I’ve been away for Canada Day weekend up at the cottage (cabin to you Brits) since Thursday. Watched the Canada vs. Chile game on Saturday night with my brother-in-law and we absolutely lost our minds when Canada drew and got out of their group.
This is a huge feat for our men’s team. The women have traditionally taken up most of the glory (and even drawn more in terms of attendance) up until recently. This is the first time CMNT have qualified beyond the group stages of an international tournament.
As expected, the game was a bit of a bloodbath and Chile were doing their best to pull us into their antics. Chile were down to 10 men as well and certainly had their chances even with limited numbers since it was a must win game for either team. We scored late in the game but was VAR ruled it offside. Canadian keeper Maxime Crépeau was incredible yet again and made a critical save in the dying minutes of extra time.
We take on Venezuela on Friday, July 5th at 9 p.m. EST - so 1 a.m. for those of you who are up late in the UK. I remain hesitant that we will beat Venezuela, but I thought we looked our best so far out of the five games we’ve played under new coach Jesse Marsch. Venezuela have been on a tear and will be tough to break down. I’ve watched a few of their games and have been impressed with their style of play. Scoring still appears to be an issue for Canada since we drew two games and won just the one, but we’re fucking through! If there’s anything else to be had after the quarter finals, it will icing on the cake!
