How Far Are We From A Soccer Nation?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

15 hours ago, red card said:

...I would guess most of these Canadians who requested tickets have never attended a Cdn national team or CPL match...

...or even an MLS one, which I hope you will agree is every bit as relevant as CanPL in this context. Due to the way population has grown through immigration there have always been plenty of people in Canada who know and love our sport so the latent potential to be a soccer nation with a strong culture of professional soccer has always been there going right back to the early 20th century. Canadian society can be very stratified though and along with the more recent immigrant demographic there has also been a sizable chunk of the population that has traditionally viewed hockey and the CFL as the sports that were central to their nation building project with soccer viewed as an unwelcome alien intrusion to be disparaged and marginalized.

That sizable chunk of the population has tended to have the top jobs politically and in the sports media and that means that until relatively recent times you were very much swimming against the tide if you tried to use the CMNT as a vehicle for expressing Canadian patriotism. Cue some very patronising media coverage by the CBC or TSN none too subtlely hammering home the point that these guys really need to start playing hockey and CFL like "real Canadians" without being too obnoxious about it. In a similar vein attempts to obtain public funding for the sort of infrastructure needed to provide pro soccer with a reasonable shot at succeeding big time and disrupting the preferred sports culture were unlikely to succeed.

Eugene Melnyk wants to build a soccer stadium in Ottawa for an MLS expansion team, forget it you'll have to accept soccer playing second fiddle to the new CFL team on a playing surface with an always still somewhat visible gridiron. Greg Kerfoot wants to build a waterfront SSS for the Whitecaps, forget it you'll have to accept playing second fiddle to the BC Lions in an oversized dome where it will be difficult to generate the revenue streams needed to compete properly in MLS. Some dude called Joe Belan wants to convert Taylor Field into a soccer stadium. This is Rider Nation country, we are not legally allowed to tar and feather him for having the temerity to suggest this, so politely but firmly turn him down along with any attempts to do something similar in Saskatoon...

Having said all that, I wouldn't be too upset about a low crowd for a Nations League game against Jamaica. If you have to carefully explain to people why something is important it's likely to be an uphill struggle to get them to pay top dollar for a soccer game against a not particularly high profile opponent down by the Lakeshore in late November. The crowds that were attracted during the 2022 World Cup qualifiers show what can happen when people understand that something really big is on the line.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Kent]

13 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Having said all that, I wouldn't be too upset about a low crowd for a Nations League game against Jamaica. If you have to carefully explain to people why something is important it's likely to be an uphill struggle to get them to pay top dollar for a soccer game against a not particularly high profile opponent down by the Lakeshore in late November. The crowds that were attracted during the 2022 World Cup qualifiers show what can happen when people understand that something really big is on the line.

This is part of the soccer nation question though. People like us on this board need to explain to people what this game means. It's not talked about on sports talk shows, for example, so that people know what Nations League is and that this is Copa America qualifying. Maybe they see something on facebook advertising that there is some game, but it's not World Cup Qualifying so they don't know what it is.

We only drew 15k fans to a Gold Cup game in Toronto this year as well. Again, it was an unheralded opponent, but it was still a continental cup game, and a chance for us to show as a fan base that Canada should get more games. I'm afraid with what we mustered up it seems perfectly reasonable for CONCACAF to go on ignoring us for hosting games for a while.

[h coach]

For what it is worth, the preview of the Oilers Flames outdoor game on Sportsnet had a video clip of Cycle Larin scoring in WC qualifying and Sam A et al jumping in the snowbank. An iconic moment in Canadian sport at Commonwealth stadium.

[gigi riva]

    To me the Mainstream sports media here in this Country  are a bunch of  unimaginitive wanna be Americans . It has to be the three main leagues they only talk about . NHL, NFL, and MLB , and to me NBA gets less coverage than MLB in this Country , and for the love of  F--k Baseball is boring .   So I guess  we can imagine where Soccer fits in. 

