Canada's Tani Oluwaseyi leaps over a challenge from Tunisia's Omar Rekik during their friendly game in Toronto on Tuesday.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The most basic challenge of a World Cup host is party management. You’ve invited all the neighbours over. It’s on you to create a fun vibe.
You do that by winning. There is nothing worse on the ground than a sports tournament where the host nation is bombing.
Brazil 2014 was a great example. Brazil thought it was winning it, right up until Germany bent it over in the semis and gave it a historic paddling.
The tournament continued for another week, but Brazil was done with it. The only place you’d have known the final was happening was inside the stadium.
Canada won’t win the upcoming World Cup. Its benchmark for success is the first knockout round. That’s two-and-a-half weeks in – as long as an Olympics. If the team can manage that, this will be an achievement. If not, it’s a bust. There is no middle ground.
Canada’s World Cup opener against Bosnia to cost a pretty penny
Since it’s Canada, our excuses come front-loaded. This one is hurt and that one hasn’t been playing much and there are no gimmes. The good news is that after this week, Canada is already out of excuses.
On one level, it’s a bummer that Canada’s opening game in Toronto won’t feature Italy. That would have been the most-watched sports event to take place in this country by miles and miles.
Half the stadium might have showed up for the Italians, but that’s good atmosphere. You want a little to and fro. Had Canada won that game, the World Cup would have been on. We’re talking Summit Series-level frenzy.
Instead, we get Bosnia, followed by Qatar, followed by Switzerland.
You’ve heard of the Group of Death. This is the Group of Coma – probably the weakest ever at a World Cup. If you’re neither from one of the involved countries nor a compulsive completist, there’s no reason to watch any of this.
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It’s a scandal that FIFA has let the World Cup become this watered down. How many games in the first round do you have circled as must-sees for the neutral? Three? Four? And none of those matter all that much since all the teams involved are nearly guaranteed advancement.
The first two weeks of this thing will be an extended vibe check. The news around the tournament will catch more traction than the tournament itself. All it’s going to take is one ICE raid at one pre-game tailgate and soccer becomes a secondary concern. Then it’s a free-for-all.
It’s bad for purists, but it’s great for Canada.
Has any host ever been under less pressure to perform, against less formidable opposition, with an easier path to advancement? No chance.
Qatar was terrible at the last World Cup, which it played host to. It was so terrible that Qataris didn’t even bother pretending to care how their national team did. That’s a special sort of humiliation.
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Among other mediocrities who’ve played host to the World Cup in the modern era (Russia, South Africa, the United States), there was an intense pressure to outperform themselves. None have.
The big hitters (Germany, Italy, Spain) are expected to win, end of. France is the only host nation to manage it in 40 years.
Of the three hosts at this outing, Canada benefits from the lowest expectations. Everyone’s waiting for the U.S. to implode, in part because it has been doing that for a couple of years, and in part because people hope Donald Trump is on hand and forced to watch it.
Mexico is constantly on the cusp of breaking out. It has never gotten past a quarter final. That is the floor for it now, and probably won’t happen.
And what’s Canada’s expectation? That it wins a game. Never done that before. Never even tied a game. If they score two goals, people will go bonkers. Two goals in one game? Cancel all leaves.
Canada won’t underestimate ‘tough’ Bosnia and Herzegovina in World Cup opener
The schedule is lined up perfectly for it. The ‘tweener game against Bosnia is first. This is where the Canadian team decide what it’s going to be – good, or just okay.
If it beats Bosnia, the whole of the country will jump on the bandwagon. If it loses manfully, people will give it the benefit of the doubt. If it loses badly, there’s always Qatar.
Qatar is the key. Canada has to win that game. If it does what it should, Canada will in all likelihood squeak into the knockouts as a third-place qualifier.
The toughest game – against Switzerland – comes last. On paper, Canada should lose this one. But if both teams have already qualified before kickoff, weird things could happen.
All this to say that Canada – a country so used to feeling hard done by when it comes to international anything – has been dealt a straight flush.
Any advantage can be squandered, but to do so here would be a truly ambitious cock-up.
With that in mind, it’s time to start applying pressure.
There is no point in playing host to something like this if it doesn’t come with basic expectations. The Canadian team doesn’t owe the country any specific result, but it does owe it at least two-and-a-half weeks of good times. Maybe give everybody the fleeting impression that anything is possible. Kid us, if you have to. Then go out in a blaze of glory against the Netherlands. That would be a sports summer for the ages.
It is more than in Canada’s power to do. It should be approached as a minimum requirement. If it manages that and gets one stage farther than the U.S., this will have been more than money and time well spent. It’ll be a national coup.