For ninety minutes it was another of those sorts of games. Canada had played pretty well, considering the miserable calibre of player they had assembled, the rawness of the squad, the altitude, and the travel. We were losing but the game was a pretty level affair and on another day we could have gone home with the draw. Then up stepped Issey Nakajima-Farran, a complete pile of useless for almost precisely an entire match, and an absolutely perfect free kick to a 5′9″ international debutant shoving his way through the Venezuelan line like a bull in a china shop, and all of a sudden it was that other day.

Gavin McCallum is Canada’s newest international soccer hero. Showing up in Venezuela, McCallum was one of a horde of young men dragooned into international service for want of a better option. His goal on his debut will never be the stuff of legend – it was only a friendly, after all – but coming off the bench on the road against as strong a team as Venezuela and bagging a hard-fought equalizer is the sort of thing that makes a good first impression.

(By the way, thanks to this guy, two of these guys, U-Sector, and the Duke of Gloucester for putting up with a particularly grating Whitecaps fan in their midst. I assure you that if any of you find your way to the west coast the hospitality will be repaid in… ah, who am I kidding, I’ll be a total dick.)

Canada played well, though not spectacularly, and that’s the first time we’ve been able to say that since the Gold Cup. They scored a goal for the first time since the Gold Cup too, breaking a drought dating from July 19, 2009 when Marcel de Jong scored a screamer against Costa Rica. But perhaps we ought not to complain, as the Venezuela squad featured only six players from the 2009 Gold Cup, and not for lack of interest on Canada’s part. And those six were among Canada’s weaker players on the day.

In spite of my ravings at the pub, Josh Wagenaar was not bad. I felt he ought to have done better against the Venezuelan goal than he did, but the ball took a slight turn off of Richard Hastings and was by no means entirely on Wagenaar’s back. Paul Stalteri wasn’t dreadful, and that’s high praise for Paul Stalteri these days. Richard Hastings was.

As was Simeon Jackson, whose inability to finish put Canada behind the eight-ball. Since scoring in his own debut against Cyprus, Jackson has made nine appearances and not only failed to score but not come close. He wasn’t helped by some shocking service: constantly playing crosses through the air to a lone 5′8″ striker seems unwise to me but Canada constantly tried. Indeed, playing a lone striker at all seems like poor strategy for Canada; we haven’t got the strikers with enough talent to do it on their own and we’ve played our best attacking football with two strikers for a number of years now.

For the botched crosses Mike Klukowski must take some blame. How could Klukowski be bad against Venezuela? He’s one of our few elite international players and readily takes minnows apart! Yet he struggled, and mightily, before being replaced by Eddy Sidra.

Issey Nakajima-Farran, meanwhile, was active but impotent. His finishing was even worse than Jackson’s, although his chances were less clear-cut partially because of poor positioning. He constantly overplayed himself and turned the ball over readily. But he also made amends with one particularly superb free kick, a kick so fine even I can find nothing to complain about.

The newbies were better. Terry Dunfield was unremarkable, and a little mediocre, but generally stayed within himself and didn’t make too many mistakes. Pedro Pacheco was surprisingly omnipresent, taking corners and free kicks as well as dictating much of the play, and showing a silkiness and awareness on the ball that calls to mind Dwayne De Rosario. He seemed to tire as the game wore on, perhaps unused to the altitude, but he also stands out among the newer players as one I’d like to see again. He vied for “most promising” with Eddy Sidra, who technically appeared in the Cyprus match but only really arrived in this one with some thundering runs and cunning play as a substitute at left back. Perhaps it was simply a case of fresh legs against tired Venezuelans, but whatever it was it worked.

Most of the others – Haidar Al-Shaibani, Gianluca Zavarise, and Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault – were on the pitch for too brief a time to be commented upon. But none looked bad and only Al-Shaibani’s distribution left something to be desired. That leaves, of course, Gavin McCallum, and as invisible as he was until stoppage time his sudden visibility made all possible criticism moot.

What did we learn about Canada that we didn’t know before? Not much, but what we did learn is encouraging. Josh Wagenaar is less rusty (and less bad) than I might have feared and shouldn’t be written off quite yet. Pedro Pacheco is definitely a CONCACAF-calibre player and will hopefully become a fixture on the national team.

For a 21-year-old fullback Eddy Sidra has a lot of promise, and for a 19-year-old central defender… actually, for any position at any age, Adam Straith is the man. There was a question about how well his terrific 2.Bundesliga form would carry over to the national team, and it has been answered: “brilliantly”. He was my man of the match for his sheer, ruthless, mistake-free effectiveness underpinned with athleticism and a football sense that looked far beyond his years.

It was a hopeful game, and in more than the usual Canadian sense of “we lost but it looked promising”. We played well with some depth players, hung tough, showed some intestinal fortitude (for once) and picked up a terrifically well-earned draw. We can hold our heads a little higher and discuss some aspect of the Canadian national team with optimism for once. I’m not saying it was worth missing a Roy Halladay perfect game for… actually, you know what? Maybe it was.

We can’t beat them. Who are we kidding, we’re not in these guys’ league. But if we can go the distance – if we can get through that ninety minutes and we’re still standing – then we’ll know that we’re not just another bunch of bums from CONCACAF.

