What needs to change for Canada to avoid a repeat of their World Cup showing at Copa America

Maxime Crepeau allowed himself just a moment to celebrate in the hour following Canada’s 2-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago to qualify for Copa America. But the moment only lasted all of two syllables.

“F— ya!” he said in the middle of exhaling. The Canada goalkeeper had been called in for a doping test postgame and would be the last person on the team bus. His celebration ended quickly because it had to.

Waiting for him on the bus were his teammates, bound for returns to their clubs around the world. The next time most of them will see each other will be early June. When they meet again, the good vibes of this result will be distant memories. And for Crepeau, that’s the way it should be.

“Now we have to face one another and be real, and say that our standards need to raise,” Crepeau said. “Because a game like today against Argentina, Peru, Chile, that level will not be enough to win games.”

When Canada gathers again ahead of a June 6 friendly against the Netherlands in preparation for Copa America, they’ll be gameplanning for a different team than the stingy Trinidad and Tobago one they faced. Yes, Trinidad and Tobago kept Canada at bay with pesky defending, but Canada’s quality didn’t always shine through.

The challenges they will now face will be far greater than any they’ve had over the last year. Another turning point for the Canada men’s team is coming. 

“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Crepeau said.

A few things can be true coming out of Canada’s win.

First, the performance can be secondary to the bigger picture: Canada weren’t clinical enough for two-thirds of the game.

Second: Canada are going to Copa America, which is where they believe they deserve to be. This remains the best Canada men’s team ever, and their talent and capabilities deserve to be celebrated. There’s no guarantee that the combination of generational players like Alphonso Davies and qualifying for both a World Cup and a Copa America in less than two years will happen with regularity.

Finally, and front of mind for Crepeau and others: Canada need to improve to avoid a repeat of their World Cup performance at Copa America.

The opportunity to face the likes of Lionel Messi and Argentina in tournament play is rare for most teams, let alone those who rose from national afterthoughts just years earlier. Canada have been afforded a remarkable opportunity, just as they were ahead of the 2022 World Cup. They have to take the next step in their evolution as a program and improve.

In Qatar, Canada were built less on tactical excellence and more on an indomitable team spirit. It worked until they were found out and quickly picked apart by a Croatian side who could rely more on their experience and their own tactical blueprint.

At the Copa America, Canada have to show more of the kind of hardened mentality that allowed them to finally break Trinidad and Tobago down to start. 

At this point, it feels likely interim coach Mauro Biello remains in charge for Copa America. New general secretary Kevin Blue has been on the job for all of a week and the period it would take for him to identify and hire a new coach is valuable time to properly prepare for difficult opponents.

So Biello should be given the autonomy to prepare for Copa America right now. No one’s seat to Canada’s capitulation against Jamaica and resilience against Trinidad and Tobago has been closer than Biello’s. And few understand just how the core of this Canada team elevated their game against Belgium at the World Cup, or how things can come crashing down around them, as in their loss against Croatia days later. Biello can tap into his players and their experience in a way a new face cannot.

Now the onus is on him to do just that: we’re talking nuts and bolts stuff, but Biello making these kinds of improvements eliminates the chance for errors that great teams jump over.

Canada’s set pieces need to become more creative and effective. That Canada were gifted corner after corner against Trinidad and Tobago and didn’t capitalize suggests a number of things: a new set-piece coach is needed, Alphonso Davies needs to step aside and Canada need to find someone new to take corners, and more height needs to be prioritized when getting close to the box.

“There were opportunities there for us to kill the game,” defender Alistair Johnston said on Saturday. “We’re bringing new players in, which is important, and they’ve got to get used to international football. It’s a different game. It’s very cagey. There’s not necessarily a ton of rhythm. So breaking the rhythm can be difficult. But I thought we did a good job of managing the moments. Every team is going to have moments, but it’s about being smart about that. And then finishing your chances again.” 

