303abuser I appreciate the sentiment as a fan, but there is no way we were getting out of any group. You said yourself that we’re have holes at keeper, midfield (you missed striker and our defending was beyond atrocious), and our tactics were as lacking as the talent. We scored 2 goals in 3 games, one of those was pure luck, and led the group in shots while somehow ending up last in shots on target. Great experience for the team and country, but I don’t know what you were watching.
I disagree that we wouldn’t have gotten out of any group. The US got through and we drew with them and also beat them in qualifying with essentially the same sides both teams took the the World Cup. Japan got out and we played them four days before the World Cup started with both sides playing effectively their starting 11 players (minus Davies for Canada) and beat them 2-1. Australia got out of their group and they’re mostly a side made up of A-League players. I still contend we had the toughest group to get out of. I mean shit, Belgium didn’t even make it out - although I’ve always thought Belgium have been overrated in the past few years.
The Croatia match was a shambles. Croatia broke through our press after 20 minutes and we never figured out a way to recover. Herman also made a massive mistake getting on international telly admitting he said ‘Fuck Croatia’ to his players before we even played them. That became a bigger story than the game itself.
As a fan I obviously remained hopeful we could have gotten out, but I always knew it was going to be tough with the quality we faced. I let my enthusiasm get the better of me at moments, but still think there’s some pieces of this team that are quality.
Yes, we do have work to do in certain positions. Cyle Larin and Jonathan David are quality strikers. David is rumoured to be moving to the Premier League in January. Alphonso Davies is only 22 and is arguably the best leftback in the world. Stephen Estaquio is a quality midfielder who’s starting in the Champions League for Porto, but he was hurt in the last game and it showed. We don’t have Luka Modric level players in every position - yet. Most of our players are under 25. Ali Johnson is moving to Celtic in the SPL in January. Their graft was never an issue. Their lack of experience at this level was. Coulda, shoulda, woulda though…
Hopefully by 2026 we’ll have even more players that are household names playing in the biggest leagues in Europe. Keep in mind the expectation for this World Cup was that Canada weren’t even going to qualify, let alone win the CONCACAF qualifying group. I watched nearly every qualifying game and watched us improve more and more and I believe that trajectory will continue. In four years Herdman took us from 71st to 41st in the world. I believe the expectation going forward is that we SHOULD qualify (despite the automatic qualification in 2026), not IF.