The roster the Canadian Soccer Association has announced for the May friendlies against Argentina and Venezuela is one of the most interesting selections Canada has seen for some time. On a non-FIFA date against two marquee opponents, Canada has still managed to pull in many of its premier players such as Dwayne De Rosario and Julian de Guzman for the Argentina game. Yet the Venezuela match in particular will see a few relative scrubs and a couple absolute, Dominic Imhof-style non-entities. Such a roster is bound to provoke discussion, and I am only too happy to join in with the crowd and discuss it:

1. Terry Dunfield got his first ever senior call-up for the Venezuela game. He is 28 years old and starts for mid-table League Two side Shrewsbury Town. He is also the former captain of our U-20 team and a product of the Manchester City youth system. A cautionary tale about the European school of player development, Dunfield has just fallen further and further down the depth charts in his professional career. In 2001, when Dunfield was Paul James’s darling and in the same discussion as Owen Hargreaves, nobody would have imagined nine years would pass before he’d even get a sniff at the senior team. But that’s football. It’s nice to see him get the opportunity and yet it’s sad it had to come this way.
2. Also showing up from League Two is young Gavin McCallum, a 22-year-old attacking midfielder out of Hereford United. He is the polar opposite of Dunfield, showing up from nowhere but beginning to claw his way up the Football League. This season was his first in league football since his teenage days and he impressed, bagging eight goals and working his way into the starting lineup after arriving on a free transfer from an Isthmian Premier side. He’s supposed to be deadly off of set pieces and pretty quick; sort of a Martin Nash type. Venezuela is above his skill level but he still deserves a look on the national team.
3. Daniel Imhof is back! Yes, it is Daniel, not Dominic, making his return to the national team for the first time since the 2008 Estonia friendly. He’s thirty-two years old and a shadow of his prime self in the Bundesliga: an assassin of a defensive midfielder who was a match for anybody in CONCACAF. He turns out these days for FC St. Gallen, a mid-table side in the Swiss first division who attained promotion last year. Speaking sentimentally, it’s good to see him back in the international saddle, but let’s not pretend he’s going to be much more than a speed bag for the Argentine attack.
4. According to Ed on the Voyageurs board, the acknowledged resident expert on all things German, Massih Wassey is on the roster in spite of his absence in the press release.
5. Pat Onstad is on the Argentina squad. He is forty-two years old. You have to think that it’s between him and Haidar Al-Shaïbani to get the start in Argentina, and Onstad is the favourite. If he does get his fifty-seventh career cap in Buenos Aires, he will be as far as I can tell the oldest player ever to appear for Canada in a full international.
6. No Ali Gerba? What the hell? Yes, Canada is turning out a strong selection of strikers in Simeon Jackson and Rob Friend. But Stephen Ademolu is a 27-year-old playing in Lithuania and he’s on the team! I know Gerba is without a club, but he was without a club in the 2009 Gold Cup too and he was our best player by a country mile. If Stephen Hart has already forgotten what Gerba did for Canada and for him last year… I don’t even know what to say about that. Neglecting your best striker because he’s without a club when he’s already proven the ability to produce in quantity while without a club is just absurd.
7. David Edgar and Kevin McKenna couldn’t come to the friendly for “personal reasons”. McKenna’s personal reason is probably that he’s suffering from a knee injury, whereas Edgar has yet again begged off an appearance for the full national team. He may have genuine personal problems or he may have the increasingly common affliction of doesn’t-want-to-play-for-Canada-itis. How many of our matches has he skipped now?
8. Finally, the question that’s on everyone’s mind: who is John Galt Pedro Pacheco? I’m working on that one.

What sort of team has Stephen Hart gotten us? We’re missing our best goalkeeper in Lars Hirschfeld, our best defender in Dejan Jakovic, and our best striker in Ali Gerba. We’ve got as good a midfield as we’re ever going to have until World Cup qualifying season rolls around again but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not as good as Argentina’s. Plus, once the MLS guys head back to their clubs after the Argentina game, the lineup for Venezuela is going to rely a little too much on the likes of Issey Nakajima-Farran and Gianluca Zavarise. But given that this is a non-FIFA date, we were never going to get our best eleven together and I’m both stunned and impressed Hart got as many of our core players as he did. For reasons a later post will hopefully make clear, I’m excited that we might be seeing more of Pedro Pacheco in the future.

But there are too many Gavin McCallums, Haidar Al-Shaïbanis, and Adam Straiths who have seen too few winters, as well as too many Pat Onstads, Daniel Imhofs, and Paul Stalteris who have seen too many. Even an Argentina B lineup will make minced meat of us unless the Canadian team comes out rearing to go, in better form than we’ve ever seen this generation, with nothing to lose and everything to win as we try to spring the mother of all upsets on one of the greatest soccer powers the world has known.

I can’t help it. I’m looking forward to this.

Canada. Honduras. Montréal, the Tegucigalpa of the North. September 7, 2010. Stade Saputo.

To a sufficiently well-informed Canadian soccer supporter, those words will suffice.

