July 1 – Football is a cruel master, Canada will tell you. Having broken back into the upper echelons of Concacaf’s national team hierarchy with World Cup 2022 qualification, they came down to earth with a bump losing the second match of their new Nations League campaign to Honduras.
Canada is a team built on some outstanding young talents but the question for them now is how do they sustain position in the Concacaf elite as well as taking another step up internationally.
Canada have two big money players leading their group in Bayern Munich’s Alphonso Davies (valued at $56 million) and Lille forward Jonathon David ($49 million). They also have a group of players like Tajon Buchanan making their way in European clubs and, if you were to place a bet, building towards a big transfer to one of Europe’s elite clubs.
One Canadian player who might be worth a punt in the race for a spot at a top club is Toronto FC’s 18-year-old forward Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty who trialled at Liverpool earlier in the year, the home of the Grand National itself. He is still strongly tipped for a move to Europe if Liverpool don’t pursue their interest.
Marshall-Rutty made 19 appearances last season for Toronto FC having been the youngest player to sign a first-team contract in Toronto’s history when he agreed terms as a 15-year-old in 2020.
But such is the depth of Canadian football at the moment is that Canada didn’t have him in the currently underway Concacaf Championships.
For Canada to make their next move up the international ladder they will need theuir pipeline of youth to step up, but to do consistently.
At the U20 Championships in Honduras Canada drew with tournament favourites the USA 2-2 in the group before going out to Guatemala in the round of 16 on penalties, Both the US and Guatemala are in the semi-finals and start as favourites to make the final – the US face Honduras and Guatemala line up against the Dominican Republic.
This competition has qualified four teams to the FIFA U20 World Cup, a vital stepping stone for youth development on the international stage. Canada are close, but close is not there. That is the gap they have to work out to create performance sustainability at the senior level.
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