The top priority of any team entering any tournament, ostensibly, is doing everything in their power to win it.
Of course, sometimes a team needs to adopt different priorities when winning the tournament simply isn't within the realm of possibility (see: Tahiti at the Confederations Cup). Now, despite the pessimistic wailings of some fans, Canada does have a significantly better chance of winning this year's Gold Cup than the spirited Tahitians did of doing any real damage down in Brazil.
Even so, looking at the circumstances -- and the young, development-focused roster named by interim head coach Colin Miller -- the reality is that if you're banking on seeing Canada hoist the Gold Cup as champions, well, you're almost certainly going to be disappointed.
For the rest of us, then, here are what are/should be Canada's top five priorities at this year's tournament. These aren't listed in any particular order of importance, nor can they necessary all be achieved (considering a few of them contradict each other, somewhat). But consider this a handy guide as to how to answer the question of "why am I doing this, again?" as you soak in Canada's group-stage matches:
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Cap-tie anyone who's young, promising and has options. If this seems overly paranoid and cynical to you, allow me to make an introduction: Hello. I'm a Canadian soccer fan. Paranoid and cynical is what I do. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Canadian soccer landscape knows the men's national team has been painfully and publicly burned on quite a few occasions over the past decade or so, when it comes to once-promising Canadians who spurned Les Rouges for supposedly greener pastures.
Now, to be absolutely and unequivocally clear: We've seen no evidence that the as-yet-uncapped youngsters-with-promise are anything but committed to playing for Canada. And perhaps I'm just being overly paranoid with a few of them, since I'm not even sure if they actually are eligible for any other nations. All the same, we'll breathe a little easier once Keven Aleman, Randy Edwini-Bonsu and Jonathan Osorio set foot on the pitch in an official FIFA tournament, thus permanently cap-tying them to Canada (unless FIFA screws us over by changing the rules again).
Score a few freaking goals. The CSA has made much hay about the fact that the CanMNT has held the big, bad United States to 0-0 draws in both 2012 and 2013. And while those are decent enough results, the reality is that there's no visceral explosion quite like scoring an unexpected goal in an important game against a strong opponent (hell, the only thing I remember from those 180 minutes of play against the Yanks is Nik Ledgerwood's disallowed goal last June).
Now, I'm not saying we go into the tournament with a Tahitian "just happy to be here, and a goal would be amazing" mindset. But the grim fact is that Canada has only scored TWO goals in six games this year (
So if they can just put some balls in the back of the net (the opponent's net, that is), even if they are in a losing cause, it will at least give the weary supporters something to hang their hats on. (And give the team a bit of a boost too, you'd reckon.)
Beat Martinique. Beating Panama would be good too, and beating Mexico would be outstanding (albeit unlikely). But defeating this tiny overseas territory of France, with a population of just over 400,000, is crucial not just to the team's hopes of advancing to the knockout round, but for the public perception of the team.
It doesn't matter if the Martinique side includes a few players of quality, or that it's difficult to adequately prepare for a team when you don't have video of them playing, or that they might be better acclimated to the gameday conditions in California, or that Guadeloupe has taught us that tiny, non-FIFA French protectorates can have some measure of success in this competition.
The team's public reputation took a catastrophic hit with the 8-1 result against Honduras (a country that most non-CONCACAF fans/non-geography geeks probably don't know a damned thing about). But failing to beat a non-FIFA-ranked, non-sovereign Caribbean island with fewer residents than Kitchener-Waterloo... well... that would be whatever comes after "catastrophic" in the Big List of Negative Hyperbole Words.
So for God's sake, beat Martinique.
Show a little bit of style. Oh, we were all tasting the soup for the past few years, convinced that tight structure and organization was the way to win in CONCACAF. And to Stephen Hart's credit, he did get the team closer to the Hex than they had been in the previous few cycles. But the games were, at times, excruciating -- sure, moving the ball laterally and backwards ad infinitum keeps the other team from getting it, but it also keeps your team from doing anything interesting with it.
The squad does feature some players (Aleman, Teibert, Osorio, REB) who can show a "what the hell, let's give it a go" attitude, and new captain Will Johnson has demonstrated some offensive flair for the Portland Timbers this year. So what the hell, let's give it a go. If this tournament is a showcase for what the youngsters can do, let's see what they can do.
We harp on about how LTPD is supposed to give players a chance to try new things without fear of reprisal; let's take the same approach to the Gold Cup! You wanna take on three defenders, getting past two of them before coughing the ball up? Well, it's counterproductive to the team, but it's fun to watch, at least! We're already going to be stressing about the results and about Canada's place in the soccer universe no matter what; at least give us a few moments of inspiration and excitement.
Troll Ryan Nelsen. Hard. Toronto FC head coach Ryan Nelsen has spent the better part of the past week complaining about the fact the CSA supposedly wouldn't "do them a favour" by allowing two of the four TFC players on the Canada roster to stick around for the mid-week league game against Montreal. Oddly enough, Nelsen's remarks had a way of uniting both fans and haters of TFC, none of whom seemed to have much sympathy for him.
Even after a few days to cool off and think about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of his original comments, Nelsen was back at it again this week, moaning about the Canadian team's player selection process. For their part, the CSA hasn't offered any comment on the situation, though you'd have to imagine Nelsen's continued outbursts have chafed some hides on Metcalfe Street.
So, what better way to burn Nelsen than to instruct Miller to keep Osorio, Henry, Bekker and Morgan on the bench for the entire tournament? Just, zero minutes of playing time. Even if injuries mean Canada has to play short-handed, whatever, keep them there.
It would be unnecessarily petty and vindictive, and a prime example of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. But hey, this is Canadian soccer we're talking about! What else is new?
Anyway, did I miss something? What are you (realistically) looking for from Canada at this year's Gold Cup?