Canada head coach John Herdman speaks to the media at a press conference as the team prepares to play against Croatia during the World Cup in Doha, Qatar during on Nov. 26, 2022.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
The most up-to-date thinking on insults thrown ahead of sports contests is that they don’t mean much. If anything, they help the insulter, since it forces the insulted to answer a bunch of annoying questions about it.
After being told over and over again that nobody reads their own press (a terrible lie, no matter how often it’s repeated), we presume the athletes don’t care.
Then you go to Croatia’s presser ahead of Sunday’s World Cup match with Canada.
The insult repeatedly tossed out by Canadian coach John Herdman after a loss to Belgium – “we’re gonna eff Croatia” – is old news in Canada. But it feels like very current news to Croatia. They’re still writing op-eds and doing profane newspaper covers about it.
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For most of their presser, the Croatians – coach Zlatko Dalic and Tottenham Hotspur wing-back Ivan Perisic – spoke in vague terms about the match.
Dalic appeared to have one talking point: that Croatia had been lulled to sleep in their first match (a draw against Morocco) by the time of day.
“I attribute the lack of energy to the early scheduling of matches,” Dalic said. And then he said it again. And again.
This, and a planted question to Perisic from a FIFA reporter about the epoch-defining brilliance of the governing body’s new app, were the highlights.
None of the Croatian journalists on hand were inclined to ask about the controversy. They’ve been asking about it for three days. They’re asked out.
But when a Canadian reporter lobbed it up at him, Dalic was itching to answer. In the course of his more than 90-second response, he said the word “respect” a dozen times.
“The Croatian team deserves respect from everyone. We have proven that by the way we’ve played, and by our conduct. Since the very beginning, we have deserved respect and dignity. … This way of putting words together is not a sign of respect.”
The same question was turned over to Perisic. He’d spent most of the presser staring at the back of the room. Now, he searched the crowd for the heaviest concentration of Canadian reporters and fixed his eyes on them. The sort of grin that looks like it might become a snarl played at the corners of his mouth.
“I second the head coach and I cannot wait for the match to begin,” Perisic said.
Oh.
Maybe some players don’t care. This one – a veteran of three World Cups, including the 2018 final, and three European Championships – seems to care a lot.
Now we’re into the realm of psychology. What was Herdman thinking? Does Croatia actually care? Or are they pretending to care in order to make Canada think they care, which in turn might make Canada care?
There’s only way to place to find out if psychology works: the scoreboard, at the end of a game. This worked for the team that wins, ipso facto.
Until then, we can only say that this tiny international incident has had one objective effect.
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Four days ago, this was a game Canada could have lost, even lost badly, and emerged from with dignity intact.
Now they have put themselves in a position where they must show well. Another battling loss might do it, but Canada were also taking that off the table on Saturday.
Herdman and midfielder Stephen Eustaquio were asked to pick the favourite in Sunday night’s game.
They turned and stared at each other for a long time. Eustaquio chose to answer.
“That’s a hard question,” he said.
No. It’s not. On paper, that’s an easy question to answer. But please continue.
“Anything can happen” was as far as he’d take it.
You have to like Canada’s confidence. You have to admire the cheek. It’s catnip for reporters, at the very least.
But I’m wondering if Canada has fully thought out the implications of what they’re doing. This game against one of the best teams in the world is becoming a referendum on the state of the Canadian men’s football program. Canada is the team making that happen.
They’ve created a scenario with binary outcomes: They either win or draw and look like the Joe Namath calling his shot in the Super Bowl, or they lose and end up looking vaguely ridiculous. Like a bunch of jumped-up, indecorous pipsqueaks.
That was the message being sent by Dalic with his Steinian repetition of the word “respect:” don’t talk until you’ve walked. And then think hard about who you’re talking to.
Though Canada seems to believe they “shocked the world” against Belgium – defender Alistair Johnston’s term on Friday – they still lost.
It’s absolutely okay to talk yourself up to the stars and back. But probably best to do it into a mirror. Strutting around in public on a stage this big can have consequences.
Maybe this is a winning psychological ploy. Maybe by taking the Cortes route – burning the boats – Herdman is giving his crew only one option.
If they win, Herdman will be rightly celebrated as a mental tactician of the first rank. That must be the play. Otherwise, he really is just popping off for its own sake.
If they lose, then what? They were just kidding? “Hey, those guys over there called our bluff. We’ll get ‘em next time.”
That’s not how you do it at this level. Or, at least, it’s not how everyone else does it. Everyone else has been here an awful lot more of the past 36 years than Canada has.
We’ll find out on Sunday if everyone else is right.