We Canadian soccer fans, east and west, have an annoying habit of blowing things up to proportions they don’t rightly deserve.

Tonight, Toronto FC will take on C.F. Motagua in what the Toronto faithful are really hoping won’t be a repeat of last year’s debacle against the USL Division One Puerto Rico Islanders. The U-Sector board is abuzz with hope and excitement but also concern – more concern than one usually sees for, say, FC Dallas. The Voyageurs, never your best bet for sober second thought but always a good dipstick for the country’s emotional oil, are burning with enthusiasm even absent the usual partisan napalm. On Twitter, Stretty Sam out-and-out calls it “a big match for Canadian soccer“.

Listen, when you’re relying on Duane Rollins to downplay the importance of a Toronto FC game, things are out of hand.

Of course, as a Canadian soccer supporter, it’s in my interests that Toronto beat Motagua tonight. It’s also in my interests that Toronto beat Real Salt Lake or the New York Red Bulls or pretty much any side that isn’t another Canadian team (I’d probably take the Reds over the CSL’s Serbian White Eagles, too). I’d quite like to see Julian de Guzman superkick Amado Guevara through the north stands into where the beer garden used to be, but that’s pleasure rather than business. My usual Whitecaps fan schadenfreude at seeing Toronto lose to a team from a country with a GDP smaller than my shoe size would be dulled ever-so-slightly by the whole Honduras factor, but intellectually I should want Toronto to emerge with a credible win in the CONCACAF Champions League regardless of the opposition.

(You may have noticed that soccer partisanship is not the most intellectual of activities. I know, I know. Bear with me.)

Now, as we know Toronto has a bad history with this tournament. They got over 20,000 fans out to their first ever continental match, more than twice the next-best attendance total that round, and lost 1-0 in what I can safely call the worst game of soccer ever played. The loss to the Puerto Rico Islanders, a team in the same North American pyramid as Toronto FC and therefore mathematically certain to be inferior, devastated the Toronto and Canadian sports scenes to such an extent that over 20,000 fans are expected tonight for a game against a team that sounds like a discount tequila label.

I feel a little dirty praising Toronto FC fans for their support, but the joy is that Canadian soccer fandom has moved beyond the point where a single game can break us. Indeed, if we survived the Montreal Impact’s Thích Quảng Đức job against Santos Laguna, and Toronto’s two years missing the playoffs, and Benito Archundia, and Benito Archundia again, and pretty much everything about Canada’s last World Cup qualification campaign, we’ve probably been past that point for some time. Toronto could lose by a converted touchdown and it wouldn’t mar the Canadian soccer landscape that badly. Moreover, if Toronto wins, they’ll be doing their job and who will be impressed? It would take an awfully long run and maybe a few flares in the Skydome for the Champions League to weigh down the bandwagon with new support.

If you’re a Toronto fan, your team may have a very specific stain to scrub off its honour and godspeed to you in that. For the rest of us, don’t try and tell me that cheering on the FC is a matter of national priority. We’re not infants anymore. We can survive a little fall down the stairs.

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.

I said something stupid in my post yesterday. I said that Canada hadn’t won any sort of CONCACAF tournament since 2000. Duane Rollins corrected me; our women’s U-20s were confederational champions in 2006. A silly mistake and one I ought to have spotted. The Maple Leaf Forever regrets the error.

But somehow, it didn’t make victory today any less meaningful.

First, of course, MLS labour peace. Those far more intelligent than I am are covering the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. I will leave them to it, save to note that it was a hell of a nice way to begin a weekend.

There was the Whitecaps friendly against the University of Victoria Vikes, of course. Normally that would have been worthy of a post in of itself. It was my first visit to the University in several years, and as an alumnus I was startled to see how much the place had been built up. Even Centennial Stadium, long one of the premier death traps of the Western world, had been build into a nearly-respectable soccer venue. The Vikes had always been a mediocre outfit and are of course out of season but played their best, limiting the Whitecaps to a 5-0 victory. As always in such mismatched victories it was the performances that mattered: Alex Semenets and Dever Orgill both potted a brace and look terrific even when the ball wasn’t going in, somewhat relaxing my concerns over the Whitecaps attack this season. The few Southsiders to make the pilgrimage and I shivered in the bitter south wind, our few mediocre chants carried away on the breeze, but it had regardless been a terrific afternoon’s entertainment.

