Canada defender Zorhan Bassong (27) was in high demand at the conclusion of the team's public practice on Monday, with Friday's World Cup opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina fast approaching.Gary McCullough/The Associated Press
A half-hour after their practice ended on Monday, Canadian defender Zorhan Bassong was still making his way along the crowd of kids gathered at the fence line.
The first workout in Toronto was open to the public. A thousand or so people showed up in deepest Downsview to watch the team do corner kicks for a couple of hours.
Afterward, the team threw signed T-shirts into the crowd. A lot of players high-fived their way through the sideline and jogged off to their cooldown.
Bassong stayed. He isn’t the biggest star on the Canadian soccer team. Technically, he isn’t even on the Canadian team. He’s there in a “training” capacity, covering for absent regulars. But since everyone on hand – not just the ones who caught T-shirts – wanted a World Cup moment, Bassong gave it to them. He made a point to greet every person who greeted him.
“Who’s the best player on your team?” one extremely self-confident freckle-faced kid barked at him, nearly coming over the fence with excitement.
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Bassong mumbled something non-committal.
“Okay, who’s the second-best player?”
Bassong dropped his voice further, lest someone be writing this down.
“Okay, who’s the third-best …” at which point the kid’s minder, a large man with a lot of patience, yoinked him off the ground and said, “All right, that’s enough.”
Canada midfielder Liam Millar (11) and his teammates took part in an open practice in Toronto on Monday. It's not a move that you'd see the world's soccer heavyweights make, Cathal Kelly writes.Gary McCullough/The Associated Press
Another kid waved until he had Bassong’s full attention and said, “When you score, can you go like this?” Then he mimed the ‘archer’ celebration Usain Bolt made famous.
Bassong has never scored a goal for Canada, and as noted, won’t score a goal for Canada here. But he said, “Sure,” and you could see that that kid believes he has just changed the course of World Cup history.
Bassong almost made it to the end of the line. That’s when the team sent someone out to tell, rather than ask, him to hustle it up to the post-practice workout.
Other teams will occasionally open up their practices to fans at a World Cup. They may even have some interaction with them. But you’re not going to see players from England or Argentina going down the line taking selfies with everyone who wants one.
For one thing, there would be so many hysterical people on hand, it would turn into a riot. And for another, this sort of thing is just not done in big-time sport any more.
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The players are here. The fans are over there. If you want to cross that line, bring your AmEx Centurion and a whopping credit score. Or maybe win a contest.
On Monday, Canada sent players and the coach out to say all the things you say when you’re beginning a home World Cup, but have never won a game at this level. They are excited, but not too excited. Prepared, but not over-prepared. Their mindset is concrete – that’s how set it is.
“We want to get out of the group, and maybe we can win it,” said defender Alistair Johnston. I guess that covers every non-disastrous possibility.
But nothing more convinced you that Canada may have an actual shot here than watching Bassong and those kids. He was breaking all the dumb rules of pro etiquette and living in the moment of the moment. This is the only way Canada is going to thrive in this tournament.
The fans supporting Canada's men's soccer team at the World Cup aren't just happy to be here, Cathal Kelly writes. It is a fully-convinced-it-is-possible Canadian crowd.Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
The other thing that convinces me is the way people are reacting to them. This isn’t a happy-to-be-here Canadian crowd, the Canada we know from so many other sporting long shots. The atmosphere on Monday was a fully-convinced-it-is-possible Canadian crowd.
While I watched the end of practice from the thin shade of a small tree, a security guard ambled up to me and said, “Are you from FIFA?”
Obviously, this will be the pick-up line of the summer.
The guard, a lovely guy who told me to call him Chuchu, wanted to talk football with someone. He’s originally from Nigeria and obsessive about the game. He’s thoroughly convinced Canada will win its group, and better.
“They will make the semis,” Chuchu said. “All right, maybe not. But the quarters at least.”
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If Canada has the Chuchus of the nation onside, they could be onto something here.
On the most basic level, sports is about quality. If your players are better than my players, that quality will win out.
But that’s in the pros, over a period of time, assuming the field is level. At a World Cup, strange things can happen that have nothing to do with quality. At every tournament, at least one team you wouldn’t have expected it to bubbles to the top.
If they were playing this thing on paper, Canada squeaks through into the first knockout round and is eliminated. And that’s only because it has the good fortune of playing Qatar, the international footballing equivalent of a bowling pin.
But they aren’t playing it on paper. They’re playing it in Canada in front of Canadians.
It’s been a long time since Canada held a tournament like this – one that spans the nation, and involves all of the best in the world. It hasn’t happened since Vancouver 2010.
It feels to me like this country has changed since then. Grown more jittery, and less sure of itself. As a result, it is falling back on sports for reassurance. You could feel that undercurrent of hopeful uncertainty during the 4 Nations, the Blue Jays’ run and the Milan Olympics.
Canada wants to believe it’s still a comer. Sports feels like the easiest way to prove that to ourselves.
That’s what Canada’s national men’s soccer team needs to tap in to. That feeling of needing this to work out, rather than wanting it to. It’s what drives the best soccer nations – many of them also deeply unsure that things will be okay. At the very top of any endeavour, it’s that frisson between ability and insecurity that drives the best.
Chuchu’s right. Canada’s not going to make the semis. But they wouldn’t have to get that far to give this country a great moment of sporting catharsis. If they do, every person Bassong stopped for on Monday will be able to say they were there, and they were part of it.