This is Simeon Jackson, hero of Gillingham and seemingly the latest member of newly-promoted Norwich City in what I will have to get used to calling the Npower Championship.

As strikers go, Jackson is little, and unlike most small men he’s not actually all that fast. He is, however, an assassin in front of goal and that allowed him to record a credible fifteen goals in League One last season in spite of ending the year on a five-game scoreless drought while fighting through an injury. He is a legitimate professional talent, even if his strike rate for Canada of one goal in ten appearances is Rob Friend territory and he’s never played a second of his life higher than the English third division.

There’s some enthusiasm about Jackson joining Norwich, which in spite of being recently promoted is expected to hang around the Championship and avoid relegation without difficulty. There’s also some cynicism, but most of it is along the lines of “well, now he’s hurt his chances of playing in the Premier League“. He is only twenty-three, after all. At age twenty-three, Tomasz Radzinski was playing for a bad Belgian team. Rob Friend was just coming out of Moss FK in the Norwegian second division. Twenty-three is young. Barring injury there’s no doubt Jackson has untapped potential and one hopes Norwich will help him realize it.

But it is just potential. An Englishman by the name of Billy Sharp is another 5′9″ striker in his early twenties and he was actually the leading scorer in all of League One two seasons running, yet he has completely failed to accomplish anything at a higher level. League One proves nothing, and in limited experience against better opposition Jackson has one poacher’s goal against Cyprus, one glorious moment against Aston Villa, and over a dozen games of nothing much. Nobody, least of all me, is writing Jackson off, but let’s be realistic. If Jackson can win a starting spot with Norwich that will be a tremendous victory for a young player. If he actually shows Premier League quality, then he’ll get his chance but that’s more than an outside shot. But the excitement over Jackson is disproportionate to his actual accomplishments. If one were to list Canada’s best players under twenty-five, would Jackson break the top five? Adam Straith, Nana Attakora, Will Johnson, Dejan Jakovic, André Hainault, and that was easy.

Hell, Marcus Haber got on a Championship roster last year. Ask him how much good that’s done so far.

Meanwhile, a striker who has actually accomplished something in his career has also found a new team and he’s just coming in for mockery. Ali Gerba signed with the Montreal Impact yesterday, and while the North American Soccer League isn’t exactly the Npower Championship it has got a better name and at least Canadians might be able to start in it.

Shall we get the jokes out of the way? Very well. O ho ho ho Ali Gerba is so fat he doesn’t run around defenders, he runs around defenders. There. Also, he’s in the prime of his career and if he retired tomorrow he’d have the best strike rate of anybody in the history of the Canadian men’s national team among players with over ten caps. He’s had competitive strike rates in the then-Coca-Cola Championship, in Germany, all over North America, in fact just about everywhere except Toronto FC where he saw spot duty and was cut by a manager who said “no, I’d rather have Fuad Ibrahim, thanks.” But Toronto is very nearby, and its soccer media is very loud these days, and so Ali is the fat over the hill guy who can score like mad against banana republics but never against Mexico except for that one time when he did, and Simeon Jackson is the bright young pup who hasn’t actually proven anything against international-quality players yet but is neither fat nor prone to giving The Score personalities embarrassing interviews about how awful the Toronto FC dressing room is.

Of course, at age twenty-three Ali Gerba was named “Ngon” and was playing in something called the “A-League”. One never knows.

Simeon Jackson is developing well, if not brilliantly. But Ali Gerba is there, now, and is clearly our only capable scoring striker. One is the butt of jokes, the other is the subject of hagiography. It’s entirely possible that come the 2011 Gold Cup or even the 2014 World Cup qualifying run, the fat man will score more goals than the prodigy. In fact, if Gerba sticks with a club for the next couple seasons I’d be willing to bet on it. Potential is lovely but never wager against actual, genuine, and proven ability.

I am outrageously, preposterously jealous of you Americans right now.

I’ve been in a bar with a bunch of fellow revellers when Canada’s national soccer team scored a dramatic stoppage time goal to snatch a draw from a loss, and that was pretty good. But all evening long I’ve been watching videos like this and just staring, soullessly, my heart hardly daring a single beat lest the blood rush to my brain and turn me into a seething, sobbing mess of angry sorrow.