The crowd, surely one of the best to grace UVic in many years, filed out after Justin Moose scored Vancouver’s fifth goal (the thinking doubtless that if Justin Moose was going to start potting them, albeit on a wide-open look with nothing but net to shoot at from six feet, it was time to beat the traffic). But the Vancouver support remained long enough to salute the players who came over and thanked us for coming out. Our Georgian guy, whose name I can’t possibly remember but may have to learn, was overshadowed by Semenets and Orgill but may have been a dark horse for man of the match. It wasn’t just the pace or the intelligence. I had no idea he could cross like it turned out he could cross. There’s a USSF-2-calibre defender hidden there in an austere shell which doesn’t speak the English too well and looked vaguely frightened when he shook Southsider hands as if he thought one of us might try to strike up a conversation.

I hustled away from the University in time to get home for Canada’s U-17 women’s match against Mexico for all the marbles. We were, on paper, better than Mexico, which means that I of course didn’t give them a hope in hell. In the eighth minute, though, Kinley McNicoll eased some of those doubts with a nearly-botched chip shot, catching the Mexican keeper off her line, beating her clean on the dribble, and then trying to coax a lame duck into the corner as the Mexican defense pressed. The ball kicked off the post and rolled along the goal line for a seeming eternity before turning into the goal just as the Mexican central defender got back to hack it off. 1-0 Canada early.

Throughout the first half, Canada was something I never expect from us: we were confident. Almost, but not quite, dominant. We controlled the ball with ease, we pushed down the pitch, we got some chances. Our back four stymied the Mexicans as surely as it had the Americans. It was all under control. I had no idea what to think. This doesn’t happen for Canada, it happens to Canada, as a matter of cosmic history. Surely, surely, something would go amiss.

It did. Yazmin Ongtengco-Hintzen, who really has to pull an Ali Ngon and change her name to something that will give her super powers, was shown a red card for a seemingly legitimate tackle in the fifty-sixth minute. It wasn’t so much the old canard/lie about having “got the ball” – Ongtengco did get the ball, of course, but more than that she only caught the man because by accident or on purpose the man slid on the turf, meaning that Ongtengco’s leg grazed harmlessly against the Mexican’s shin guard. It ought not to have even been a whistle, to say nothing of a red card. It was ludicrous. Obscene. It was, well, CONCACAF.

With the stalwart Ongtengco, one of Canada’s best all-rounders for every moment of the tournament I’ve seen, out, the Mexicans went on the attack. Green waves poured down towards the Canadian goal like poorly-laid turf. Canada seemed suddenly tentative, learning about CONCACAF refereeing for the first time and fearful of a reprise. They slipped into the Phil Brown Memorial 9-0-0 Formation, booting the ball down the pitch at every opportunity. Two close Mexican chances sizzled just past the woodwork. It was all going wrong.

A favourite saying of mine is that booting the ball down the pitch is not a strategy, it is the absence of a strategy. Well, then, the Canadians had no strategy to speak of for fifteen solid minutes. Doom seemed certain, yet another heartbreaking loss to add to the long Canadian tradition of heartbreaking losses. Canada’s skill was all over the place; stifled by fear and uncertainty of what to do, while the Mexicans attacked, attacked, always attacked, like wild dogs.

Then the sweetest sound in sports: three whistles. Canada had won something!

The sight of our young women celebrating at the centre of the pitch had to warm the most frozen of hearts. There was nothing there but joy: perhaps a bit of shock but mostly sudden elation, bottled up for so long and released in one glorious frenzy. They found the time to salute the Canadian support, about a dozen guys standing improbably far up the empty stands and providing the “Ca-na-da! Ca-na-da!” chant, showing gusto if not verisimilitude. I shouldn’t complain. Anybody who flies the flag at a U-17 women’s tourament in an empty Costa Rican stadium is all right by me.

Victory. I had almost forgotten what it felt like.

This is the first time I will have written about the Canadian national women’s soccer program on this website. It’s an oversight. A hell of an oversight. My modern story as a soccer fan stretches back to the U-19 Women’s World Cup in Edmonton, when I stood in the stands to watch our girls defeat Brazil on penalties in what my young mind, ignorant of the women’s game, thought was a far bigger upset than it actually was. I did everything short of murder to make sure that I’d get to the final which we lost, in spirited but heart-breaking fashion, to the United States, and from that came the Edmonton Aviators and the rest, as they say, is history.