 

       As A Soccer fan spanning almost 45 years I am getting a little tired of all the c=trash talking Soccer gets from the Don Cherry wanna be doushbags who know nothing of the game and at the same time  know  nothing of Hockey too, the only mainstream media guy that really talks up our sport  and at the same time will be critical of it when neede is Sid Siexsaro  who for whatever reason  people on the forum dislike  which boggles my mind . 

     

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Sid Seixeiro's parents are from Portugal originally, so no huge shock that he is a soccer fan with Benfica being his team by all accounts. What represents progress of a sort is that he doesn't feel a need to hide that for career reasons. Compare and contrast with TSN hockey insider dude Bob McKenzie with parents from East Belfast but the likelihood of ever mentioning any leaning towards soccer and Glentoran in that context from somebody of his generation linked to that sport is pretty much zero.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[InglewoodJack]

On 10/29/2023 at 10:07 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 Eugene Melnyk wants to build a soccer stadium in Ottawa for an MLS expansion team

How’s he gonna do that, considering… yknow…

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

This happened back in 2008:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Soccer_Stadium

when he was still very much with us. He became enthused about MLS after driving past BMO Field during a TFC game and having to ask his driver what was going on.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[InglewoodJack]

Just now, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

This happened back in 2008:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Soccer_Stadium

when he was still very much with us. He became enthused about MLS after driving past BMO Field during a TFC game and having to ask his driver what was going on.

Scrooge McDuck ass origin story here 

[red card]

Scuffed & Tactical Manager collabed on a couple interviews about how US youth development is broken. They say there are no short cut solutions. It won't change in 10 or 20 years. 

The main difference in views is that TM believes US is lacking pickup culture while Scuffed believes a bit better coaching is needed so that there isn't a huge skills gap when they play pickup. u14+ development is fine in the US. If coaching is a little better, a 6 year old can be comfortable with the ball by age 10.

With TM being from Brasil, he compares and contrast the differences between a football nation and not a football nation. Many of the issues cited by both are also hurdles to Canada becoming a soccer nation.

Pay-to-Play can't be improved or fixed. Bleak. Counterproductive. Win at all cost mentality keeps parents paying big bucks happy but completely useless for developing pro players, making the national team better and making MLS more competitive. Coaches pick bigger and faster kids to get 1-0 win at u10 rather than try to develop 1 player that makes it into the pros.

Players arrive at u13 MLS academies far behind other countries. Youth systems elsewhere compete for best players while US clubs compete for who can pay the most. The business model is wrong. Even with 40 MLS academies, it won't be enough. Without pro/rel, there aren't business incerntives to fix it. 

FIFA solidarity payments are largely unknown by youth club admins/coaches. Clubs are designed to get players a college scholarship but only 1 or 2 get it. Solidarity payments need to be higher than what parents pay to start change. 

People in power at youth clubs don't understand that free academies aren't charities. They don't understand the global footbal economy of investing in a player for future jersey sales, playing pro, getting sponsors and getting transfer payments.

Main thrust for both is stop making kids fall out of love for the game due to overcoaching or poor coaching despite good intentions. Too many coaches don’t realize that letting kids just play is teaching them. Be the adult in the room but not the coach. USSF grassroots training for coaching is also too high of barrier with 2 hour webinars. 

Many things Brasilian kids learn is from unorganized play. In Brasil, boys play football, swim, eat bbq and then repeat all day long. 

American culture puts kids into soccer even though parents don’t particularly like or don’t know soccer. Can these kids from non-soccer loving families be able to play pick up soccer by 7. Can they rondo by 10?

When you ask Americans how they fell in love with the sport, they usually refer to a specific moment like Donovan's WC goal vs Algeria. For Brasilians, they don’t know the answer as it has always been the case. Their fathers gave them a ball at age 3. So in Brasil, kids have a base understanding of soccer and skillsets that the game flows even among 7 year olds. But you don’t see that in the US. 

Teach a kid to love soccer. Then they’ll teach their kid to love it. It’s generational flywheel effect to match where basketball is in the US. More people who love soccer. More kids who learn soccer at an earlier age. If you’re first touch of the ball is at 8, you probably won’t be a pro soccer player. Maybe get to college.

