Much like the geopolitical history between the two nations, the recent soccer history between Canada and Cuba has been, suffice to say, complicated... and a bit strange.
Last year alone, we saw Canada's Olympic dreams essentially evaporate on a last-minute set piece, Lars Hirschfeld being sent off on a glorified cow pasture in Havana, and the frostbitten Cubans contesting a World Cup qualifier with zero subs due to a bevy of pre-match defections.
So, what did the latest installment -- the opening of U20 World Cup qualifying on Monday night -- bring us?
Oh, you know, just a Mexican marching band regaling the crowd with hits ranging from Gangnam Style to Rihanna's We Found Love as Cuba took advantage of an utterly disjointed effort from the Canadian side, casting severe doubt on the Baby Reds' hopes of earning a spot in Turkey 2013.
No matter the age level, no matter the gender, no matter the competition... Canada just never, ever, ever makes it easy on their supporters, do they?
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
It was a game of two halves, the same as every other non-knockout soccer match ever played. The first saw some promising play from the likes of Keven Aleman and Zakaria Messoudi, both of whom showed the sort of skill on the ball rare to Canadian internationals. But while they and others showed brief moments of individual flash, a distinct sense of non-cohesion afflicted the Canadian side throughout the game, with passes being mis-hit and several instances of communication gone awry -- with sometimes devastating consequences.
A curiously bumpy pitch in Puebla, Mexico didn't exactly help things -- nor would adjusting to having a marching band blasting Party Rock for no particular reason, I'd suppose.
Perhaps Canada's best chance of the first half came on a free header from Michael Petrasso that would have eluded the keeper and found the back of the net, if not for that meddling Cuban defender's boot. Instantly, anyone who's ever watched a Canadian national soccer team knew the spurned chance would come back to bite us in the ass.
So, naturally, it did.
As the second half began, with things still scoreless, Canada got much more direct, with one-on-one attacks in the midfield being largely replaced by a whole lot of hey-let's-move-it-around-at-the-back-for-a-while-then-thump-an-aimless-longball. Whether this was an intentional reaction by head coach Nick Dasovic to some of the more shall-we-say selfish play in the first half, I couldn't say... but it was too stark a change to really be a coincidence.
The result... well... Canada was slow and ponderous in its attempts to create scoring chances, and was ultimately punished by a few bad decisions and preposterous defensive breakdowns. As I remarked on Twitter during the match: If you've followed Canadian soccer for any amount of time -- heck, even if you've just been following Canada's recent showdowns with Cuba at various levels -- you've seen this game multiple times before.
It was -- to put things in a mild and friendly manner, because what the hell, shitting on them isn't going to accomplish anything anyway -- a tough game for a number of the Canadian kids, among them Doneil Henry, Marco Lapenna and Samuel Piette. On the other hand, all three subs -- Alessandro Riggi, Caleb Clarke and Stefan Vukovic -- brought their own energy to the game... but that was by the time things were, more or less, decided.
Vukovic did manage to nab Canada's consolation goal on a rebound in the dying minutes of regular time. And hey, who knows, maybe that will have some ultimate impact on goal differential and whether or not Canada can complete the suddenly-Herculean task of escaping as one of the top two teams in this three-team group.
It was an ugly game, and an ugly result, but it's moronic and counterproductive to make broad and sweeping pronouncements about the individual careers of any of these players or the program in general based on one result. Go ahead and do it if it makes you feel better, by all means -- and please be sure to note that it's not "one result" you're upset about, but a seemingly unending stream of similar performances and similar results, even as the personnel and circumstances change.
Yet the reality is still that a victory on Friday against Nicaragua probably still gets Canada through to a win-and-you're-into-the-World-Cup game next Tuesday. Now, sure, to presume Canada is automatically poised for victory against a largely-unknown Nicaraguan side, after what we saw Monday night, is the height of Canadian navel-gazing delusion. And perhaps that's a trap many of us fell into prior to the Cuba match, overrating our own kids based on their supposed pedigree and our general desperate hope for a Canadian team that doesn't make things so damned difficult on themselves and on us.
Or maybe -- just maybe -- this is a team of talented youngsters who, for whatever reason, simply didn't "click" on Monday night, but have better things in store. Maybe Dasovic learned enough from the grotesque outcome to make sufficient adjustments. Maybe this will be one of the rare times where strange things happen around a Canadian team and they actually work out in our favour at the end of the day.
Anyway, come Friday, let's all find our comfort zone between the totally Polyanna-ish nonsense and unshakeable fatalism and watch a bunch of kids pull on the red and white, and fight for their footie dreams. They'll either accomplish what they're aiming for or they won't. But there's still talent in the squad, and if everything goes right, they still could have a conceivable chance of success.
Stop me if you've heard that one before.
.