Let me explain them to the rest of you. There was a rare sense of palpable optimism in the Canadian camp leading up to 2010 World Cup qualifying. It’s easy to forget how excited we were, how our midfield was the best in CONCACAF, how our team was entering its prime, how Rob Friend was a sleeping giant on the verge of awakening. Frank Yallop had finally, finally been done in after his destructive tenure as Canadian manager, and Kevan Pipe would soon follow. There was the usual CSA shambles around the hiring-then-not-hiring of René Simoes and the ensuing fall of Colin Linford, but much was forgiven with the arrival of successful U-20 manager Dale Mitchell.

We had dispatched St. Vincent and the Grenadines with brutal efficiency uncommon to us. The real test began on August 20 at BMO Field against the Reggae Boyz of Jamaica, but in a very important sense the bar had been hurdled already. The sold-out crowd of 22,000 was raucously pro-Canada. To my foreign friends, it is impossible to describe what a surprise this was and how meaningful it had been. I, and others, had expected the Toronto FC supporters groups to be predominantly the club-before-country crowd that had disappointed us before; “Canada? Pfft, call me when I can cheer for Italy.” But they had come through, even if the national team had not in a 1-1 draw.

Our next game, September 6, was in Montréal against Honduras. It was also, by coincidence, the first time I’d ever got out to a national team match with the Voyageurs. A part-time student at the time, it had been difficult for me to scrounge the cash to make the trip but after the excitement of Toronto I had been morally certain it would be worthwhile.

We met at the Peel Pub, a tasteful little joint downtown where the Voyageurs had the top floor all to themselves. I arrived a little early and was greeted by a vast array of empty chairs and about two guys who already knew each other. Being a shy and soft-spoken fellow by nature, this was an ill omen, and I pretty much sequestered myself in a corner for a bit while getting a start on my drinking.

I needn’t have worried. That pub filled up in a hurry. On my right was a fellow from Halifax who had made the trip with his remarkably bored girlfriend to troupe the colours. On my left was a Red Patch Boy who watched the Toronto FC game the pub was showing with visible distress and angst: this was the famous game where the FC, decimated by World Cup callups, were dressing a scout, Rick Titus, and various other nomads who put in a surprisingly credible effort. I was surprised at times by how strong the Toronto support was: there were a few Ultras giving the Red Patch and the U-Sectorites a hard time over their semi-professional lineup but even the Montrealers were carried away in cheering on Toronto. It was my first experience of organized soccer supporter’s culture, and even for a relative recluse like myself it was strong drink.

We marched on Stade Saputo seemingly fifty thousand strong, singing and chanting, marching through the Eaton’s Centre. Around us, stunned on-lookers took pictures and whipped out cell phone cameras to capture, with distinct amusement, this most un-Canadian of spectacles. Mall security got in our faces about daring to use their escalators. Turnstiles at the Montreal Metro jammed, so we were obliged to hurdle them like proper football hooligans. When we were on the actual trains, our singing and cheering and jumping caused the cars to roll palpably on their rubber tires and those in the train for reasons other than the match to display a blend of amusement and terror.

I can pinpoint the precise moment it all went wrong. The moment we, the bold Voyageurs crowd, marched around the Olympic Stadium, through the gates of our own stadium, and into a concourse packed to the gills with blue and white. Surrounded on three sides like the Romans at Cannae. They shouted at us and we shouted at them as what security presence there was got between us, but my spirits sank: my god, this many? Maybe this is all of them. All here. In one place. Waiting for us.

Not by a long shot. The ticket arrangements had been slipshod; we had been promised a password-protected Voyageurs section, but what we had gotten was a wide-open area where tickets were cheaper in what an overenthusiastic translator had christened the “Travelers section”. I doubt the scores of Hondurans in the alleged home section had genuinely meant to infiltrate the Canadian support. What was there to indicate it was the Canadian section at all? And the tickets were cheaper, so more money to spend on beer you could douse the Voyageurs in. The crowd was Honduran almost to the core. Even BMO was in on the act, offering all and sundry a set of noisemakers in those traditional BMO colours, blue and white. When a patch of Voyageurs were offered sets by a lovely young lady near the gate, we gazed at both concept and colours in horror. Are you absolutely serious? They were. We did not take any.

The game need hardly be described. We were beaten before kick-off. A 1-0 lead courtesy Adrian Serioux, but the most flagrant dive in a career full of them by Amado Guevara and Serioux was sent off. Canada controlled the play but Honduras controlled the result, 2-1. Eschewing any post-game gathering I instead stalked back to my hotel on foot, down Rue Ste-Catherine, for ninety of the longest minutes of my life. Each step dogged by honking horns and Hondurans, spotting my Canada shirt, leaning out to shout something incomprehensible before blowing past in a car almost invariably adorned with a Canadian license plate.

That was September 6, 2008. Two years and one day later, we will once again face Honduras at Stade Saputo. This time with nothing more than honour at stake, or what little is left of our honour after that disgraceful showing. That night turned so many supporters from ambivalence towards Honduras into sheer, white-hot hate: if every axon in every nerve in my brain were to have ‘HATE’ engraved on every available surface, it would not add up to one fraction of one iota of one fragment of the hatred I feel towards Honduras in a sporting context. That the Hondurans, for their part, seem entirely oblivious to this makes this supposed rivalry even more virulent, as we are so insignificant that even our blackest loathing can barely register on their radar.

