RichM but no one ever looks back and says x team came third, but people will talk about Canada getting to the semi finals in 2024.
I think it’s different in Europe. The Canadian women’s team won bronze at the Olympics in London and over here it was lauded as the best thing since sliced bread.
In countries where football isn’t the be all and end all and those countries succeed at on the international stage, it gets hyped it up much more as a novelty ’you mean we’re actually pretty good?'. Inversely, watching Canada get drubbed 8-1 by Honduras in a World Cup qualifier in 2012 was barely a story here after the game. Only hardcore fans like myself knew about it. In Europe/South America/Africa that would be front page news or one of the leading stories on the news.
Conversely, in the lead up to the last World Cup and with this COPA America, the CMNT were/are getting national (and even a bit of international) press due to their success. Drake bet $300,000 on them to win vs. Argentina. Well known Canadian politicians, sports people, musicians, celebrities, etc. are showing up at practices or after games. As soon as we start doing poorly it’s a non-story in the media other than pay equity with the women or how poorly run our federation is (of whom are essentially broke due to an awful deal with the group that finances the Canadian Premier League).