But I think part of the reason I so seldom write about women’s soccer in this space is that it’s so depressing. The women’s national team is Canada’s best chance to win on the international stage and boasts perhaps the greatest female striker of all time, Christine Sinclair. But we once had one of the best development programs in the world for women’s soccer, simply because we had a development program for women’s soccer. As the rest of the world moved forward, though, we moved back. Worse than simply standing still, the women’s program descended into the sort of politics-riddled morass observers of the Canadian Soccer Association are a little too familiar with. Even the high-profile appointment of Caroline Morace over the backroom scrapper Even Pellerud has only helped matters so much. That’s much more depressing than simply the men’s team lose because they stink. We could have won something on the women’s side, and instead our golden generation has been frittered away and we haven’t done enough to develop the next.

The manager of our U-17 team, Brian Rosenfeld, is a case in point. I am not intimate with the details of the women’s youth program, but Rosenfeld replaced former supremo Ian Bridge in January when Bridge, despite being offered a short-term contract, walked under the belief that “the CSA didn’t want [him] anymore” and dismayed at the lack of practice for the team and the lack of communication with Morace. Rosenfeld was a long-time CSA employee and a once-capped Canadian national goalkeeper against Honduras in 1987. He was old guard through and through, and supposedly played favourites a little too freely. Not the sort of world-class boss one would count on to take a program forward, especially mere months before the CONCACAF U-17 championships. The top two teams – which is to say, the United States and the second-place team – would advance to the U-17 Women’s World Cup in glamorous Trinidad and Tobago.

Rosenfeld’s troops were effective but uninspiring early in the tournament. A workmanlike 4-1 victory over Jamaica, a disappointing 2-1 victory over minnows Panama, and a positively gutting 1-0 loss to a Mexico team that, on paper, we ought to beat. That loss to the Mexicans meant that we’d have to play the Americans in the semi-final and beat them in order to get into the World Cup. And we wouldn’t beat the Americans, so why even bother worrying about it?

Do you think I’m overstating things? Let me put it this way. The United States had an easy group of Haiti, the Cayman Islands, and their only potential challenge in Costa Rica. They led off against Haiti, winning 9-0. They then beat the Caymans by the score of 13-0. Finally, those “challengers” the Costa Ricans went down 10-0 on their own home soil. They scored more goals in their worst game than we scored throughout the tournament. Midfielders Morgan Brian and Lindsey Horan each scored as many as the entire Canadian team. The Americans scored 32 goals in those three games; in their last 28 internationals the Canadian men’s national team has scored 34. Seldom in the history of international football has one team been so far ahead of all potential rivals.

Then, in front of about twenty fans, including five enthusiastic Canadians flying the Maple Leaf in a section they had all to themselves, les Rouges whipped Uncle Sam’s fanny.

I feel like I am offending the soccer gods by saying this, but Canada was the better team on the night and deserved to win in the first ninety minutes. Yes, the Americans were more skilled both individually and as a unit. But Canada, while never exactly parking the bus and falling into the John Limniatis Memorial 10-0-0, played tenacious defense with six or seven women behind the ball and found chances magnificently on the counter attack. Canada’s midfield play was the best I’ve seen any Canadian midfield play since the 2007 Gold Cup, and I’ve not sure I’ve seen a Canadian defense that composed at any level. We fouled, we played dirty, we dove, and particularly late in the match we aggressively time wasted. We did all the things that drive me insane when other teams do them to us. It was great.

In extra time the Americans turned up the heat early, perhaps sensing the match turning away from them, but the Canadians hung tough and by the last fifteen minutes their bunker had the Americans utterly off-stride. It must be granted that there was a distinct air of the Canadians playing for penalties, but who can blame them? Then the whistle blew.

At the time of the match I was at work, sitting in my office, watching the game on CONCACAF’s web feed. I was supposed to head out and take over for a coworker so he could grab a bite to eat. I called that coworker and told him he’d have to wait. Some things are more important.

There’s no point in describing the penalty shootout; there’s little point in describing any penalty shootout. There were no audacious lobs, just some young women putting their head down and punishing the ball exactly like the coach tells you to. The third Canadian shooter Yazmin Ongtengco-Hintzen very nearly scuffed it, and the American goalkeeper Bryane Heaberlin got almost her entire palm to the ball, contorting mid-dive to get a piece of the ball as it sliced down the middle. The ball bounced harmlessly away, or so it seemed, as it took a mean turf skip, the backspin sending the ball past a sprawling Heaberlin into the goal.

The soccer gods even smile on Canada, sometimes.

We play Mexico tomorrow for the CONCACAF championship, which could be our first confederation tournament victory of any stripe since 2000. More important, we qualify for the coming U-17 Women’s World Cup (good tickets, I’m certain, still available). And most amazingly of all, we condemn the American girls to watching at home with the rest of us. The best team in the world, knocked out of the biggest of all tournaments by a team they ought to beat nine times out of ten.