I hope, like I have seldom hoped for anything soccer-related, that the CSA gets its act together, and Stade Saputo does its job, and Montréal comes out to support the home team, and the players realize the significance of that game. The phrase “meaningless friendly” is a shop-worn one, but it could not be less appropriate in this case.

Hope, though? Hope died in September of 2008.

Do you remember the year 1999? There was that Y2K bug thing, I remember that. We all had mullets and wore jean jackets and called each other “Zap”, but that may have just been in Alberta. And that summer, a plucky bunch of youngsters led by tykes like Richard Hastings and Paul Stalteri were gearing up for something called the “Gold Cup”.

Well, they were gearing up for something called qualifying for the Gold Cup, for those were the dark days when Canada was expected to join the likes of Haiti and Cuba in the ritual of earning the right to play for our continental championship. Among those kids was a long-forgotten Poznań-born immigrant named Thomas Radsunski or something. Once the second-best striker for the North York Astros, that 26-year-old had somehow caught on with Anderlecht in Belgium and was piling up goals like they were missed CSL paycheques. Canada’s then-undisputed national soccer kaiser, Holger Osieck, had called upon Rudnuzsky or whatever his name was to join Paul Peschisolido and Carlo Corazzin as the best strike force Canada had seen since Bunbury and Mitchell.

Rasputzki accepted Osieck’s callup and then the day came and he was laying in bed in Anderlecht and the young man came to a fateful decision which could be summed up as follows: fuck this shit. Rather than head to the goddamned airport and fly across a goddamned ocean to play El Goddamned Salvador, he decided that he’d keep on kicking it in Belgium. He didn’t, however, think to inform anyone at the Canadian Soccer Association of this, which meant that some poor wino dragooned into being a chauffeur probably had to stand at an airport for six hours holding a piece of cardboard with “TOMMY RADNESKY” written on it. It also pissed off Holger Osieck something awful, and if there’s one thing living in Belgium should have taught young Tomas, it was never piss off the Germans.

Well, that was it for that young striker, whatever his name was. Osieck absolutely went spare. When Canada eventually qualified for the Gold Cup, Osieck did not invite him to join the full team. When Canada eventually won the Gold Cup, its first title of any kind since 1986, Osieck had the last laugh. Holger’s Heroes were as much national icons as any Canadian soccer team had been since 1986. Craig Forrest was a celebrity. Richard Hastings, he of the winning goal that put Mexico (fucking Mexico!) out of the tournament in what was very nearly their home ground of San Diego, had won himself a place in football Valhalla. That Polish immigrant who could, well, his international career was over. The Canadian team was more successful than ever even without that particular prima donna. Sure enough, Tomasz Radzinski never played in the Gold Cup again.

But a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity. Holger Osieck never quite forgave Radzinski, but the sheer paucity of depth for Canada in the first half of the decade meant that he eventually picked up the phone again. Radzinski returned in 2001 for a friendly in Malta because who the hell wants to play a friendly in Malta? Six months later, Osieck again summoned Radzinski, this time to Switzerland, where he potted a brace just because he could. They were his first goals for his country in six years.

He kept showing up. He skipped the Gold Cups – perhaps El Goddamned Salvador still weighed on his mind – but throw a European friendly or World Cup qualifying match and he was there. From 2002 to 2008, Radzinski scored at least one goal for his country every year except 2005, when a 32-year-old Radzinski, seemingly long past his best-before date, played only two friendlies and against Spain and Portugal.

The glory dimmed for Radzinski. He went from Everton, where he scored in quantity, to Fulham, where he didn’t. His next stop was in Greece, where aging strikers go to die, and though he produced once more he left after accusing his teammates of match fixing. Now he toils in the Belgian second division, and is possibly the best striker there.

But, as his club career dimmed, internationally the hits kept on coming. Frank Yallop hated Radzinski like he hated all his players with flair and personality; a then-Premier League star was thrown out onto the wing and told to try and get Kevin McKenna the ball so the fucking centreback could head it somewhere like where the net was. It was Dale Mitchell, of all people, who finally clued in that maybe his natural goalscorer should be in a position to score some goals. In 2008 World Cup qualifying, Radzinski seemed (not for the first time) like a man reborn. He tore up and down the wing like he was belatedly calling upon all the talent we Canada fans were robbed of in 2000. In Edmonton, we were witness to the best individual performance by any Canadian player since Craig Forrest hung up the spikes. Radzinski roared against the best midfield and defense in CONCACAF. His goal was a sublime bit of finishing, his balls into the box were deadly. Father Time had that game off, for it was Canada’s old men who came to play: who will forget Paul Stalteri blasting up the right wing and thundering a ball from forty feet that we belatedly realized had been really well-struck, ricocheting off the crossbar as the crowd went from resignation to near-orgasm in the flash of a second.