Yes, I’m cheering for the Americans in the World Cup. That’s out of principle, not out of affection. I could no more take pleasure in these sublime, primal outbursts of joy for a team that is not my own than I could feel love and awe towards somebody else’s newborn child. And I know that, even when I am at my most optimistic, when I am looking at cheering New Zealanders in South Africa and declaring in 2014 that’ll be us there’s essentially no chance I’ll be able to savour Canada’s getting to the round of sixteen in my lifetime.

I’m still cheering for the Americans, of course. But now I’m sort of depressed about it.

Australia and Canada have a lot in common. Mid-sized, mature former British colonies, once culturally isolated but now tied more and more into the world village. They share an ambivalent attitude towards their past and many of their traditions. They share many ambitions, including a disproportionate desire to punch above their weight in international sports. Australia’s been rather more successful in most summer sports and Canada rather better in most winter sports, which is pretty much what you’d expect if you based your expectations on climate and culture. But their soccer teams have a common thread as well, and that is a recent humiliation on the international soccer stage.

Canada’s came in May, in Buenos Aires for the Victoria Day Massacre. 5-0 we went down to Argentina and it was every bit as ugly as the scoreline would suggest. One of the first Canadian friendlies in many years to be nationally telecast, it advertised to the entire country just how far we had to go before we could compete with the elite soccer nations. There was some promise there, a few young players who looked poised, a few old players who looked dreadful but are mercifully on their way out. There were no excuses, though. We saw what happened and we took our medicine. Many of us even expected such a debacle.

Australia’s came this very day in South Africa. They went down 4-0 to Germany and oh, it could have been worse than that if Germany had cashed some of the five-bell chances that went wanting. This time it was on display for the entire world to see, in front of one of the largest audiences Australian soccer would have ever known. Their record defeat of 8-0 actually came against South Africa (fifty years ago) so it is fitting that it would be the site of their greatest, if not most numerically significant, loss.

But Australia has an asterisk. Mexican referee Marco Antonio Rodríguez lost the plot in the second half, missing what seemed to be an obvious penalty on an accidental German hand ball and then minutes later having star Tim Cahill sent off with a straight red for a foul that appeared to be a reckless yellow at best. Rodríguez also booked midfielder Carl Valeri for seemingly nothing at all, although he let Valeri get away with a yellow-card tackle later as though to even accounts. This isn’t news from a CONCACAF referee, who are nowhere near the standards of UEFA or CONMEBOL and never have been. It would take both a cynic and a fool to think that the fix was in, as Germany was already leading 2-0 when the calls became sketchy and Australia seemed to have no chance of fighting back.

Yes, Australia looked very nearly as bad against Germany as Canada is said to have looked against Argentina. There was a brief flash from the Socceroos in the first ten minutes but from there on it was one-way German traffic. On Lukas Podolski’s opening goal the Australian defense was caught running to the ball like a team of thirteen-year-olds rather than picking up their men and at all times the passes from what is not a particularly talented German team sliced the Australians to pieces. Australia stuck to formation far too rigidly and played with the energy, enthusiasm, and incompetence of amateurs against professionals. In no sense did Australia pick up even an iota of credit for this game when they had all eleven men on the pitch, and as soon as Cahill was sent off what coherence and ability there was dissolved into a melange of frantic, futile individualism.

The discussion will inevitably surround Rodríguez’s decisions, because that’s what discussion does. Without Cahill and with humiliation burning in their minds, it would take a brave man to predict an Australian point against a surprisingly strong-looking Ghana side. And the great peril for Australian soccer is that the controversy will overshadow just how poorly they played.

Every so often, the lesser powers such as Australia need a reminder of how far they have to come. Canada got their wakeup call against Argentina and may well emerge better for it. Indeed, since that resounding defeat we’ve heard that Junior Hoilett is more enthusiastic about representing Canada and the “B” team played a strong, unusually coherent game against Venezuela. It’s early yet but so far in spite of the lopsided result Canada is coming out of Argentina better than they went in. And everybody in the Canadian soccer world, from Dr. Dominic Maestracci to the lowliest fan, knows how much improvement we require and can dispel any illusions about “misused talent” that may have lingered from the Dale Mitchell era.

Will Australia be so fortunate? Will they concentrate on refereeing robbing them of a penalty and their best player instead of the dreadful play that put them in a position to need that penalty and that game against Ghana so desperately? Early indications are that the referee is the talking point. Let’s hope for the sake of our kinsmen down under that sober second thought produces more productive reflection.