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/443-tactical-manager-joins-the-pod-to-talk-grassroots/id1352231546?i=1000632743986

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by red card

[TOcanadafan]

Great post @red card.  Our reality is that there will never be any hope of growing or fostering a pick-up culture in Canada or the US.  Look at hockey, where Canadian kids once upon a time had an analogous to Brazil’s football pick-up culture that shaped the NHL stars of a generation ago. Hockey is now a huge business, a sport mostly for the elite, where kids practice with teams twice, play 2 or 3 competitive games, and have 1 or 2 individual skill training sessions each week… coaching 24-7.  Winning matters at all age levels (so bigger kids who physically mature earlier push out smaller kids who have higher skill upside).  Basketball is becoming the same.  Soccer has no hope to have a different romantic pathway here in Canada.  Now the one thing hockey and a little less-so basketball have a huge advantage over soccer in Canada is in high-level coaching.  So perhaps a lot of the creativity is lacking from the ‘finished product’, but the technical skill and system awareness of the elite players is crazy high.  I feel the only way Canada and the US can bridge the gap in global soccer is with a huge emphasis on improving the coaching infrastructure.

Edited November 5, 2023 by TOcanadafan

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Difficult not to be jealous of what's happening in Australia:

 

Canada had clubs comparable to these in the major cities in the 1970s but not any more. The various League Ones aren't even close to this level of operation or arguably even to Australia's strongest NPL divisions. Australia makes for a good analogy because as in Canada soccer is not the top sport there and has faced a lot of hostility from the mainstream culture over the decades because other sports were latched onto as the vehicles for the emerging national identity.

[Watchmen]

11 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Difficult not to be jealous of what's happening in Australia:

 

Canada had clubs comparable to these in the major cities in the 1970s but not any more. The various League Ones aren't even close to this level of operation or arguably even to Australia's strongest NPL divisions. Australia makes for a good analogy because as in Canada soccer is not the top sport there and has faced a lot of hostility from the mainstream culture over the decades because other sports were latched onto as the vehicles for the emerging national identity.

4 clubs in Sydney, 3 in Melbourne, the 8th still in NSW. The very definition of a bus league. So I guess we all know why you're jealous.

[Dominic94]

Very far /thread 

[lamptern]

Deleted. Wrong thread.

Edited November 22, 2023 by lamptern
Wrong thread

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

The level of responses is sadly predictable for this place. Sydney and Melbourne have much the same population as the GTA with rugby league and Aussie rules as the dominant mainstream winter sports, respectively, and cricket the dominant summer sport.

This announcement means that by 2025 there will be 7 fully professional (or very close to it in a CanPL sort of way) soccer clubs operating in greater Sydney and 6 in Melbourne (with the Croatian backed Melbourne Knights only absent because they are still haggling over the entry fee). Meanwhile closer to home York United struggle to draw into low four digits and we'll find out soon whether the update on ownership in a month is actually happening, while League One clubs in the GTA have little to no fan base.

We still have a long way to go to match what is being achieved in another highly comparable non-traditional soccer nation in other words in terms of having a vibrant soccer culture. In the 1970s, clubs like Toronto Italia and Toronto Croatia were very much comparable to Marconi Stallions and Sydney United but for some reason they were never able to build their own stadium/social club complexes unlike what happened in Australia or in a very much scaled down sort of way in some of Canada's smaller cities like London, Ont:

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Kent]

Here are some attendance numbers for every game Canada has played against Jamaica at BMO field.

The game this week had 4k fewer fans than a friendly against the same team back in 2017. So did the World Cup appearance fail to gain us fans? Maybe now fans won't stoop to watch things like Nations League once they got a taste of the final round of World Cup Qualifying? Only 17k fans for a "win and you are in the 2nd biggest tournament your team has been in for the last 35+ years" game. It's disappointing.

[narduch]

7 minutes ago, Kent said:

Here are some attendance numbers for every game Canada has played against Jamaica at BMO field.