For once, it’s a good day to be a Voyageur.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t took a little pleasure from Toronto FC’s undignified, goalless implosion to the Puerto Rico Islanders last night that sent them spiralling out of the CONCACAF Champions League faster than an eagle flying through a jet engine. After all, Vancouver deserves to be there (say I emotionally) and Toronto doesn’t, so it’s only justice. Justice delayed is justice denied, they say, but I’m not sure that works in football.

On balance, though, I was cheering for Toronto.  Us Canadians are all in it together, and since I don’t have that derby-like hatred for the FC I was happy to root for our sole representative in the continental championship, just as I did for Montreal all those centuries ago.

It was a letdown. Not on the level of Montreal losing to Santos Laguna, which was like having a marksman shoot at your crotch for ninety minutes plus stoppages. But it was a dreadful disappointment made worse by the fact that Toronto never looked like they were a match for the lowly Puerto Rico Islanders.

I just heard three million Torontonians spit their Molson Canadian onto their monitor. Calm down. Toronto is more talented, man for man and as a unit, than Puerto Rico. Dwayne De Rosario could probably beat the combined Islanders starting eleven in keepie-uppie. But, with the exception of two bull-in-a-china-shop chances by the only player in MLS who is both a striker and a zombie, Danny Dichio, Puerto Rico bunkered down and Toronto was helpless to do anything about it.

Bunkering down is a skill like any other. It’s a skill that Toronto (and the Impact) have never possessed. Breaking down the bunker is a skill as well and Toronto came up short once again. Toronto had the better players but Puerto Rico was the better team. They earned both their win in Toronto and their draw back home. Skill doesn’t mean a damned thing if you can’t do anything with it, and Toronto was left flailing their limbs while their fans grumbled about “anti-football”.

The 2008 Montreal Impact could give a doctoral thesis on this, but if you’re going for a scoreless draw against a more talented side, you can’t just put eleven men in the box and have them do their thing because you’ll get shredded. You have to do what Puerto Rico did, which is smart zonal marking, frustrate their strikers with chippy, borderline plays, use good direct balls to relieve pressure, and when you get that counter you go for it.

Puerto Rico is a good team; likely the best in USL-1. Certainly I’d favour them at a neutral site over a number of MLS clubs: Toronto FC, New York (obviously), probably FC Dallas, and you could convince me on one or two others. But they win all their matches the same way they beat Toronto. They play the same style against the Carolina Railhawks and they’d try it against Manchester United, because they’re good at it and therefore it works.

So hold your heads high, Toronto fans. You got beaten by a better team.

That doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?

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.

I’m calling it two and a half matches. Effort counts for half a point.

However many you want to say I attended, the point is that unless I find an envelope filled with hundred-dollar bills my role in the Gold Cup is over. I’m currently sitting in Vancouver International Airport, killing time until five in the morning when I can head down to the ferry terminal and make my way back home. Once I’m in Victoria I will, of course, catch Canada’s remaining matches at the Bard and Banker downtown, but it won’t be the same.

There were good times at the Gold Cup. In Los Angeles, I was up to spend $26 American on two beers (really) when a large group of El Salvadorans accosted me. Lacking any batteries or flares to throw, I had little choice but to relate to these fans as human beings.

Unfortunately, they didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish. They were quite enthusiastic about my Canada kit, and we blathered at each other in mutual incomprehension until they hit upon the universal language.

“Canada, win! Jamaica, lose!” the lead El Salvadoran said.

“Si!” I responded enthusiastially.

We high-fived.

I probably should have just got used to dealing with El Salvadorans, actually.

Another running trend was nobody having any idea that the Gold Cup was on. In Los Angeles, the cab driver that picked myself and another Voyageur up directly in front of the Home Depot Center wasn’t aware the Gold Cup was on (apparently he just cruises downtown Carson at ten in the evening?). In Columbus, home of the Best Fans in MLS(tm), people looked at me like I was insane whenever I wore my Canada kit and reacted to the knowledge of international football in their community with shock. Only in Miami did I meet somebody with a hint of awareness: the shuttle driver who picked me up at the airport reacted with joy when he heard I was there for football. “Ah, Copa d’Oro!” he said – he actually spoke great English but for whatever reason it was the “Copa d’Oro” to him.