But it was Radzinski. Radzinski. Always Radzinski. When he ran to the corner of Commonwealth Stadium to celebrate a 2-2 draw with the Voyageurs, he was showered with love. And gifts. A plaque commissioned by Victoria Voyageur Geoff Wallace, honouring his commitment to the national team. A Voyageurs scarf, which was hard to come by at the time. It wasn’t the most graceful award presentation of all time since the plaque was very nearly thrown at him (it was that sort of celebration), but he got it anyway. Then somebody tossed him a black “Sack the CSA” shirt. Radzinski held up the shirt for an instant and looked at it thoughtfully. He took his jersey off and threw it into the crowd (it eventually got to the Voyageur who purchased the plaque). He put the “Sack the CSA” shirt on. The crowd erupted. The Voyageurs thundered to the rail. I was already there and found myself being jostled on all sides by those eager to salute the old hero. Through the chaos, I managed to snap a picture of Radzinski putting the shirt on, another of him walking away, and a lot of pictures of people’s elbows.

It was official. Radzinski was forgiven for his sin of nearly a decade ago. The prodigal son had been sent off into the sunset with a fanfare fit for kings.

Yet, you know what? For all the plaques and salutes and the glorious exits, Tomasz Radzinski never actually came out and said he was done. On the contrary, he kept plugging along. Scoring goals. Telling a Voyageur interviewing him that “I have been approached by the CSA to see where my future lies with the national team but right now I really don’t know.” Not coming to the Gold Cup but that’s hardly news. When Poland was announced as Canada’s second November friendly, Voyageurs like me started clamouring for Radzinski to get the call to Poland, the country in which he had been born but never played a professional game. Then he did, to the extent that Stephen Hart actually allowed Radzinski to miss the Macedonia match to ensure his presence in Poland.

Here we are again. Another would-be sending off. Another chance for Radzinski to possibly ride off into the sunset. Jonathan de Guzman and Dani Fernandes should take note: time and loyalty, however belated, truly does heal all wounds. Yet has Radzinski said he’s done? Not within my earshot. He is dominating the Belgium second division, and playing at a higher level than any of our strikers aside from Rob Friend and Simeon Jackson. It’s easy to say that he’ll be forty years old by the 2014 World Cup, but Radzinski has never given a damn about Father Time’s opinion before so why should he start now?

Is this actually a Canada – Poland preview? Not really. Poland’s sending a young team and if we play our best we should beat them. But it is an axiom that in friendlies it is not the result that matters but the effort. And if we’re talking effort, it is only fitting that we talk Radzinski.

Two weeks ago, the Canadian Soccer Association announced that the Canadian men’s national team would…

No, no, one sentence in and I’ve already screwed up my facts. The Canadian Soccer Assocation didn’t announce boo. The Canadian Soccer Association, to my knowledge, has never formally announced either of these matches, although they have deigned to put our November 14 match against Macedonia on their website. The Macedonian media informed us about that friendly, whereas our November 18 fixture against Slovakia came via Pompey Canuck of Think It All In. CSA media czar Richard Scott, also known as “one of the only, like, three guys at the CSA who actually does his job well” is in Nigeria right now, possibly explaining the glacial Canadian media coverage.

But friendlies! Matches! Actual competitive games! We’re playing them in recently war-torn Central European countries that haven’t qualified for the World Cup, and the Canadian team officially will not molest the plastic of BMO Field with a home match in 2009. Next to no Canadians will be able to witness the madness (for the hell of it, I looked up the cost of round trip airfare from Victoria to Skopje, Macedonia and it came out just south of $6000). But, except for Pompey Canuck and his fear for our FIFA ranking, all of us supporters are pleased as punch. Hooray! Away friendlies that we’ll probably have to listen to a low-fidelity stolen Greek Internet radio stream in order to witness! This is a pleasant surprise to us!

These are legitimate opponents, too. Better than, to pick teams not at all at random, Cyprus or Estonia. Canada last played Poland on July 15, 1988 (!), at Varsity Stadum (!!) in Toronto (!!!), losing 2-1. The Reds also played Poland three times in the 1974-75 soccer semester, losing 2-0 in Warsaw and drawing 0-0 in Toronto and Montreal. In spite of the long layoff Poland’s one of our most popular European adversaries even though Canada’s career record against the Poles is a sterling 0-4-2.

Macedonia, on the other hand, we played once. In 1998, in Toronto. We beat them 1-0. Former Impact/86ers/Impact again/Whitecaps this time striker Niall Thompson scored his second and, it turned out, last national goal in the win at Varsity. As a result we are undefeated against the Red Lions, and there are so few nations left we can say that about it’s a vague thrill to put that perfect record on the line.

As always, the Voyageurs are your best source for the minutiae of the Canadian national team. Say what you will about certain Ultras who go off like fireworks every time the Impact are even remotely denigrated,  but where else in this country would you learn that our match against Macedonia will not take place in the capital of Skopje but instead in picturesque little Strumica in the eastern quarter of the country, population 55,000, meaning the Canadian men’s national team will play a full international in a city smaller than the Edmonton suburb I grew up in. Mladost Stadium, or as I like to call it the Wembley of the Balkans, has a capacity of 6,500, great big bare patches in the outfield, and a waist-high chainlink fence around three sides of the playing surface.

