In the mid-1990s, a special World Cup was held in a city called Brampton, not far from Toronto. The participants are representative teams from Italy, Portugal, Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the players are a group of Canadian schoolchildren representing their respective bloodlines.
Yes, this is actually Brampton's "home" World Cup. The course was nothing more than a weedy sand field, and parents had to scrape together money to rent a roller to level the road; the goal was nothing more than a few pieces of wood wrapped around the old rope net, which was temporarily cut by a child's parent with an axe to the woods.
The kid, Named Artieba Hutchinson, played as a striker for Trinidad and Tobago and dreamed of becoming the next Dwight York.
On March 28, 2022, Canada beat Jamaica 4-0 in the Central and North American Qualifiers to get tickets to the 2022 World Cup. Hutchinson, 39, was on the verge of death in this game, replacing his injured teammate as a centre-back in the last half hour, trying to save the goal.
From the Brampton World Cup to the real World Cup, Hutchinson waited for nearly 30 years.
"Why do you, a Canadian, play soccer?"
When young Hutchinson was galloping around the Brampton Sands, the Canadian national team saw little hope of participating in the real World Cup. Although they scored the international tournament for the first time in their history in 1986, they did not score a goal in all three of the group stage, and there were few achievements before and after, making the finals look more like "big luck".
Worse than the national team is their domestic league. In 1984, the North American Football League went bankrupt, and in 1992 the Canadian Football League was dissolved, leaving the country in a long-term situation without professional leagues, leaving only regional semi-professional competitions such as the Ontario and Quebec Football Leagues barely supporting.
At its most chaotic, the Canadian Football Association didn't even know where to pick out the members of the national team and had to wait for the players to call themselves to sign up. And in this uncompromising football desert, children like Hutchinson can only go to Europe if they want to pursue their dreams.
At the age of 20, he packed his bags alone and went to Sweden to play in the lower leagues, constantly calling his parents to alleviate the loneliness of a foreign country. He then went to the Swedish Premier League, moved to Danchao Copenhagen, joined Eindhoven in the Dutch Serie A, and came to Besiktas at the age of 30. After playing more and more positions, the forward slowly became a back and a centre-back, but in Turkey, he became a widely loved legend.
But no matter how successful Hutchinson's career has been, and how many places he's traveled to the Europa League, the media often begins with this: "Hey friend, why did you a Canadian play football instead of staying there and playing hockey?" ”
Such a question may not be malicious, but more of a doubt. But it's still a stinging pain for Hutchinson, who can only explain over and over again: "Because I grew up loving football, I always dreamed of the World Cup." ”
But dreams are always out of reach. The results of the Canadian national team are really unsure, and winning the Gold Cup in 2000 is already a short-lived limit, and more often than not, it is a group stage round trip. world cup? Since the 1998 qualifiers, I have not even touched the threshold of the final stage of the Caribbean season in Central and North America.
Canada's FIFA world rankings are declining, with the lowest trough being 122nd in 2016, while the Maldives, which we are "familiar with" in the same period, ranked 130. While this ranking doesn't fully accurately reflect strength, you can imagine how depressed Canadian football has gone.
Many of Hutchinson's predecessors and peers have ended their football careers while waiting.
For example, De Guzman, born in 1981, became the third Canadian to land in the Bundesliga during his 96 for Hanover, became the first Canadian in Canadian football to la Liga after joining De Coruña, and won the team's best of the year in the 07-08 season. In order to participate in the dream of participating in the World Cup, he played until the age of 35 before retiring due to old injuries.
There is also De Rosario, born in 1978, who has won four major league championships in his career, won the League Golden Boot and MVP in 2011, and was selected to the All-Star Team several times. He famously said, "Let me play the World Cup, and then retire when I'm satisfied," and as a result, I struggled until I hung up my boots at the age of 41, and still failed to realize this dream that I had insisted on for half a lifetime.
Compared to the two of them, hutchinson, who was a little younger, was lucky. Born in 1983, he not only waited for the blowout of younger geniuses such as Alfonso and David, but also met an environment that allowed these young people to thrive.
Where is the youth training coming out?
It is interesting to note that even in the two or three decades when Canadian football was at its most chaotic and low, there was still no shortage of children playing football in the country. Hutchinson is not alone, with football in his hometown of Brampton and neighbouring Toronto always having a good atmosphere, with home-made stadiums and junior field teams everywhere.
On the one hand, many of these children are from immigrant families. Although football is not a traditional sport in Canada, families from Italy, Portugal, Ghana or Jamaica are much more interested in the sport. Take Hutchinson's father, who dreamed of becoming a Trinidad and Tobago international from an early age, and when his hopes were dashed, he turned to raising two children. After immigrating to Canada, he immediately converted the basement of his home into a small indoor training ground.
There's also Hargreaves, who is only 2 years older than Hutchinson. His father was from England, his mother was from Wales, and he was born in Canada. However, as an adult, he finally chose to play for the England team instead of his hometown, which also caused some Canadian fans to run to his hometown and hang protest banners.
