Hello. This is a public service announcement from the federal government of Canada about the upcoming World Cup tournament. Thank you for reading.

Bonjour. Il s’agit d’une annonce d’intérêt public du gouvernement fédéral du Canada concernant le prochain tournoi de la Coupe du monde. Merci pour la lecture.

Game Time Decision:

I know Alphonso Davies and Osorio from my 4 seconds of watching the MLS and know of the goalie but mainly about his pants from Litre. Litre, you better be posting from that tweeter account during the matches.  And last I checked Davies was hurt so nawt going. [ED. NOTE: he is fine, which is great.] Looking at the rest of the roster, it’s great to see a bunch of guys playing on this side of the pond.

Canada is in group F against Belgium, Croatia and Morocco.  Expecting 2 losses and a draw.

Beerguyrob:

Let’s check in on goalie Maxime Crepeau…

I guess the MLS Cup was far more important.

It also turns out I did my Canada soccer post for the 2016 Copa tourney.

There’s not much there to use, aside from how Soccer Canada seems to have cleaned up their act from the old days, and now routinely picks teams based on skill & stays out of the coach’s way.

It’s going to be a damn shame when the majority of the country celebrates Canada’s first WC goal in a 6-1 Belgian defeat with greater fervour than the women winning the gold medal at Tokyo 2021.

Canada did beat Japan 2-1 on Wednesday night in a tune-up game. Let’s check in on Wakezilla, who was watching the game…

Wakezilla, writing this while watching Canada vs Japan:  

After decades of frustration, disappointment, rage, and legitimately feeling embarrassed that Canada may not qualify unless the World Cup expands to 48 teams, Canada has finally qualified for the World Cup!  

This is the first time in my life that Les Rouges have made the World Cup and I. AM. FUCKING. PUMPED. So much so, I’m going to Qatar to watch the boys shock the world, baby! Click HERE to learn more about how one gets World Cup tickets. 

And you know what? I really like this team. They play international lesser footy like a club team. For those of you who only follow the World Cup, that’s both a good thing and a compliment to the Canadian side. They are physical and they don’t try and park the bus for 90 minutes and try and steal a win, like many other smaller teams (Peru, Iceland, Scandinavia, and America, I’m looking at your boring asses). Should Canada continue that trend at the World Cup, the world will quickly fall in love with these loveable players.

In terms of tactics, we might as well call Canada’s attack the [DFO] offense because a large majority of their goals come from sequences of 10 seconds or less.

Canada is a tricky team to play against because they don’t have a set formation, as they typically use one of a 4-2-3-1, or 3-4-3, or 4-4-2 formation. When they play superior teams, they typically play 5 in the back. Regardless of formation, Canada likes to attack fast by utilizing their speed with quick ball movement. 

Prediction/Prédiction: OH MY GOD, CANADA JUST SCORED A LAST MINUTE GOAL TO BEAT JAPAN. WE’RE GOING ALL THE FUCKING WAY! LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Belgium are perennial underachievers and their manager said that the constant losing has affected the players’ psyche. Well guess what? Like Belgian chocolate melts in the sun, so will those Belgian players melt when they get hit in the fucking mouth by my boy, Richie Layrea. Belgium is weak at DM, which means that the good ole Canadian boys are going to make like the CSA and exploit the situation to their advantage. Canada beats Belgium 3-2.

Croatia should have stayed part of Yugoslavia because then they’d have a shot at beating the Reds. Croatia may have a superior midfield, but like the Ukraine firing missiles in Poland, Croatia can’t hit the target to save a life. (Do you even know how massive Russia is, Ukraine? You should because you were part of it for decades. I think a new idiom should be, “he couldn’t hit Russia even if he was on the Ukrainian border).  Canada is going to fulfill Cruella Deville’s fantasy by beating the Dalmatians 1-0.

Match 3 is against Morocco. Just like your mom, Morocco doesn’t have a midfield that’s good playing with balls.  Also, just like how your mom got pregnant, Canada is going to penetrate the defense by going through the back door with speed and score quickly. I’m not saying Canada isn’t going to win big, but I am saying that Canada beats Morocco 3-0. On an unrelated note, the movie Casablanca sucks and is incredibly overrated. 