We’re not playing Poland in their capital of Warsaw either, but we’re still getting a legitimate ground. The Voyageurs report that we’ll be playing in the north-central city of Bydgoszcz, and their largest and most likely venue is Zdzisław Krzyszkowiak Stadium, a 20,000-man all-seater and a rather elegant, modern stadium despite being built in 1960. Poland missed out on the World Cup and is actually ranked below us at #56, but don’t be fooled for a second. The Poles are worthy adversaries despite only placing fifth in their strong World Cup qualifying group, and they’re better than we are nine days out of ten.

Macedonia came fourth in their five-team group and had some notable performances, including a 2-1-1 record at home against pretty strong teams. They’re ranked #66, leading to some angst for the ratings-watchers among us, but they are at worst Canada’s equal on the pitch.

I’m not a huge ratings guru. I understand their importance in terms of getting us a better seed for 2014 World Cup qualification,  but I think it’s more important to play teams that are slightly above our level in order to improve our players. Any given day, we ought to be able to beat Jamaica or El Salvador or even Honduras provided we get our team to play as one, and friendlies against legitimate nations are the most important way to do that.

Certainly, Stephen Hart would agree with me: he went public around the time of the Gold Cup saying that, as a condition for staying on as manager, he’d want Canada to contest every international friendly date. If the CSA is unable or unwilling to make the expenditure to bring in a home friendly they’re doing the next-best thing. With luck, they’ll also be able to bring together a reasonable A squad made up of out-of-season MLSrs and whatever Europeans we can lay our hands on.

My particular fond hope is for a certain 35-year-old Tomasz Radzinski to get a run out. Radzinski was born in Poznań, Poland, but has never as far as I can tell played in his original homeland. It would be a fitting tribute to one of our truest warriors.

We deserved to win.

There is no ambiguity. There is no “if only”. Yes, our finishing was wasteful, but it was also extraordinarily unlucky, with McKenna, Johnson, Simpson, and Hutchinson missing by those fractions of an inch that no human being can control. Finishing is often a matter of fortune as much as talent, and today fortune was not with us.

Javier Aguirre, meanwhile, refereed the match and is now a first-ballot Benito Archundia Hall-of-Famer. Supporters greeted his appointment as match official with horror after he turned the Mexico – Panama group match into one of the most ridiculous games ever witnessed on a pitch, and our scepticism turned out to be justified. I don’t think he was on the take. This wasn’t a fix, this was just utter ineptitude of the sort that shakes nations. A cynic would point out that Aguirre is Salvadoran and had an axe to grind against Canada, but I doubt that was the issue.

We saw it between Mexico and Panama, and we saw it again. Aguirre is just an idiot.

The penalty was bogus, of course. Yes, Stalteri and Martinez were hand-jostling, with each getting a piece of each other for intervals. Stalteri was no more guilty than Martinez was and, frankly, Martinez wasn’t guilty at all: such jockeying is an accepted part of the game, appeared many more times in the match whenever Canada slung a cross or a corner into the Honduran area, and is legal. The ball did not strike Stalteri’s hand, either. it was a ridiculous decision and one that Aguirre, who was forty to fifty yards behind the play on account of poor positioning or poor conditioning, was in no position to call.

I was a defender for almost every match of my footballing career, so I may have a bit of a bias here. But, frankly, if I got a call like the one Stalteri took, I would not have ended up with just a yellow card. I would have blacked out and come to thirty minutes later surrounded by shocked teammates and with my hands covered in blood. They would use up all the ink in the universe to write out the number of games I should be suspended for.

Aguirre was the story. He was not biased towards Honduras, he was just an idiot. Canada got a foul out of a flagrant dive by Will Johnson that probably got him an honourary Honduran passport. Being scumbags with greased boots, the Hondurans dived much more and were rewarded for their dishonestly accordingly. Moreover, late in the match, a Honduran whose name eludes me dove spectacularly even for a Honduran. He rolled around on the ground and cried and clutched every one of his limbs. Play went on, with Honduras initially on the attack before giving the ball up. Canada went the other way. This took about a minute and a half, before Aguirre whistled the play dead.

What?

There’s no provision for a referee to do that! It was the most bizarre decision since an MLS referee decided that the away team needed a water break. Canada had uncontested possession and was starting a build up, and suddenly tweet, this Honduran needs his mommy. A drop ball was then awarded – in short, Canada was stripped of possession because of an uncalled dive over a minute before. You’re not going to believe this, but a dash of the magic spray and the Honduran turned out to be absolutely fine.

At least with the penalty, there’s an entry in the Laws of the Game saying “if there’s a foul or hand ball in the box, it’s a penalty”. That decision by Aguirre was a complete non-sequitur.

Canada bossed Honduras by at least as much as they slapped Jamaica around in Carson. But in Carson we had the American referee Terry Vaughn, and in Philadelphia we had this jackass. And that’s your game.

May 27, 2000.

That was the date on which the Canadian men’s national team last won its fourth game in a row. It took place at Varsity Stadium in Toronto, and Canada dropped Trinidad and Tobago 1-0 in a friendly thanks to a goal from Jeff Clarke, his first and it turned out last with the national team.