The press, or at least the parts of the press that I frequent, have been abuzz with reports of a new CONCACAF World Cup qualification scheme to be introduced for the 2014 cycle. There are various ideas that various media outlets have been reporting are absolutely certain and placed before FIFA for approval, and as is so often the case everybody is convinced that their source is telling them the One True Way CONCACAF will end up running the show. The only thing that we know for certain is that, if CONCACAF can make its case before the big bosses at FIFA, qualifying for the 2014 World Cup will be vastly different than qualifying for 2010 was.

It’s hard to see this as anything but a good thing. There are two new systems we’re prominently hearing about: one would run each team through three groups of four, progressively narrowing the field and moving the top two in each group on to the next round. In this scenario, a middle power like Canada would face a first group with one other good team (like Mexico) and a couple of real runts, a second round slightly weaker than today’s third round (as there would be four groups rather than three), and a final round slightly weaker than the hex but still nothing to sneeze about.

The other possibility is as horrifying as it is amazing: after a perfunctory qualification process to narrow the field down to twelve teams, the survivors would be thrown into one big pool and left to slug it out. As the current CONCACAF third round divides the teams into three groups of four, we can assume that Canada would be left to play its quadrennial home-and-away against some Caribbean country and then spend the next fourteen months trying to beat the hell out of every decent soccer power on the continent. The press doesn’t mention an equivalent to the current first round in either proposal but there’d have to be one: somewhere where Antigua and Haiti could go to war and something Canada would probably rank high enough to avoid.

CONCACAF’s World Cup qualifying system is infamously shambolic, condemning all but the six teams qualifying for the hex to a short season of meaningful games followed by an awfully long slate of idle misery. Canada knows a thing or two about this, having been on the outside looking in for the 2010 qualifying hex. And the 2006 qualifying hex. And the 2002 qualifying hex. It’s been a rough decade for us, is what I’m saying. During each of these faux-qualifying runs, where we failed to get far enough to even fail honourably, Canada played a total of eight games: two against minnows like Belize, Cuba, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and then six in whichever group we were fated to finish last in this time around.

I’ve put together a rough sample schedule of the games involved in either proposal (rounds we either didn’t or probably wouldn’t qualify for are in italics) on the left. Either of the new systems being slung around would see a big increase in Canada’s games played. Even if Canada failed to qualify for the final round in a three-round system, we would play a minimum of twelve games. And if there was a twelve-team final round then Canada could play an amazing twenty-four games in 2014 World Cup qualifying, presuming we have a FIFA ranking to escape the first round, we don’t lose to some Caribbean island country, and we don’t finish fourth in the group and play a two-leg qualifier against a CONMEBOL side.

My god, can you even imagine it?

Neither of these proposals is entirely sunshine and light. If CONCACAF goes to three group stages, Canada would have a pretty easy first round but by no means a gimme. On the left I list a potential schedule based on 2010 World Cup qualifying results, and a first round of Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Belize is by no means a sure thing. If the gods disfavour us and we wind up with something like Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Cuba, we could have a serious test on our hands before the competition has even gotten serious and wash out in only six games. The advantage is that every game would almost certainly matter and if you can cope with the thought of a year and half of utterly life-and-death fixtures you may find that encouraging.

A twelve-team final group would reduce the risk factor, beyond the obvious (and current) peril of losing a short series against an inferior or badly-drawn opponent. It would also involve Canada and eleven other nations in a marathon of a final round which would heavily reduce the chance of an underdog sneaking into the third or fourth spots. And Canada is an underdog. We rank behind the Mexicans and the Americans, of course, but we’re not likely to be the best of Honduras, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and El Salvador in a long, critical tournament. Even if we do nab fourth place that would send us to an elimination match against a CONMEBOL team which we would almost certainly lose (remember how ignoble Costa Rica looked in their attempt last year).

But it would be progress all the same. It’s been a long-term obsession for many of us that Canada needs more  matches. It’s an obsession that we share with many of the mid-table CONCACAF sides, as fans of the Jamaican or Trinidad and Tobagan national teams would happily regale you about at length. The recent spurt of friendlies with which the CSA has gifted the Canadian team is both helpful and welcome, but there is no replacement for a competitive game. And until we actually qualify for something there can be no match more competitive than World Cup qualifying. It is the yardstick by which casual fans measure us. Not even the 2000 Gold Cup title could stand as an achievement next to actually making the World Cup for the first time in a generation. As we are once again seeing around the country, the World Cup is when even casual soccer fans come out and pay attention, and merely seeing Canada in that schedule would lend some legitimacy to the entire national program.