I mentioned that he was the first outsider who had any idea the tournament was going on. He replied that he was Colombian, so he had quite an attachment to the beautiful game.

“Oh, yeah, Colombia!” I said excitedly. “I remember, we kicked your ass in 2000!”

Judging by the ill expression on his face, he remembered too.

Also, I spent a lot of time getting lost. In Los Angeles I held up my end of the navigational bargain but the Los Angeles county transit departments thought that schedules were a nice theory but unworkable in practice and did their own thing entirely, leaving me to walk about four and a half kilometers in the blazing California sun to just meet the Voyageurs in the pub.

In Columbus, I took a bus down to the pub but did the responsible thing and hitched a ride with some other Voyageurs to get to the game. Knowing that Crew Stadium was “north”, we drove way the hell up the highway and were halfway to Cleveland before it occured to us to check a map. Also, one of the guys in the car was the guy who had to claim the tickets, so everybody else got to wait out in front until we showed up.

In Miami, well, you heard about that one already.

I met a lot of cool people, re-met a few more, and got stuck in a cab with a couple real dullards but I was drunk so that was okay. I did not get to lob a single bottle full of urine, which speaks volumes about the fans I encountered. The El Salvadorans were everywhere but they were interested in a good game and a good time, not in causing trouble. There were no Jamaicans to speak of and the Ticos I missed, which is a good thing since I would have gotten liquored up, yelled “REMEMBER SWANGARD!” and ended up with a Miami cop kneeling on my head. It was a much more positive experience than, to pick something at random, World Cup qualifying in Montreal.

I wrote a 1,200-word article on watching a USL-1 match, because I was bored and had no Internet access. If you stuck me in a hotel which charged $10 a day for Internet access and then let me out after a week, I’d have written a post about Charles Gbeke the length of War and Peace, except not proofread.

I sweated a lot. Los Angeles and Miami are so hot and humid that by the end of this tournament even Ali Gerba will be thin.

I didn’t order room service once. I did, however, eat at Burger King three times.

Why did I do it? Because Canada won’t play another meaningful match until 2011, that’s why. So I figured, enjoy the good times while they last. I’d say I’d do it again, but next time I’ll buy maps before I walk to the stadium.

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.

Did you listen to the excellent Stephen Hart post-game press conference at http://www.youtube.com/thevoyageurs? If not, you really should have. There were a number of great questions, including one about the somewhat surprising decision to start Greg Sutton over Josh Wagenaar on Friday.

Hart indicated that the coaching staff and he thought that Sutton would have an advantage against Jamaica’s primarily aerial attack and skill on set pieces. Well, Sutton looked a little rusty but was quite good and earned his clean sheet, so we can’t fault Hart’s logic (in particular, Sutton was an assassin on corner kicks). I’ve criticized Hart in the past but he made the right moves on Friday and I’m getting more respect for him with every match.

I also got a good look at El Salvador when they took on Costa Rica. The Ticos know a thing or two about possession football but for the first hour El Salvador damned near ran them off the pitch. El Salvador had essentially a home crowd behind them but they also had bags of skill and showed it off at every opportunity. Like Canada they were sloppy at times, but unlike Canada they seemed a threat to score every time they got possession.

A few months ago I predicted El Salvador would be the minnows of Group A, but my god! If Canada had taken on El Salvador last night we’d be shoveling bits of Kevin McKenna off the grass. To stop an attack like that, you need a quick midfield (which Canada can have if they play like they should), a determined defense (which Canada has in trumps and showed off against Jamaica), and a spritely goalkeeper who can make the acrobatic reflex save, which Greg Sutton emphatically is not.

So which goalkeeper will start against El Salvador? In his press conference, Hart insisted that both goalkeepers trained well and he played Sutton for tactical reasons. Well, in Columbus tactical considerations will demand Wagenaar. A win will punch Canada’s ticket to the quarterfinals and a draw will still leave them in control of their own destiny, so Tuesday will not be a day for complacency.

However, I bet that Hart will start Sutton. Stephen Hart can play favourites. Richard Hastings shouldn’t get an international cap from anywhere but the CSA store at this stage in his career, yet he’s on the team. Starting the aging and rapidly deteriorating McKenna without even giving the in-season and in-form Andre Hainault a look sent another signal. Hart is more resistant to habit than most managers (he has embraced Dejan Jakovic and Simeon Jackson almost immediately), but he’s not immune. And when the goalkeeper you like has a solid game, as Sutton did, it becomes awfully easy to make excuses.

I don’t think Sutton would do badly. But he wouldn’t be the best choice, either.