A friendly win wasn’t all that remarkable, of course. What was remarkable were the three games we won before it: the quarterfinal, semifinal, and final of the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Now we have once again won four on the trot for the first time in almost a decade, and once again the Gold Cup is our vehicle to do it.

I’m taking a long time to start talking about the match. I think I’m afraid that if I think too hard about it, it’ll turn out to be a dream. Good christ. If Canada played more matches like that we’d have run out of room on the south side of Crew Stadium for our championship banners. I don’t care what the scoreline said: we always had an element of control in the match and it never truly seemed like it would slip from our grasp. Of course we were terrified in the supporters’ section, but that’s because we’re Canada fans, not because Canada didn’t deserve to win going away.

Full credit to the Salvadorans. They played us every bit as hard as they played Costa Rica (their support was incredibly numerous in Columbus as well). We just played them harder.

Our midfield, which I harped on in my Jamaica review, came through in fine style. There were no passengers. Will Johnson created a couple of glorious chances, one of which he just missed burying in the second half, and was a thorn in the side of El Salvador the whole match. Josh Simpson wasn’t as electrifying as he was in Los Angeles but he was reliable, occasionally spectacular, and discharged his responsibilities. Patrice Bernier made the goal, missed a sitter, and was in the right position so often it was like he’d come back in time and knew which plays El Salvador would try. Johnson and Simpson were both playing forward a lot and were strikers on paper, but their role turned more into attacking wingers particularly late in the match.

And Julian De Guzman. And Atiba Hutchinson. Well. In my preview post, I said they ought to be the best players on the pitch. They were. Julian’s fro apparently gives him super powers, and if he’s trying to impress a club in Europe he couldn’t have done a better job. Atiba got a nice chunk of glass for being the official man of the match, and his attacking runs were almost embarrassing for the Salvadorans, who were left with no answer. On one occasion in the second half Atiba made a move, missed it, and got stripped of the ball. I remember the Salvadoran midfielder – don’t remember which one, I had a bit of beer in me by this time – charging up the pitch, trying to play it through, losing it to a Hutchinson who had charged back to defend like his hair was on fire, and the Salvadoran wearing the most perfect “where the fuck did he come from?” expression I have seen in some time.

The backline was less dominant than they were against Jamaica, but there’s no shame in that and there were no errors, aside from Stalteri getting a yellow on a blatant dive by the Salvadoran (Klukowski’s yellow was both deserved and a good play on his part to stop a chance). I am nursing a massive mancrush on Dejan Jakovic, who was the star of the defense once again and is still only twenty-three years old. This will end in an embarrassingly complimentary chant, I’m sure.

And today was a milestone in one other regard. Ali Gerba is now tied for fourth all-time on Canada’s goalscoring list with fifteen senior goals. The man he is tied with is an obscure Toronto midfielder by the name of Dwayne De Rosario, who you may recall opted to stay home from this tournament. I get the impression that De Rosario isn’t going to pass Gerba again, either.

Below: the banners on the Voyageurs section, as seen at halftime from the north end. Click for a larger image.

Fresh off the redeye from Los Angeles to Columbus, and bits of me are scattered across every American airport from the west coast to Atlanta, Georgia. I flew from Los Angeles to Columbus via Atlanta! If the CSA lived up to their usual standard and sent the boys commercial, they’re probably sitting in the hotel restaurant staring at plates of eggs and nursing hangovers the size of Landon Donovan’s ego.

Flying in the United States is just the worst. The worst. Any Canadian players who have fallen onto this page: I have new respect for you guys. I feel like I just played ninety minutes plus stoppages against El Salvador by myself (I did not win).

Luckily, El Salvador had to make the same trip, and their federation isn’t known for being flush with cash. There were some folks with big bags in front of me at LAX: they may have been stowing El Salvadoran players in the cargo hold to save on airfare. Say what you will about the brutal travel and a schedule that seems like it was composed by Chuck Blazer in the midst of a particularly forgettable bender, at least every team in every group is getting the same treatment.

Unfortunately, I am scared to death of El Salvador in any stadium. I had the privilege of watching El Salvador dismantle Costa Rica, and the comparison to Canada could not have been more striking. Canada was as fundamentally sound but unexceptional, with next-to-no creativity apart from Josh Simpson and the audacious connection between Klukowski and Gerba for the goal. Few mistakes were made, except for Greg Sutton’s well-documented distribution problems and a couple ill-conceived giveaways early in the second half. Canada was the better team on the night but it could have easily – so easily – been 2-1 to Jamaica after ninety minutes.

El Salvador was taking a few liberties and lost the ball on occasion. But on balance they were flying, and they were doing so against an intensely skilled Costa Rica lineup fielding their B+ squad. Yes, they had the Carson crowd behind their backs; about 26,000 fans of whom 25,500 were there for El Salvador, but if they’d come out against Canada in that form they’d have ripped us to shreds. I don’t think the Columbus crowd will be quite so partisan, but the Voyageurs numbers are estimated at fifteen and you’ll be able to push me over with a feather if El Salvador’s ultras don’t beat that by a factor of ten.

A few months ago, I thought El Salvador would struggle to beat Jamaica. Now, I’ll be surprised if they don’t win the group.