The game this week had 4k fewer fans than a friendly against the same team back in 2017. So did the World Cup appearance fail to gain us fans? Maybe now fans won't stoop to watch things like Nations League once they got a taste of the final round of World Cup Qualifying? Only 17k fans for a "win and you are in the 2nd biggest tournament your team has been in for the last 35+ years" game. It's disappointing.

That 2017 game was on a Saturday in September. Which may have helped 

[Obinna]

On 11/22/2023 at 1:41 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

The level of responses is sadly predictable for this place. Sydney and Melbourne have much the same population as the GTA

Sorry in advance, I am feeling rather pedantic this morning, but Melbourne doesn't have "much the same population as the GTA".

Greater Melbourne has a population of 5M with a land area of 9,993 km^2 and the GTA has a population of 6.7M with a land area of 7,123 km^2. Melbourne could add the entire Calgary Metro area on top of it and still wouldn't be as populous as the GTA.

Pretty much same for Greater Sydney, which has a population of 5.2M and a land area of 12,367km^2 The GTA is not only more populous but more than twice as dense as Greater Sydney. 

Again, sorry. I agree with your overall point. I just felt compelled to point this out. Cheers.

[CanadaFan123]

53 minutes ago, narduch said:

That 2017 game was on a Saturday in September. Which may have helped 

Also the CNE was on and a ticket got you free entry to that. 
 

The interest in this team is so much higher now than in 2017 it’s not even close. I really do feel we’re a soccer nation. No other national team in Canada gets as much scrutiny/pressure as our CMNT. Our hockey team, which should have much higher expectations, regularly flunks out to lesser teams and the country doesn’t care nearly as much.

People are living and dying by the emotions of this sport more than ever. 

[Kent]

3 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

Also the CNE was on and a ticket got you free entry to that. 
 

The interest in this team is so much higher now than in 2017 it’s not even close. I really do feel we’re a soccer nation. No other national team in Canada gets as much scrutiny/pressure as our CMNT. Our hockey team, which should have much higher expectations, regularly flunks out to lesser teams and the country doesn’t care nearly as much.

People are living and dying by the emotions of this sport more than ever. 

There are 2 very different sets of expectation and pressure on our hockey team. World Championships, meh, not much scrutiny, it's considered a bit of bonus if we do well. If we actually have a competition that doesn't have the team restricted by guys still playing NHL games, then absolutely there is more scrutiny and pressure on that team than the men's soccer team.

I do think there is more interest in the team now than there was in 2017, but I think it really gets overblown how much of a difference there is. Our lowest attended game at the Gold Cup this year was the game we played in Toronto (it was just a single game rather than a double header though). Only 15k for that game. Outside 2020 and 2021, the lowest season average attendance for TFC was a bit over 18k, 3k more than we drew for that Gold Cup game.

[Watchmen]

7 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

No other national team in Canada gets as much scrutiny/pressure as our CMNT. Our hockey team, which should have much higher expectations, regularly flunks out to lesser teams and the country doesn’t care nearly as much.

People are living and dying by the emotions of this sport more than ever. 

TSN and Sportsnet routinely do "Canada's Olympic team selection" features even when hockey hasn't had a best-on-best Olympic tournament since 2014. The most viewed sporting event in Canadian history is the 2010 gold medal game, 3 more Canadian hockey events are in the top 10, and the 2014 gold medal game played about 10 hours ahead is at 12.  The World Junior tournament is a ratings juggernaut for TSN each year.

Canada's men's soccer team at the recent WC doesn't even crack the top 20, and as soon as they were out every broadcaster went "well that was fun, now back to your favorite hockey teams 4th line crisis".

[CanadaFan123]

2 hours ago, Watchmen said:

TSN and Sportsnet routinely do "Canada's Olympic team selection" features even when hockey hasn't had a best-on-best Olympic tournament since 2014. The most viewed sporting event in Canadian history is the 2010 gold medal game, 3 more Canadian hockey events are in the top 10, and the 2014 gold medal game played about 10 hours ahead is at 12.  The World Junior tournament is a ratings juggernaut for TSN each year.

