Canada misses golden opportunity to take big step forward

Not for the first time, the Canadian men’s team have come up frustratingly short in a continental competition. 

Canada conceded inside the opening minute and never recovered in a disappointing 2-0 loss to Mexico in Thursday’s Concacaf Nations League semifinal at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.  

Fulham striker Raúl Jiménez scored both goals against the Canadians, who’ll meet the United States in Sunday’s third place match. Panama defeated the U.S. 1-0 in the other semifinal to set up a showdown with Mexico in the tournament final. 

This will feel like another wasted opportunity by a Canadian side that has been touted as the new king of the hill in Concacaf ever since its magical run at last summer’s Copa América. 

Instead of hoisting a major trophy, it must continue to content itself with moral victories, rather than celebrating actual ones. The blunt truth is this: Canada bottled it against Mexico, and unless it can win competitions like this one, it will remain in neutral and won’t reach the next level in the international game.  

Here are three observations from Canada’s latest loss to Mexico. 

An unlucky — but disastrous — start by Canada 

Canada was raring to go in this high-stakes contest against its Concacaf rival and looked to set the tone by getting off to a strong start and take the overwhelmingly pro-Mexican crowd that crammed into SoFi Stadium out of the game early on. 

But Canadian goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair picked the ball out from the back of his net inside the opening minute after Mexico took a 1-0 lead. 

Canada got off to the worst possible start when fullback Alistair Johnson’s poor throw-in resulted in a turnover that allowed Mexico to transition from defence to attack deep inside its opponent’s half. Jiménez played a lovely no-look, back-heel flick pass just outside of the penalty area for teammate Roberto Alvarado. 

Alvarado’s hasty attempt on goal deflected off both Alphonso Davies and Moise Bombito before fortuitously landing back at the feet of Jiménez. The veteran forward took a sublime first touch and then fired a side-footed shot from the edge of the six-yard box past a helpless St. Clair that nestled inside the far post after only 46 seconds. 

Although Canada was slow to close down Mexico’s attackers as they surged forward, the double bounce off of Davies and Bombito was just dumb luck — you can hardly blame either player for their roles in the unfortunate deflection.  

“It’s a throw-in that we could do better on and be aggressive on the first action. But we actually defend the first play … [but it] somehow bounces right to Jiménez behind our back line, standing in front of our goalkeeper. You can’t anticipate those kinds of things to happen,” Canada coach Jesse Marsch stated. 

Canada’s attack left a lot to be desired on the night 

Marsch fielded a strong starting 11 that featured forwards Cyle Larin and Jonathan David playing together up front. David (31 goals) and Larin (30) rank as the national team’s top two all-time leading scorers and have formed what is considered one of the best attacking partnerships in Concacaf. But neither player had a major influence on this game.  

David was largely anonymous, while Larin didn’t exactly look menacing, as they were starved of quality service from Canada’s midfield core of Jonthan Osorio, Stephen Eustáquio, Ali Ahmed and Ismaël Koné. Both David and Larin weren’t played into dangerous scoring positions and were easily kept at bay by Mexico’s defenders. 

Canada enjoyed 58 per cent of the possession and outshot Mexico 11-8 on the night. Yet, only one of the Canadians’ shots was on target. Davies’ long-range effort off a free kick was comfortably saved by Mexican goalkeeper Luis Malagón in the 31st minute. 

Down a goal, the Canadians came flying out of the chute at the start of the second half, using their speed and quick ball movement to put pressure on the Mexicans. 

Davies had a good look on goal from 20 yards out but sliced his attempt wide of the post. Larin collected a short pass and unleashed a shot from the edge of the penalty area that was partially blocked by a Mexican defender and just went over the crossbar. Álvarez out-jumped Canada’s Derek Cornelius to make a brilliant headed clearance off a dangerous Eustáquio cross deep into the box with Malagón out of position. 

Marsch’s men paid for their wastefulness when Jiménez scored his second goal of the night with a free kick from 30 yards out that curled around Canada’s defensive wall and beat a diving St. Clair at the near post.   

“I think [we needed] a few more times where we can have a little bit of understanding of how to slow the game down in the last third and make some final passes that get us in and around the goal. And then we can start to have the kind of movements in the box that can give us more chances, a little bit of a chance to be more creative in some of those moments,” Marsch said. 

What might’ve been had Canada been awarded a penalty 

Canada quickly settled down after going down early, as it began to control the game and put Mexico under pressure inside its half with a nice spell of possession. 

The Canadians should’ve won a penalty in the ninth minute when Larin played a pass into the box and Mexican defender Edson Álvarez caught Canada’s Cornelius in the foot with a high kick as the two players challenged for the ball.  

Not only did Salvadoran referee Hector Martinez fail to point to the penalty spot, but he also actually awarded Mexico a free kick on the play. Equally inexplicable was that the VAR booth looked at the incident and didn’t feel there was enough in it for Martinez to review it on the pitch side monitor and overturn his decision. But make no mistake about it, it was a stone-cold penalty. 

“For me, this is the definition of a penalty. When we touch the ball first, and then we get clearly kicked as [Cornelius is] pursuing the ball, that’s a foul that prevented him from pursuing the play. You can debate how much of a penalty and everything else, but it is inexcusable that it’s not at least looked at by the head official,” Marsch argued. 

Canada had more than enough time to get back into the game and grab an equalizer, so it can’t use that non-call as an excuse. Still, you can’t help but wonder if things would’ve turned out differently for the Canadians if they were awarded a clearly justifiable penalty.