At every position (except possibly goal), Canadian players are more skilled than their El Salvadoran counterparts, but that’s been true for a decade against most of CONCACAF’s sides and it’s hasn’t got us many points. Except against the United States and Mexico, Atiba Hutchinson and Julian De Guzman ought to be the most talented players on any pitch yet it never works out. When our stars put together their best matches this team is a contender in CONCACAF. In the 2006 friendly against Brazil and the 2007 Gold Cup against the United States, Canada went toe-to-toe with a strong Brazil B team and the Americans’ best eleven and were up to the challenge. Those performances come too seldom.

But there is one bright spot. Both of those matches were under our Tobagan titan, Stephen Hart.

Hart’s shown the ability to get close to the best out of these players. Our one real Canadian-style submission was in 2007 in an ultimately meaningless loss to Guadeloupe and we came back admirably from that. El Salvador is a nothing country with a historically unsuccessful team and they’re underdogs to Canada according to the online bookies. But they’re also in the hex and have been getting better results than us against better opposition. If Hart can convince them to take El Salvador seriously, a victory is in the offing.

I can’t predict a Canadian win. I just can’t. El Salvador’s form is better, El Salvador’s support will be better, and I don’t think Canada has won four matches in a row in my lifetime. I’m saying El Salvador 2, Canada 1 (Gerba), Canadian supporters tased 3, heads knelt on by enthusiastic Columbus cops 5.

Of course, even a loss leaves Canada in a good position. Beat Costa Rica in Miami or and we’re through; draw and we’re probably through anyway. But, if the stars align (in every sense), it could be glorious tonight.

I am sitting in my hotel room with a cup of awful Complimentary In-Room Coffee beside me. My Canada shirt lies discarded on the table where I threw it just before I collapsed into the arms of Morpheus. I pretty much have to try and sum up last night, don’t I?

It was awful. I got up at 4 AM in my apartment in Esquimalt and set off for the Victoria airport. My flight was early enough that I had to walk a long way since the buses weren’t running yet. I flew in a cramped, unpleasant Dash 8-100 to Vancouver and then sat on the worst seat in the world for the flight to LA – a flight that was late enough for me to miss my bus that would get me to the Red Car Pub, where the Voyageurs were meeting pregame.

Since Voyageurs member superbrad had my ticket, I really had to get to that pub.

I wasn’t doomed yet, though. If I hopped on the next available bus, I might just make it. Unfortunately that bus was also late, meaning I missed my connection and had to hike about four kilometers, through a city I’ve never been to, just in time to meet the other Voyageurs as they were standing, stretching, and paying the bill.

After all of that, it would take a lot for the game to be worth it. Luckily, it was.

The security at the Home Depot Center was abominable, and will serve for all time as a lesson in how not to run a soccer game, but the match itself was great, and not just because we won. Canada was playing a classic Canadian game, bending and flexing in all the wrong ways. With the exception of Will Johnson and later Josh Simpson, the midfield was poor all night, leading to a host of good Jamaican opportunities just hacked away by our backline or saved by Greg Sutton. Dejan Jakovic won himself a lot of fans last night: he was my man of the match and he was just invincible. At no point did Jamaica look like they were going to pull one over on that improbably brilliant 23-year-old MLS rookie. Paul Stalteri… well, by now we know what we get from him. He was in match shape, unlike in World Cup qualifying, and with his legs under him he was the old Diesel we all know and love. He was so far superior to Jamaica’s strikeforce I almost felt bad for them.

McKenna struggled a bit at times but was generally reliable. Klukowski was his old, exceptional crossing self, but I thought he was a bit sloppy in his own half last night, with the Jamaican passes skinning him a couple of times for good opportunities.

But De Jong and Hutchinson, and to a lesser extent De Guzman, were invisible. It was ugly at times for them. The fact that we won anyway speaks volumes, and if nothing else it says once again that the boys play stronger as a team under Hart than they ever did under Mitchell.

I must bring up the Home Depot Center security once more, though. Individually, many of the guards were pretty good. The guard standing in front of the Voyageurs section was a big, older fella with a great big smile, a sense of humour, and a good eye for when to step in. But despite having our banners cleared weeks in advance by the Canadian Soccer Association, the Voyageur carrying them into the stadium was detained for ages by security while they tried to find someone to check the duffel bag. Then, when he finally got them into the stadium having missed the beginning of the match, we had another altercation when we actually tried to put them up. I, personally, despite holding a letter from CONCACAF saying that my camera was permitted inside, got the runaround for about fifteen minutes and went to three different parts of the stadium before I got in.

And when we were all inside, set up, and ready to go great guns, we were told to sit down. Sit down? At a CONCACAF Gold Cup match? We weren’t sitting in the $50 there-to-be-seen seats! We had to adapt on the fly to that. Couple new chants – “sit down, for the boys in red…”

Oh, and that same Voyageur who was detained with the banners? He got hassled by one guard with a stick up his ass, sent by the suits because he was blowing his whistle. As were about seventy other people, but strangely they were only worried about the Canadian.

So hooray for the game but if the Home Depot Center never hosts another CONCACAF event, they’ll still have hosted one too many.