Canada's men's soccer team at the recent WC doesn't even crack the top 20, and as soon as they were out every broadcaster went "well that was fun, now back to your favorite hockey teams 4th line crisis".

Those events you’re citing for men’s hockey were a decade ago. Obviously the issue is that men’s hockey is limited to world championships and overlaps with nhl playoffs. But still, for a “hockey country”, there is never a care if we lose. No one is calling for heads at hockey Canada unless there’s a sex assault scandal. 
 

Canada v Croatia had an average audience of 4.4 million so I’d be curious to see your ratings for  a top 20 of men’s senior national team events. 

 

[red card]

2 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

Those events you’re citing for men’s hockey were a decade ago. Obviously the issue is that men’s hockey is limited to world championships and overlaps with nhl playoffs. But still, for a “hockey country”, there is never a care if we lose. No one is calling for heads at hockey Canada unless there’s a sex assault scandal. 
 

Canada v Croatia had an average audience of 4.4 million so I’d be curious to see your ratings for  a top 20 of men’s senior national team events. 

 

It's been a decade because there hasn't been a hockey best on best since 2014 when 8.5m watched the Gold medal final early Sunday morning (2016 WC was a gimmicky version). Blame the NHL. As the Globe's Cathal Kelly recently wrote: 

Some sports are good at doing international. Soccer, for instance...Which romantic foreign opponent has McDavid scored against recently? Nobody. The NHL and NHLers must accept they are not international people. They are stay-at-home types.

When Canada has lost a best on best, there were lots of calls for hockey summits. It was requested so often that in today's world, it would become a meme.

24 yrs ago: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1590415504

Hockey World Championships don't matter much since best not there. But if Canada makes the gold medal, around 1 million wiill watch. Otherwise, World Juniors have somewhat filled the need to see best on best. January 2023 gold medal game had 4.7m watching.

Women's gold medal hockey games got 4.8m in 2018 & 2.1m in 2022. Both started around midnight ET.

For Canada soccer men, there aren't even 10 matches that have had 1 million+ watching. The only match that averaged above 1 million pre the Qatar cycle was for Canada v France in the 86 World Cup. For Qatar WCQ, there was 3 matches above 1 million with Jamaica the highest at 1.7m. Croatia WC match at 4.4m avg was the most watched ever for Canada men or women. 

Canada women have had about 10 matches with over 1 million before they won Gold. It was helped by hosting WWC 2015. Most watched for women and second overall for Canada Soccer was the 3.8m for 2012 Olympic semis vs the US. In 2002, Canada u19 women got 914k in their final vs the US in the first u19 World Cup that was held in Edmonton.

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by red card

[Watchmen]

2 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

Those events you’re citing for men’s hockey were a decade ago. Obviously the issue is that men’s hockey is limited to world championships and overlaps with nhl playoffs. But still, for a “hockey country”, there is never a care if we lose. No one is calling for heads at hockey Canada unless there’s a sex assault scandal. 
 

Canada v Croatia had an average audience of 4.4 million so I’d be curious to see your ratings for  a top 20 of men’s senior national team events. 

 

Dude, we literally held a "hockey summit" in 1998 after finishing 4th at the Olympics, 2nd in Women's hockey, and (gasp!) 8th at the World Juniors.  Then won Gold in 2002, were dismal in 2006 (after which a number of the selection committee stepped down), and won Gold again in 2010 and 2014 (and 2016, if you want to count that).  There hasn't been a call for the heads of hockey Canada to step down because we dominated at best on best for 14 years and then stopped going to events.

After 36 years being away from the biggest tournament in the World, Canada drew an audience of 4.4 million vs Croatia, narrowly edging out Toronto vs Tampa round 1 game 7 at 4.1m.  I'd look up how non-WC Canada events draw, but most of them are locked behind a streaming service because there's not enough national interest most of the time to draw a payment from a cable company.

[BearcatSA]

12 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

There hasn't been a call for the heads of hockey Canada to step down because we dominated at best on best for 14 years and then Gary Bettman and the NHL governors stopped all their players from going to events.

FYP