Canada, on the other hand, has relatively good overall social welfare, relatively relaxed study pressure, and has a similar campus sports culture as the United States. This allows immigrant children to play football when they are in primary and secondary school, and then pull up a football team in college.
It can be said that the flame of Canadian football has not been extinguished, all they need is a sound youth training system and the corresponding promotion exit.
And these things, slowly accumulated in the long dormancy, finally completed the key three steps.
The first step is to introduce excellent youth coaches. As many people know, Canada is a well-known immigrant country. If you have a certain economic foundation and are outstanding talents in science, education, culture and health, it is easy to meet the requirements of immigrating to Canada.
Professional players who have played in European football powerhouses, or professional coaches with coaching experience, belong to this category. While they come to Canada to enjoy a slower pace of life, they also bring advanced youth training concepts and more valuable European football contacts.
For example, the aforementioned Hargreaves was caught by the coach while playing at a Canadian youth football school, and this coach is close to Bayern. It was he who later introduced the 16-year-old Hargreaves to the Bayern academy.
Another example is David, the main Canadian striker who is now killing four sides in Ligue 1, who has followed his mentor Al Magrebi through two academies since he was a child, and joined the "Ottawa Elite Athlete Program" led by Joe Funier at the age of 11. It was these two men who charted the best path for David's career, allowing him to join Ghent in Belgium at the age of 18.
The second step is to ride on the east wind of the MLB. There are very few seedlings that can be favored by Europe, and in Canada, where there is no professional league, what if more children want to take the road of football? In the past, this was an insoluble problem, and many Canadian youth players who could not go to Europe early, like Hutchinson and David, would end up treating football as a hobby.
However, the rise and development of football in that powerful neighbor brought a whole new path. In 2007, Toronto FC became the new MLB, and in 2011 and 12, it ushered in the Vancouver White Wave and Montreal Impact. While the U.S. soccer circle continues to spend money to attract stars to retire, drive the overall level of improvement, and the ball market is becoming more and more lively, these three Canadian teams have also brought long-dreamed career outlets to their own players.
Larin, who led the top scorers in the World Cup, although he did not play for these three teams, he played college football in the United States and let Orlando City use the medal, scoring 17 goals in his rookie season. Alfonso Davis, who has become Canada's number one star, was initially favored by Bayern because of his outstanding performance in Vancouver Whitewater for more than two years.
The third step is to re-establish the league system. In any case, there are still a few people who can go to Europe and "backdoor" the MLB, and the absence of professional leagues in their own country is obviously not a long-term solution.
When businessman-turned-Montaliani was elected president of the Canadian Football Association in 2012, he immediately began work to rebuild the Canadian league system. "Other managers can watch their own league players live, while our managers can only watch TV! This is definitely not OK! ”
Traveling around connecting teams, soliciting various commercial sponsorships, preparing for a new format and logistics, after years of montaliani's efforts, the new Canadian Premier League was officially launched in 2019. To make up for years of talent gaps, the top professional league has a very clear purpose, which is to develop local players: each team can only have a maximum of 7 foreign players in the 23-man roster; at least 6 national players to start each game; and at least three under-21 players to play more than 1500 minutes per season.
At this point, Canada has finally built a complete football training system. A large number of coaches from Europe are rooted in youth training, and those who cannot play professionals continue to go to school and work, and the talents who can play out have three different levels of upward channels: recommending to Europe, the three teams of the MLB, and playing in their own countries.
Of course, the birth of the Super League has only been more than two years, and it is not enough to provide much contribution to this World Cup. At present, there are no super players in this national team, basically from Europe and the MLB.
And these players scattered around the world can be firmly held together, thanks to their England manager John Herdman.
Regardless of the men's and women's football, I have to bring it into the World Cup
Herdman never played professional football, and as a young man studied at university in England, he worked part-time as an assistant lecturer and amateur football coach. After graduation, he joined the Sunderland Academy and began to coach the younger echelon.
He moved to New Zealand in 2001 and soon joined the FA's comprehensive development programme. From manager to director of development, to becoming the head coach of the New Zealand women's football team in 2006. In this role, he first led the youth women's football team to the U20 World Cup, and then led the adult women's football team to two World Cups and the Beijing Olympic Games.
In 2011, he took over the Canadian women's football team, winning two consecutive Olympic bronze medals. In early 2018, Herdman was named head coach and national football director of the Canadian men's soccer team, becoming the top head of the U14 youth team at all levels of the start.
Although he has never been a professional player and his previous coaching experience has been in youth teams and women's football, Herdman has two valuable qualities that are very suitable for the position of national team manager.
First of all, from theoretical research to practical operation, he is very good at building a unified system from top to bottom. From youth training to national youth teams to adult national teams, maintaining similar technical requirements and tactical systems makes it easier for players to adapt and easier to find out what is missing.
So, after taking over the Canadian coaching whip and leading the team to play a few games, he immediately called a Portuguese back, and then bombed back and forth for nearly a year. The back,named Ostakio, was born in Canada but returned to Portugal with his parents at the age of 7 and has now played as a main player in Porto.