This will result in Canada running the table and finishing first with 9 points. From there, they’ll play Spain, who isn’t that good anymore and often break their formation. Canada will beat Spain due to the fact nobody expects to see the Spanish in position.

In the quarterfinals, Canada plays Portugal. If you haven’t been following along, Ronaldo has burned his bridges at Manchester United. This matters because there are a couple of Portuguese players that play for United and they are not impressed with him. It’s fitting that Portugal is known for their wine because that is what Ronaldo is going to do as Portugal falls apart and Canada wins 1-0. Ya probably shouldn’t base your offense on a 37-year-old striker that has declining skills and is no longer liked, Portugal.

In the semis, Canada plays Denmark, who are boring as shit. No one wants to see Denmark and their style of play in the Finals. Riding a wave of popularity, Canada beats Denmark on PKs to advance to the Finals. 

In the Finals, Canada plays Lionel Messi’s Argentina. Well guess, what? Messi doesn’t score in big games, and the fastest growing meat being consumed in Canada is Goat. Canada wins the World Cup, by a score of 1-0. Canada officially becomes a lesser footy country, and hockey becomes a solid #2. [GTD as the resident lacrosse person, lacrosse has FUCKING ALWAYS been our national sport.  Hockey Was only recently added]

It’s happening, people. It’s happening. 

The Maestro:

I’m intrigued about Canada’s appearance in this World Cup, not especially about the outcomes of the team (they’re probably going to get smoked, but that’s ok), but rather for the effect it’s going to have on the youth game here in our country.

Soccer has already been growing steadily in popularity in this country over the last several decades. I’ve played the game since I was four years old, and in high school I also refereed, coached, and even served as the commissioner of my neighboUrhood youth house league with 800 players aged 4-13. It’s cool to see that we’re on the precipice of an absolute explosion in the game’s popularity here in Canada. While internationally Canada retains the stereotype that it’s a hockey nation first and foremost, there’s no question that youth soccer is going to overtake hockey very soon. From a purely practical standpoint,  the costs of playing each sport (equipment, facility time, organizational fees, etc.) make this inevitable. With the way that Hockey Canada has been absolutely torpedoing the sport’s reputation in the last six months due to their criminal mismanagement of sexual assault cases over the last three decades, I think many parents and families will probably also think twice about putting their kids in skates. 

I wasn’t alive for the 1986 tourney, the last time the Canucks participated in the Final. I’ve been told that’s probably for the best. Even with some middling results on the men’s side, our women’s team has resulted in surging interest in the game – Christine Sinclair leads every player, men and women alike, with 190 international goals in her career. In a society that so often overlooks women’s sports, Sinclair is an absolute rockstar and is worthy of every accolade that’s been heaped upon her. 

Beyond just the abstraction of newspaper headlines, online polls, and 6 o’clock news hits, the excitement for this tournament is genuinely palpable across all generations. Wandering the halls of the high school I teach at, teenagers burst with excitement at what’s to come. With a really diverse student body at this school, it’s no longer just about kids in South Korean, Ghanaian, or Argentinian jerseys chirping each other and swapping soccer highlights and stories, but the red and white jerseys of a shared common culture doing the same. That’s a really cool thing to see. With players like Alphonso Davies, an immigrant to Canada born to Liberian parents in a refugee camp in Ghana, it’s somehow now possible that a kid from anywhere can somehow make it to represent their nation on one of the biggest sporting stages in the world. Even with Canada unlikely to win, the emergence of Davies as one of the best players in the world is a victory in and of itself. 

As frustrating as this World Cup will be thanks to the absolute ghouls that make up FIFA and the Qatari government, I have hope that we can continue to grow and learn from this as a team and as a nation. Canada Soccer needs a serious overhaul and needs to treat its national teams better, as well as the organizations under its umbrella – but in a perfect world, a strong showing on the international stage will win some concessions from the organizations and give our men’s and women’s teams the compensation they rightfully deserve. 

So yes, I will watch each and every match live, even in the middle of teaching music. Fuck that. This is a special moment, and we need to recognize it as such. Will I be so bold as to put some Bailey’s in my morning coffee at work? Eh…. only if we make the knockout rounds, I think. 

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For more information about the Canadian men’s national soccer team, please visit https://canada.ca. Thank you. 

Pour plus d’informations sur l’équipe nationale masculine de soccer du Canada, veuillez visiter https://canada.ca. Merci.