Johnston is right. Canada must become more clinical close to goal. 

“We got the result, but sometimes the fluidity, the killer instinct was not there,” Crepeau said.

Jonathan David isn’t going anywhere, and so Canada’s coaching staff must better acknowledge his strengths and weaknesses and design attacking plans to utilize him better. Not only against Trinidad and Tobago but in the World Cup, Canada kept waiting for David to break through. He can score consistently in France’s Ligue 1, and now must do so against defenders with just as much quality.

Around him, a lack of clinical play close to goal suggests different personnel is required. Ike Ugbo’s strong Championship form didn’t translate against Trinidad and Tobago, but Canada’s lack of finishing shouldn’t be pinned on him alone.

Alphonso Davies expresses his frustration after missing a shot against Trinidad and Tobago. (Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)

This could mean continued personnel changes are needed and new forwards given longer looks in June’s friendlies. It could mean, again, better tactical plans are necessary. Because at the Copa America, Canada certainly won’t have the lion’s share of possession the way they often do in CONCACAF.

Understanding the gap between themselves and the Copa America field isn’t a bad thing. Canada can’t go into another major tournament hoping to surprise teams. The sooner they come to some honest self-understanding about who they are and how much better their best players need to be, the better chance they’ll have of proving they belong on these kinds of stages.

“It’s about being true to one another. Being open to remarks, being open to get better as us, players and personalities, and as a group,” Crepeau said.

But: this week there were inklings that change was possible. Moving on from some of the team’s veterans was a brave and necessary first step from Biello.

It was followed by a noticeable shift in the mood in camp.

There appears to be an acceptance from the entire outfit that their job is not to come together as a team in a spiritual way, a “brotherhood,” as they did throughout 2021 and 2022. Then, it was about learning that if they fought for each other, the results would follow.

“You need to change things because other teams are adapting to you,” midfielder Samuel Piette said of the team ditching the “brotherhood” philosophy fashioned by former head coach John Herdman. “Mentally, you’ve been hearing the same thing over and over again for three or four years. And that works, to a point. Because at some point, you will get tired of it.”

The Canada that gathered in Texas was more business-like and results-oriented than ever before.

That they didn’t bend against Trinidad in a way they did against Jamaica in a second-half capitulation in November suggests a new mentality may be taking hold.

“We realized we’re a good football team, we can play ball, as we say. But we have to remember that our true DNA is we’re true, hard-working players and hard-working people,” Piette said. “You can be the best player in the world with the ball, but if you don’t do the dirty work and you don’t put your boots and your helmet on, then another team will take whatever you left on the table and take advantage.”

Now, the understanding is clear: results need to come not from the team’s spirit, but from talent and a hardened mentality. Gone are the rousing speeches from Herdman, who paved the way for this team’s success. In their place is the onus falling on the players to hold up their end of the bargain. In this camp, players have projected a far more serious demeanour. They are not just happy to be in the conversation among the world’s better teams.

“If we’re always going to be the small guys, blah blah blah, if we lose, it’s OK — no, we have to change our mentality. Our mentality now is that we have to be in these big tournaments,” new captain Stephen Eustaquio said. 

Canada was a fun team to root for ahead of the World Cup because, well, they were fun! Nothing could get in the way of their good vibes!

Now, with Eustaquio as the team’s uber-determined new leader, the happy-go-lucky vibes appear to be a thing of the past for the men’s national team.

If that means results come against the world’s best in its place, Canada might be taking the right steps as a program.

“Now we can push on and really take that next step, which is going to be competing,” Johnston said. “And that’s what we want to do. I think (Canada’s Copa America group of Argentina, Chile and Peru) is actually potentially harder than our World Cup group (Belgium, Croatia and Morocco) on paper with their world ranking. So we know it’s not going to be easy. But at the same time, it’s a great opportunity for us to go and show that we’re taking another step further from where we were at the World Cup. It’s great preparation for 2026.”

(Top photo: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)