With emotional reason, perhaps added to a little pie and flickering, he persuaded Ostakio to choose to play for the national team in his birthplace. The excited Canadian press wrote in the official announcement: "We lost Hargreaves that year, but Herdman brought us Ostaquio! ”
Secondly, he is very inspiring and cohesive to the team. Herdman knows that although Canada has ushered in a rare talent explosion, the players are completely different from skin color to culture, and the technical and tactical environment they usually live in is also very different, and someone must stand up as a leader to stabilize the military.
So he also bombed another player with his phone, Hutchinson mentioned at the beginning. Hutchinson was 35 years old at the time, had just suffered a serious injury in his national team career, and had the idea of saying goodbye to the Canadian national team or even retiring directly. But Once again, Herdman persuaded him with words.
The two reached a consensus: first make way for young people, do not run back and forth to do a good job of maintenance, and must come back at the critical moment. From September 2019 to July 2021, Hutchinson played just one of 18 games in Canada. But when the final stages of the World Cup, after years of absence, came, he responded to the call from Herdman.
In his first game of "return" to the national team, Canada trailed Honduras 0-1 in the first half. The young players who had been on the smooth side of the situation were a bit out of control, and the midfielder had some arguments in the dressing room. Hutchinson stepped forward at the crucial moment and said something like this: "I went through a qualifier in 2012, and it was today's opponent, we lost 1-8. All I felt then was despair, but now it's different. Now we have you, so many wonderful young people, and the whole country behind us. All we have to do is keep playing our own football, the goals will come and don't forget that the whole third round (qualifiers) has just begun. ”
Short and powerful, with a loud voice. When the old man Hutchinson spoke, the whole locker room was quietly listening. When he was done, the players cheered each other on in a circle and went out to make the score 1-1. In the following qualifiers, Canada played an unbeaten run of 11 rounds, surpassing the United States and Mexico to the top of the table until it took the lead in locking in a ticket to the World Cup finals.
Homework that can't be copied
Looking back at the Canadian national team's counterattack from world ranking 122 to reaching the World Cup, is there anything we can copy? There may be some lessons to learn from, but more success factors are hard to replicate.
In terms of player composition, you can see that most of the Canadian squad is black players, Such as David of Haiti, Alfonso of Ghana, Larin and Buchanan of Jamaica, and so on. The rest are Portugal's Ostakio and Victoria, Argentina's Cavallini, Serbia's Bojan, Colombia's Osorio, Chile's Gutierrez and so on.
If you look at the lineup of the three Canadian teams in the MLB, you will still find that most of the young players also have dual citizenship of these countries.
But these people are not "fixed-point naturalizations" for purely football purposes, but – either born in Canada like Ostakio, or fully raised in Canada like Alfonso, David and Larin.
Just like the French team, this is a unique advantage of the immigrant country.
Geographically, they can arrange the home stadium to the "bitter cold land" of minus ten degrees such as Edmonton, and even Toronto is several degrees below zero and snow is flying at every turn.
These may not be much for people who grew up in Canada, but if you think about the Mexican, Costa Rican and Salvadoran players who see such a stadium environment, they will say, "Oh my God, I haven't seen so much snow in my life!" ”
In terms of competitive environment, there are 3.5 qualifying places in Central and North America and the Caribbean. The powerful Mexico has been stable, the United States has occasionally turned over but can rub the league, in addition to these two top two, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago have all seen declines in level, Panama and Honduras have all been given opportunities.
As long as Canada manages its problems and is on the right path, the long-term direct competitor may be Costa Rica alone.
The most valuable thing is that Canada has always had a good football atmosphere. Even though the national team was once ranked close to the Maldives, even if there were no professional leagues for a long time, they still have close to 1 million registered players, coaches and staff in all kinds of FA competitions. Keep in mind that Canada's entire population is only 38 million, and the vast majority of these football populations are considerable, if not the vast majority of them.
And now, that atmosphere is sure to be a bigger upsurge as Canada returns to the World Cup after a 36-year absence.
At the Ottawa International Club, which produced David, Magrebi welcomed more children interested in football than coaches, and unlike the previous immigrant descendants, the proportion of small white players began to grow rapidly. The youth training institution, which has a closed insulated roof and can train around the clock, not only extends the age limit for admissions to a minimum of four years old, but also draws up two channels of hobby and career direction.
And Brampton, mentioned at the beginning of the article, has always been a place to preserve the fire, even in the lowest valley of Canadian football. In addition to Hutchinson, Larin, Buchanan, Hoylet, Osorio, Dornier Henry and Liam Miller were all born or raised in Brampton.
Now, right where Hutchinson played the Brampton World Cup, a new plan for a top European standard academy has been approved by the city and will be named "Atiba Hutchinson Stadium".
Hutchinson, 39, came from here and this year finally embraced that once-distant dream. And the same place, the future may become the starting point for more young people to chase their dreams.
Perhaps this is the strongest force of Canadian football, the power of the dream heritage.