Faced with a lack of competitive drama, much of the Canadian media coverage of the CONCACAF Olympic qualifiers has focused on the frivolous, pedantic and sappy.
There was a feature on the Canadian team having an internal dance competition – frivolous.
The Americans were staying at a hotel where a gang shooting took place. Hard news (especially for the guy shot) but hardly that relevant to the competition – pedantic
And Haiti. Lots of Haiti. How they overcame the earthquake that devastated that country, how locals in Vancouver have helped with equipment and how sport is providing them with a brief reprieve from a very hard time.
Sappy.
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It stands to reason. It’s the same way that networks cover an Olympics. There are only so many moments that are compelling on a pure sports sense if you are a viewer that isn’t familiar with the sport of the athletes involved.
Next we take you to Modern Pentathlon. You may not know what Modern Pentathlon is, but you might be interested to know that the No 1 ranked Belarusian once saved a puppy while surfing off the coast of Maui.
It works surprisingly well (for the record, Modern Pentathlon is a very old and odd Olympic discipline that inexplicably combines sword fighting and horse jumping, among other things). It’s providing a nice little side narrative in this tournament too as Haiti has become most people’s second favourite team.
However, we should be careful to not put all of the attention on the off-pitch stuff. The truth is, the Haitians have held up pretty good so far. A 5-0 score line against Canada wasn’t great, but the performance was likely the best so far by a minnow against one of the big two (I’m including the Cuba result in that as Cuba was outplayed on a far greater level, despite the score).
Against Costa Rica, Haiti was the better team for stretches. Is was deep into the second half before they allowed and they might consider themselves unlucky that they didn’t get a result.
By far, Costa Rica v Haiti has been the best game of the tournament so far.
Let’s not get carried away here though – Haiti is still as raw as you can imagine. However, there is an underlined athleticism with them that makes one think that they could be better.
The reason they probably won’t get better is because they rarely play games against teams like Costa Rica – teams better, but not so much better that the game is a write-off. As I wrote before the tournament started CONCACAF would be far better off finding ways to get countries like Haiti playing more meaningful games than it would establishing the symbolism of having them technically in the running for an Olympic spot.
In hockey and other sports they have B championships, where developing countries play off for a title. Think of it as a sort of Europa League for national teams. Maybe that’s the answer. Hold a B CONCACAF tournament for all but the top three ranked teams with the winner advancing to a four team qualifying event.
Can you think of any other ways to get these countries playing more?