This day has been coming for a while.
Not that you would know that if you only dip into following the Canadian women’s national team every couple years at the Olympics and World Cup. If that describes your fandom, you are probably confused by today’s 4-0 loss to Australia, which eliminated Canada at the Group Stage of the World Cup.
There’s no shame in thinking that, if that is your perspective. They are the Olympic champions — no gold medallist has ever been eliminated at the Group Stage (a fact that makes Canada’s performance even worse, since this is the first tournament with 32 teams in it). They were sold to the public as legitimate threats to win the World Cup.
Win it. In light of this performance today, that seems absurd. For those of us who were paying attention, it was absurd. It’s not hindsight to suggest today that Canada was never close to being a contender in this tournament. The results demonstrate that their No 7 ranking in the world was inflated and that Olympic success was painting over a lot of cracks.
Let’s talk about the Olympics. The Games are a funny wildcard in the women’s game. They are clearly not the main focus of countries anymore, but they are still important once you are in them. If you are a casual fan of the sport that nuance is hard to understand.
So, it’s not that the three Olympic medals aren’t incredible accomplishments that should be celebrated and remembered fondly, but they aren’t the pinnacle of the game and they don’t reflect a true standing of countries.
That’s particularly the case with the Tokyo Games, which had a historically weak field due to the qualification criteria Uefa used. Germany wasn’t there, for heaven’s sake.
It’s difficult to point all this out without sounding like you are a miserable killjoy who hates fun. So, let me stress again how wonderful it is to have had those Olympic memories. I hosted an Olympic podcast for 7 years (and may do so again soon, if I can add a few hours to the day). I appreciate the Olympics.
However, when it comes to football, they aren’t the measure. The World Cup is. Canada’s World Cup performance was an abject failure. Not just in Australia either (although you can probably drop the “abject” part off prior to this). Outside of the 2003 fourth place finish, Canada has underperformed expectations in every World Cup.
2007 - Out at Group Stage
2011 - Out at Group Stage
2015 - Out at 1/4s as hosts
2019 - Out at Round of 16
2023 - Out at Group Stage
That’s not the record of a legitimate top 10 side. It’s just not.
So, what do we do about it?
That’s a difficult question that cannot be answered in a blog post hours after elimination. The answer also involves lots of systemic changes, such as creating a league and finding a solution to the current funding dispute.
It also requires us to have an honest conversation about where we truly stand in the game and where we want to get. For the last decade, the CSA and many fans have been more than happy to hide behind those outlier, Olympic results.
I’m not sure that’s going to fly any longer. The rest of the world has clearly closed the gap and, likely, pulled ahead. Without a change, it’s just going to get worse. Simply qualifying to the World Cup could potentially become an issue in a couple cycles.
Qualifying for the Paris Olympics is an issue right now. That team today looked broken and as much as Jamaica lacks the history in the women’s game that Canada has they are not going to just roll over and expose their belly for Les Rouges in the qualifying tie this fall. Canada is going to have to regroup and do so quickly to advance.
As much as the contrarian in me wants to argue that it would be a blessing in disguise for the women to not qualify for Paris, it would actually be a disaster. The team’s gets funding through the COC, as well as the CSA. Losing that would put the program in serious trouble.
This is why it is so important that the conversation that happens now is honest. No blaming of external factors should be accepted. Lots of teams that are doing just fine at the World Cup have crappy FAs. They didn’t make the same tactical, coaching and performance errors that Canada did during this World Cup.
We need to identify what went wrong and fix it. That might mean dropping some old favourites. It should mean a tweaking of the approach. It could even mean a change in coach. Everything needs to be looked at.
Most of all, they need to control the things that they can control now and stop looking for excuses for when they fail to perform as expected.
If they don’t do that then a true disaster could be lurking this fall.
This space is supported by paid subscriptions — a new podcast will be added this month, for paid supporters as well as Patreon supporters.