about it than us.

It also doesn't help that when we have a good young player finally come along like Owen Hargreaves he chooses to go play for jolly 'ol England instead of Canada.

[browna]

Having played a high level in thie country until I was 24, it comes down to a couple factors.

a) Geography. Short summers. To make a living, having no pro teams here that can pay enough to make it a full time job, means that decisions must be made by 15-18 whether to go to American colleges, or try out in Europe (who , even at lower divisions, have hangups/restrictions on foreign players). Proper devleopment can't be done indoors 6 months a year.

When Bayern scooped up Owen Hargreaves at 16, they molded his skills into the player you see today. Knowing the family and having played with his brother, Owen was not a blatantly obvious superstar at 13, 14, 15...but he got recruited for a tryout, and made the most of it.

b)Politics, on a number of levels. Talent is not identified properly as youth growing up...that is, unless you live in BC, Ontario or Quebec. We went to many nationals, and got to a couple finals. Low and behold, players on the teams we beat to get there popped up on youth national teams, and got recruited to US colleges, with players from other provinces had to be head and shoulders above to be even given slight consideration. Owen Hargreaves is a good example. Did anyone from Soccer Canada figure that this guy, when he went to Nationals as a kid, figure he was good enough to develop? No.
The whole youth system is based on playing favourites and doing favours for specific provincial associations.

Then, politics at the national level. The best coach Canada had was Holger Osieck, but he walked away, not wanting to put up with the backseat coaches and political infighting that was basically going to force him out. (maybe because he was German?). So, Soccer Canada feels they can pull strings themselves, and inserts one of the old hands in Yallop, who is pretty much doing the same thing as Lenerduzzi did before Osieck, which is play the old boys and insert underdevloped and unprepared young guys and ask them to do a lot. Why is Pat Onstad still on the national team? It's been over 10 years that he's been there.

Lars Hirschfeld, a guy that sparkled a few years back is sitting in England being a third string goalie....because he's not been given a decent chance, and been given the run around by the National team. Same goes for Kevin McKenna. These guys have flown back over from their club in Europe for games over the past years, only to sit on the bench for a few games, watching the team struggle on the field.

The team peaked in 1990 and 1994, those were the best chances to get to the WC. All those players have gotten too old, but the poor recruitment and scouting from youth across Canada in the last 10 years has turned up very very little (for the reasons mentioned above...the focus on certain province's reputations), and the pig headedness of the Canadian Soccer Association in recognizing the need to shake up the system and stick with it, is a mistake.

My solution. Bring back in a foreign coach with European experience, and give him complete autonomy and the power to recruit, motivate, make player personell decisions, and put a structure in place.

Osieck had this structure for the first time in years after Lenerduzzi played his favourites. Canada won the region's tournament because players could play with confidence in the knowledge that they had a structure to follow, and a leader as a coach who was strong in his convictions. Tough, demanding, but fair.

The CSA must have thought he was getting too much power, and punted him out to revert back to the country club atmosphere.

Having watched a few games in the last couple weeks, its clear this team has no direction and no confidence.

Being Canadian and making a living playing soccer, and playing on the national team has many extra challenges that other countries don't have to worry about. Canada will never rival world favourites, or even the average world calibre teams in skill. But there is more soccer talent, skill and heart in top level up and coming soccer players in this country then our national team is showing.

Those players have to be found, and to get past the mental and physiological barriers, an outsider with a firm hand is needed to call ths shots and bring some pride and respect to this country.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Holy...........great post browna.

Great points, a lot of info there I never knew about.

One statement you said that really stood out for me in your post was .......


Having watched a few games in the last couple weeks, its clear this team has no direction and no confidence.

Just reading some of the player's quotes in the papers lately, I'd say your bang on.

Almost Flame-like from the recent past, where players were just basically "hoping" to play well and eke out a win, instead of going in and expecting to win the game.

Big difference.

Either way, I hope they somehow turn things around. Like I said, I'm not a monster soccer fan, but I do really enjoy watching the major tourneys, like the World Cup.

Be nice to know Canada has at least a slight chance of getting there one day.

[troutman]

Is it because our country is so small?

Do we just not care enough about the sport?

Poor coaching?

Netherlands is much smaller (about 10 M people) and they have one of the best teams in the world. Soccer is just not part of our culture. Our best athletes play other sports. The summer season is too short. BC is the only place where you can really play year-round. Most of our best players seem to be of European and Latin American heritages. I think as Canada continues to welcome more immigrants, we will see a higher caliber of soccer player.

I was hoping Canada would qualify for 2006. Guess I will have to support Ireland when I go to Germany. (Ireland beat Faroe Islands 2-0 in a qualifier this week!).

[habernac]

I thought that soccer had passed pretty much everything for participation in Canada. With indoor programs through the winters (and I think you can coach to alot of soccer skills indoors, but that's just an opinion) , poor coaching is probably more to blame, as well as the politics thing browna described above.

Soccer was probably my best sport as a kid, I have the bad knees to prove it. But it seemed like where I grew up, unless you were of European heritage, they didn't pay any attention to you. That's probably why I quit at 15.

[habernac]

and just to add, its no surprise to me that Costa Rica beat us. They live and breathe the sport. They're poor as hell there, but soccer is everywhere. I travelled through the country last year, and there was a game on every corner it seemed. The crappy ferry I was on looked like it was ready to be retired, but it had satellite TV so they could pick up the games.

[JBR]

We suck at soccer because we have grown up with the understanding that if you kick it in, it doesn't count. It's a psychological thing. This combined with the fact that most "great" soccer players fall down like they have been shot in the nuts with a paintball gun when they barely get touched makes many of our "elite" soccer players (apologies to Owen Hargreaves) become 2nd string punters for CIS schools..

[CaramonLS]

I don't think the passion for Soccer is there in Canada. I mean personally i hate the sport, I played it for 5 years when I was younger and I just didn't care about it - not nearly as much as I cared about hockey that is.

Soccer was just a filler for me.

[kipperfan]

Originally posted by KootenayFlamesFan@Oct 14 2004, 05:16 AM
Why does Canada suck at soccer??

because we dont care about soccer or spend money developing it.


Why does Poland suck at Hockey??

[Table 5]

Originally posted by kipperfan@Oct 16 2004, 04:29 PM
because we dont care about soccer

I care.

[CaramonLS]

Originally posted by kipperfan+Oct 16 2004, 09:29 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (kipperfan @ Oct 16 2004, 09:29 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-KootenayFlamesFan@Oct 14 2004, 05:16 AM
Why does Canada suck at soccer??

because we dont care about soccer or spend money developing it.


Why does Poland suck at Hockey?? [/b][/quote]
I always find it amusing how Poland has managed to develop 2 players to play in the NHL currently... and they are complete Opposites... the polish prince and the polish hammer.

[McG]

having also played at a high level in this country...i will tell you exactly why imo.

coaching. we lack it. players cannot get to the next level and drift away... i did. browna did. many many others too.

you have no idea that quality of players that we produce...and i can tell you...that i have played with and against. great players. committed players.

but we have no system to take these promising players to the next level...if you look at the development system in hockey compared to soccer...well...

bottom line. owen hargreaves is a great player but i am sure that he would agree that there were many good players here as well that never got the chance to develop with a certain level of coaching.

why does the canadian team suck? because they can't score. why can't we score? because we don't develop our players at a certain level.