If I had to pick, I’d prefer the large, twelve-team group. There’d be something viscerally delightful in seeing the lines of Mexico or Costa Rica playing at Commonwealth Stadium in February, of course. It’s the surest way for Canada to get as many games as possible, which is the point. And if we ever get our act together, if those wavering guys like Junior Hoilett and Teal Bunbury start to pick Canada rather than the alternative, and if the CSA continues to trend in the right direction, then we might just be the third best team in CONCACAF on merit by 2014. There are a lot of “if”s in that sentence, but the large group would give us our best shot at making our dreams into reality.

Either proposal, however, would be better than what CONCACAF has now, and I cannot hope more than I do that the powers that be pick one of them.

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.

This space has a proud history of bringing you the latest in obscure Canadian footballers. Whether it was the latest and greatest intelligence on the infamous Dominic Imhof or… actually, it was pretty much just Dominic Imhof. However, today the series continues with the latest mystery man called to the Canadian men’s national team, future Argentina/Venezuela debutant Pedro Pacheco.

Pacheco is as obscure as obscure can be. The Canadian Soccer Association didn’t respond to my request for information by press time, but we know that he’s a midfielder from the Azores, born on June 27, 1984. He’s 5′10″ and 172 pounds and currently plies his trade for C.D. Nacional in the Portuguese Liga, the first division in Portugal. Nacional is a mid-table size and Pacheco just completed his first season there, having come over from first division rival C.D. Santa Clara on a free transfer last summer. He’s a dual citizen of Canada and Portugal, rendering him (presumably) eligible for the Canadian national team assuming this isn’t another Ugo Ihemelu situation. How he qualifies for that citizenship is a very good question.

Although playing in quite a good league, Pacheco doesn’t get a regular shift: he made five league appearances last season, four as a substitute, usually coming in late in the game. He also turned out in a couple cup games and once in the Europa League against FK Austria Wien. From what information is available on his substitutions he seems to have been mostly used in an attacking role.

No complaints about calling the kid up. The Portuguese league is a good one, ranked ninth in UEFA. Our midfield against Argentina will be strong enough that he might not see action in that game but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start in Venezuela. But the remarkable thing is that we called him up at all. Whatever Pacheco’s connection to Canada is, it looks pretty slim: he’s never played in this country as far as the Internet can tell us and certainly wasn’t part of anybody’s youth setup growing up. He is, basically, Marc Bircham, except that we know Marc Bircham spoke English.

It’s a remarkable step for the Canadian Soccer Association, who not-so-long ago were unable to scout their own asses with both hands. Heck, for the longest time one of the greatest joys of the Voyageurs was trying to tell the CSA about seemingly-overlooked Canadian diamonds in the rough like the legendary Joey Torchia. And yet Stephen Hart and company seem to have pulled the wool over the eyes of the entire Canadian soccer universe: none of us, however well informed, even had an inkling that this kid existed and was eligible for us. Whether somebody in Pacheco’s camp alerted Canada about his eligibility or it we had a man in Portugal who seriously earned his paycheque with some grade ‘A’ sleuthing, it’s something to celebrate.

Be excited about the trend; that the Canadian Soccer Association may be showing the same ruthlessness with uncapped foreign nationals that other countries have traditionally shown to poach ours. Be excited that we’re not being dirtbags about it, as Pacheco was never in the Portuguese plans. Be excited about the player, who is getting a paycheque to play first team minutes on a pretty good team in a pretty good league and is only twenty-five years old.

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.

It’s almost time to get excited about the Canadian men’s national team again. In a little under two weeks, we play an absolute A-list friendly against Argentina, an opportunity so prestigious that even the Toronto FC stars are talking their club into letting them make an appearance. The eyes of the world will be on international soccer in the summer for obvious reasons, then in September come two exciting home friendlies. It’s a fantastic set of opportunities, the sort we rarely get between World Cup qualifying campaigns, and they’re chances that the national team will hopefully seize.

