Canada plays today.
I expect most of you knew that, but it's at the point now where maybe you've shut it out. It's been a difficult year to say the least.
It's tempting to throw your hands up and just focus on your heritage team (if you have one), but international sport isn't like that. It grinds on, never ending.
So, we watch. And we fret and we try and understand where it all went wrong. Actually, most of us know where it went wrong. We just remain frozen in the same place year after year as smaller and smaller countries zip past us.
Sadly, too many of us remain focused on the here and now stuff. We want to Sack the CSA, without understanding what that means. We look to fire the coach without understanding how replacing him would fix anything and we demand more from players that might be giving us everything they already have.
The truth is the struggles today reflect just how bad things were in the years between the fall of the Canadian Soccer League (the real one, not the abomination in Ontario) and the start-up of the MLS teams. That gap produced next to no players and is why the team is so bad. We have players produced after 2007, players produced in the 80s, and a guy from Chicago. It's not enough and it won't be fixed before the start of 2018 qualifying.
It really won't. We are not going to Russia. The only way that could possibly change is the CSA fast tracked some citizenships, or finds a few hidden Canadians playing professionally. It's not the worst idea to look for a couple guys like that -- we need to be competitive in '18 qualifying -- but it's not the long-term fix.
What is the long-term fix then?
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
It's simple, really. We need to find a way to extend the playing career of guys into their early 20s in environments that can continue their development and provide an opportunity to move up the playing pyramid.
We need to get over the bickering at the grassroots level and split players on elite development pathways from kids that want to play the sport for fun and fitness. They have different needs and we need to run the sport in a way that reflects that.
We need at least two more (preferably more) D2 pro teams to emerge, all with professional academies.
We need our three MLS teams to do a better job at working with all parts of the system and we need the MLS team in our biggest city to get its head out of it's ass and at least not be an embarrassment (partisanship in Vancouver and Montreal may prevent you from seeing how TFC's stupidity drags the whole system down, but it does).
We need the CSA to continue making the changes it has started, advocate for MLS to make Canadians domestic players league-wide (their labour law excuse is just that--an excuse) and continue to support the program by having camps at every international break.
And we need to start to plan for the transition between Floro and his replacement. He was always going to be a short-term Manager. His focus should be as much on Olympic qualifying (we have a chance there) and setting up things for John Herdman to lead Canada to Qatar.
Wait, did I say that last line out loud?
Anyway, in the meantime we as fans just have to be patient but firm in our resolve to ensure that the powers are held accountable. Canada is too rich, too big, too athletic (we're likely going to actually Own the Podium in Sochi) and have too many kids playing the game to be this bad.