Morocco's Achraf Hakimi, left, will cause fits for Canada's defence in Saturday's World Cup round of 16 match.David Ramos/Getty Images
A few things come to mind after Morocco beat Netherlands on Monday night, thereby advancing to play Canada in the round of 16.
The game was a defensive chess match between two of the classiest sides in world football. By comparison, Canada-South Africa was the Ferndale Middle School checkers championship. Canada will have to be far crisper – as in, burnt charcoal black – to avoid being swamped by the best team in Africa.
Second, if Alphonso Davies doesn’t start in his usual spot, whomever deputizes for him will spend however long they’re on the field hanging off Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi like they are tied to a truck bumper.
Third, practise your penalties. We’ve had two games end that way as of this writing, and they’ve both been wild rides.
Everyone knew the next round would get harder for Canada. But until getting the unedited, 120-minute IMAX experience of Morocco, you could not appreciate how much.
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Statistics are no substitute for a feeling, but they capture the scope of the issue. Against South Africa – a team that’s nothing but rough edges – Canada made 298 accurate passes. That is to say, the ball ended up where it should, more or less.
Against Netherlands – a team that is close to technical perfection – Morocco made 801 accurate passes. Not only is it a lot more, it was a lot more as percentage of total passes (91 per cent vs. Canada’s 79 per cent).
You start spraying balls 10 feet wide of target against this team, and you will have a convoy coming back at you the other way. If Hakimi’s got the ball, don’t bother with the finesse. Just get your head down and put your facemask through his numbers.
If you are a Canada fan, all of that is concerning. However, the overall outlook is bright. Having already reached its minimum targets, this team now has a chance to finally prove something.
Canada goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau has helped create a never-before-felt joy around the men's national team, which is navigating the World Cup knockout round for the first time.Andre Penner/The Associated Press
It’s great that Canada has gotten this far in a World Cup. There are no flukes at this level. If there were, you would also have to accept that the losses can be flukes as well and then nobody’s responsible for anything they’ve done, good or bad. Ergo, none of it matters. Instead, we take it as a given that everyone ends up exactly where they deserve to be.
That said, Canada has been fantastically lucky. Like, go out, borrow money and buy lottery tickets. That’s how lucky they are right now.
The country is right to celebrate the position the team is in, but it ought not get so carried away that it believes we have trampolined into the soccer big time. The team’s performance has been fit for purpose, and not an iota better than that.
They tied Bosnia (who were blown away by Switzerland), wiped out Qatar (who were down two men for a lot of the game), lost to Switzerland (who couldn’t beat full-strength Qatar) and pulled one out late against South Africa (who were playing for penalties 30 seconds after the game started).
If it ended right now, before knowing the Morocco result, people who aren’t Canadian would say that it was a decent effort. Nothing special. Canada took advantage of its advantage, which was enormous.
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As it turns out, being co-hosts was more of a hand up than predicted, and it was predicted to be substantial. Even the order of play was advantageous. Picture where Canada’s heads would have been had it started with the fumble against the Swiss in their home opener, rather than the relative high of the comeback against Bosnia. And then, to face South Africa in the knockouts. Nobody got a better draw than Canada.
One imagines that part of Korea’s current frustration – the coach quit after being blasted by the country’s president – is that they would have been playing Canada next.
But Canada drew the cosmic straw and here it is. There are now three paths forward.
There is the path of losing with honour to Morocco. That would be okay. Say it’s 1-0 or, even better, 2-1.
Alistair Johnston and the Canadians fell 2-1 to Morocco in group play at the 2022 World Cup. Duplicating that score in Saturday's round of 16 match would be a feat, Cathal Kelly writes.Matthias Hangst/Getty Images
When the two teams played each other at World Cup 2022, that was the final score. The circumstances then were very different. It was the last tilt in Group F – in hindsight, that tournament’s Group of Death.
Canada was already eliminated. Morocco needed to win. It wasn’t a great game – a boner by the Canadian goalkeeper early on set the tone – but it wasn’t a walkover.
The big difference is that that was before Morocco became Morocco. Its transformation into a world power took place right after the Canada game, as it went on to knock out Spain and Portugal before falling to France.
If Canada duplicated that performance – minus the brain cramp in the first few minutes – people would say it was a good effort overall. Well played, Canada.
Then there is the path of getting blown out by Morocco. At that point, non-homers would write off the whole tournament. Canada lucked its way to a last 16. Unless they host again, that’s not happening twice. It’d be a hard charge to refute, and a bummer for the program. Best to avoid that.
And then there is the route of victory. I don’t know how this happens and neither, I suspect, does Jesse Marsch. The only thing that leaps to mind is Morocco looking past Canada and forgetting to show up. Because on paper, this match is already over. Excepting Davies, position by position, Morocco is better. Often by a considerable distance.
But unless you own a sports book, they don’t play games on paper. Anything is possible in all possible worlds. There is one somewhere where Canada puts on the show of its life, Morocco shows up directly from an all-night bender and the impossible becomes reality.
Were that to happen, it wouldn’t just be the biggest win in Canadian men’s soccer. It would rank up there with the greatest wins by a Canadian team in any sport, ever. Based on everything we’ve seen to this point, it would certainly be the most unlikely.