But what will the composition of that national team be? If there’s one thing international soccer fans love, it’s debating the composition of their national teams. For Canada, their national pool is smaller than some other nations, but it might get larger. For there are a surprising number of decent players out there with Canadian roots who aren’t yet tied down to their home nations; players who might someday be lured into the Canadian fold. Some of them are household names, but not all of them.

More worryingly, there are a few Canadians who could yet be drawn to foreign pastures. Most of them have given no indication that they’re ready to leave, but for the longest time neither did Asmir Begovic.

This is a (hopefully exhaustive) list of those notable Canadians.

Before the list begins, let’s go over the ground rules:

• Players are only tied to a nation by playing in a full FIFA sanctioned tournament. This includes the confederational championships such as the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the Confederations Cup, World Cup qualifying, and the World Cup itself. Non-senior tournaments such as the U-20 World Cup do not count.
• The eligibility rules are somewhat complicated, but in general if a player is a citizen of a country that he’s spent a considerable amount of time in, he can represent it. He can represent the country he was born in, and he can represent the country of his parents’ origin.
• A player can only switch between nations once. This will henceforth be known as the “Jacob Lensky rule”.
• A lot of the guys listed here probably won’t actually switch (helllooooooo, Dominic Imhof). They are listed anyway for completeness’s sake.
• If you have any notable additions or corrections, please make note in the comments!

May 14, 2010: added the mystery man Pedro Pacheco to the Canada list.

May 30, 2010: updated for the South American friendlies.

Currently in the Canadian mix, but could go elsewhere:

GK Haidar Al-Shaïbani (Nimes [Ligue 2]) – eligible for Canada, Algeria, Iraq, and Ukraine. One cap.
GK Michal Misiewicz (Sunderland [English Premier League, reserves]) – eligible for Canada, Poland, and Greece. Four U-20 caps.
GK Adam Street (unattached) – eligible for Canada and England. Seven U-20 caps.
DF David Edgar (Burnley [Coca-Cola Championship]) – eligible for Canada and England. Twenty-seven U-20 caps.
DF/MF Dominic Imhof (FC Tuggen [Swiss 1. Liga, which is actually the third division]) – eligible for Canada and Switzerland. One cap.
MF Jaineil Hoilett (1. FSV Mainz 05 [1.Bundesliga, youth]) – eligible for Canada and Jamaica. Five U-20 caps.
MF Pedro Pacheco (C.D. Nacional [Portugese Liga]) – eligible for Canada and Portugal. Two caps.
MF Carlos Rivas (C.D. Universidad de Concepcion [Chilean Primera Division]) – eligible for Canada and Chile. One cap.
MF Massih Wassey (FC Schalke 04 [1.Bundesliga, reserves]) – eligible for Canada, Afghanistan, and Germany. Two caps.
MF/FW Alex Semenets (Vancouver [USSF Division Two, Residency]) – eligible for Canada and Ukraine. Four U-20 caps.
FW Randy Edwini-Bonsu (Vancouver [USSF Division Two]) – eligible for Canada and Ghana. One cap.

Currently undecided:

MF/FW Junior Hoilett (Blackburn [English Premier League]) – eligible for Canada and Jamaica.
FW Teal Bunbury (Kansas City [MLS]) – eligible for Canada and the United States.

Appeared for other national teams but could come back:

GK Joe Cannon (San Jose [MLS]) – eligible for the United States and Canada. Two caps.
GK Daniel Fernandes (VfL Bochum [2.Bundesliga]) – eligible for Portugal and Canada.* Two caps.
DF Ugo Ihemelu (FC Dallas [MLS]) – eligible for the United States, Nigeria, and Canada.* Two caps.
DF Steven Vitória (FC Porto [Portugese Liga]) – eligible for Portugal and Canada. Thirteen U-20 caps.
MF Jonathan de Guzman (Feyenoord [Dutch Eredivisie]) – eligible for the Netherlands, Jamaica, and Canada. Six U-23 caps.
FW O’Brian White (Toronto FC [MLS]) – eligible for Jamaica and Canada. Capped at U-20 level.

* – Daniel Fernandes is on the Portugese World Cup roster and would be cap-tied if he appeared in a match. Ugo Ihemelu appeared on the bench for Canada during World Cup qualifying against St. Vincent and the Grenadines despite not being eligible at the time; he has appeared in two friendlies for the United States and is not cap-tied. There are some question marks over his Canadian citizenship but he is probably eligible for us.

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.