The advent of mobile technology and social media have transformed human communication in ways that would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago, from helping facilitate the overthrow of dictators during last year's Arab Spring to allowing people to stay informed (and in some cases, alive) during catastrophic natural disasters.
Indeed, the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Skype allow all of us to maintain multimedia contact with virtually anyone, anywhere in the world, anytime we want. Global village and all that.
So, considering how many once-thought-impossible heights these media tools have helped people reach, a Canadian soccer fan is left wondering whether another seemingly improbable obstacle can be surmounted in a similar way...
Can social media, one day, help the Canadian men's national team get back to the World Cup?
The short answer, of course, is no. But the longer, more abstract answer is... in a way, maybe.
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Now, unless the FIFA Laws of the Game change drastically and players are suddenly allowed to carry mobile phones onto the field with them, of course social media will have no direct impact on what happens on the pitch. The Like button isn't going to score any goals for us, nor will a retweet help us draw a penalty kick.
But what these tools might be able to do -- if used properly, and by the right people -- is help level the playing field between those representing Canada internationally, and those representing our opponents.
There are many elements of the beautiful game that, while taken for granted in most other nations on earth, seem like novel concepts when applied in the Canadian context. Having a domestic league is, obviously, the most glaring example. That lack of a league (and concentrated geographic proximity for the members of our player pool) would also reasonably lead to a relative lack of familiarity and camaraderie between those who suit up for Canada.
That's not to say current Canadian players don't get along with one another or can't work together -- but given how infrequently the team's starters find themselves all on the same continent as one another (never mind the same field), it's a wonder they're able to muster any cohesion at all once the whistle blows.
Canada is, of course, not the only country that draws its starting lineup from a global footballing diaspora. And, it must be said, familiarity in and of itself does not produce results (Xavi and Iniesta are not amazing talents for Spain simply because they play together at Barcelona... though, it certainly can't hurt).
So yeah, if Canada cannot produce players of sufficient quality to compete in CONCACAF, then it ultimately doesn't matter whether they're playing at clubs scattered across the globe, or if the entire starting XI lines up together on a weekly basis. In fact, with all due respect to Canada's MLS and NASL clubs, our national team is much better off if as many players are possible are competing with the global elite -- in Europe, South America or elsewhere -- throughout the year.
This is where social media come into play.
What Canadian players may lose in terms of familiarity and camaraderie due to circumstances, they can regain like never before through the use of social media. Again, yes, a player's ability to chat about nonsense on Skype or play an all-night session of Halo with a Canadian teammate halfway around the world isn't going to improve their soccer-playing abilities.
But while ideas like "heart" and "grit" are nebulous, old-timey-sports-writing tropes, you'd have to imagine that a player is willing to exert themselves that little extra bit when they feel they're playing for something. Sure, the idealists among us would like to believe that playing for the abstract concept of a nation-state should be more than sufficient motivation, but realistically, having an established rapport with the players lined up beside you (and even some of the fans in the stands) is surely just as big of a motivator, if not a bigger one.
And yes, I brought up the fans. Twitter specifically has allowed a level of player-fan interaction heretofore unimaginable. While a player slogging away in a Scandinavian second-division may have, in years past, felt entirely isolated not only from their Canadian teammates, but from any sense of why it mattered to represent the country in international play, now players can get real, tangible reminders that there are people who passionately care about what they're doing.
Granted, these are all discrete moments, tiny bits of inspiration that could never be quantitatively proven to have much of an impact on in-game performance.
But if we agree with the underlying assumption that within the battleground of Middle CONCACAF, Canada is (one catastrophic result last month notwithstanding) on relatively similar footing to its rivals -- Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, Jamaica, Costa Rica, etc. -- then we can agree that it's the small advantages (or lack thereof) that can make the biggest differences.
Already we can see young national-team members and hopefuls -- Lucas Cavallini, Marcus Haber, Samuel Piette, Luca Gasparotto, just to name a few -- who are prolific Twitter users, regularly interacting with fellow Canadians (both players and fans). Others on the periphery of the national-team setup -- Kyle Porter, David Monsalve -- regularly check in to offer their support for the Canadian program. Each individual tweet is of course just an ephemeral blip on the seemingly infinite realm of the Internet. But taken together, holistically, these modes of interaction can only serve to strengthen the Canadian soccer community overall.
Yeah, they've got all of these social media tools in every other CONCACAF country; and yeah, their players and fans are surely utilizing them in the same ways. And as I've said, if the Canadian team simply isn't good enough to compete, then no amount of status updates or Instagrammed images of their breakfasts can help them.
But who knows... maybe one day, it'll be a photo of a World Cup stadium that we'll see popping up on the feeds of a few dozen Canadian players.
And I think we'd all definitely "Like" that.