Canada must embrace the Women's national team

This is the second time in little over a week that I'm writing something about the Canadian women's national team which is probably a record for me, but it also outlines that lack of coverage about the team in Canada.

Did you know you know that Canada's national women's team just became the Continental champions by winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup? Did you also know what win got them automatic qualification to the Women's World Cup in 2011?

I wouldn't fault you if you didn't, most of this country didn't have a clue either. The Canadian sports scene wasn't that keen on reporting the weeks events in Mexico, but if you did you saw a team that got better in each game they played. After Canada narrowly beat Trinidad and Tobago 1-0, the team seemed to pick their game up winning the rest of their group games by 8-0 and 3-0 over eventual finalist Mexico. Over the span of the tournament the team showed not only excellent footballing skill by keeping it on the ground and at times playing nice one touch passes to get attacks going. They also had the strongest defence not allowing a goal though out the whole tournament.

Aside from the fantastic Christine Sinclair who once again proved again why she is one the most complete footballers in the world, head coach Carolina Morace has to get the majority of the plaudits. There hasn't been a major turnover in terms of the core players on the team, yet in just under two years she has transformed the way the squad plays it football. When watching the team play during the tournament you could see the technical skills of the players have greatly improved from the Evan Pellerud days of long ball lump ins to Sinclair. There is a lot of thought in terms of passing, link up play and wing play. This team is defiantly more fun to watch then in a past, unlike the Pellerud era you can see a progressive line of improvement and where the team is going in regards to their style of play.

So why is this team not getting any love from Canadian sports fan? It not just that it's women's soccer or that absolutely no coverage is being done on the team. The issue now seems to be that the team has qualified from the Wold Cup before. In fact this will be their 5th straight appearance, however they have had disappointing runs in all 5 of those tournaments and now people want to see success. For us soccer fans who have followed what this team has done over the past 7-10 years, we want to see a deep run into the knock out stages of the tournament.

There are only about 10-15 countries that can field a decently competitive team in the women's game and Canada is one of them. It should now be an expectation that the squad at least make the quarter finals maybe even the semis. Success will be the way this team gets taken seriously both in the media and in the minds of Canadians. However this should not be the only reason we embrace this team, what we are seeing is the building of a strong national women's program that soon will be able to challenge the mighty United States. Although the States only finished 3rd in the Gold Cup tournament and have to play Italy in a playoff to get into the tournament, make no mistake they will still be favorites to beat Italy and win the World Cup. However expect the gap between Canada and the U.S to close in the next few years.

2011 promises to be a big year for the Big Red, lets hope that they get some love from home this summer when they take on the world.

Cheers,
Mike

Things looking up for the CSA?

Recently I wrote about the past stagnation of soccer development in Canada. One of my main criticisms was that the CSA (Canadian Soccer Association) lacked the organization and vision to lead Canada to a World Cup birth. In May of this year the governing body set up a new governance framework in order to address some of the long term issues there have been around the CSA.

This framework calls for an elected president, 6 appointed directors, 6 elected directors and most importantly none of them can be members of their provincial or territorial associations. This point may seem useless to casual observers, but for someone who knows how provincial power plays within the CSA has stymied progress in the past this is a huge deal. It in theory eliminates the provincial bias out of the decision making process. Time will tell if this will be true, but it is a positive first step in building credibility in the decision making process for soccer Canada.

Another positive aspect that came out of the new framework is its emphasis on gender in the top decision making group. The stipulation that there must be at least 3 directors of each gender is a first step in truly making women a part of the national team process. Given the success of our Women's Senior, U 20 and U 17 teams this step was long overdue.

What this also spells out is the clear roles of each of the branches of the association. Each branch understands and knows it role in helping to produce not only the best talent we can, but also to attract more sectors of corporate Canada who can help pour more money into player development. This will help Canada move away from member fees an dues which is the association's financial life blood, and into a more cost effective relationship with corporate Canada.

However what I hope this really does is send a message to the players and supporters of the national program that change is coming and that it is worth staying in Canada to reap the rewards. In the past players like former TFC captain Jim Brennan, current TFC captain Dwayne De Rosario and others have questioned the decision making of the CSA. This has lead to players retiring early from the national set up like Brennan, to players out right choosing other nations to play for due to the FIFA linage rules. Although this is only a first step in building a stronger CSA, this can instill a bit of belief in players that the national team will be moving in the right direction.

• If you want some excellent insight into what these changes mean I suggest you read former Canada and Ipswich Town Captain Jason De Vos's take on the governance changes (Click Here)
• On Saturday Michael Grange wrote and excellent article on Canadian Soccer and youth development through the club level here in Canada, and how it works in some other nations, I highly suggested read. (Click Here)

Cheers,
Mike