World Cup has been a humbling — but valuable — lesson for Canada's men's team
CBC
Chris Jones is in Qatar covering the men's World Cup for CBC Sports.
John Herdman, the head coach of the Canadian men's soccer team, has a different word for lessons. He calls them learnings.
There has been no shortage of them for his team, and for him, here in Qatar. Despite a miraculous run to qualify for their first men's World Cup since 1986, the Canadians discovered that there still exists an enormous gap between them and the best teams on Earth.
Entering Thursday's game against Morocco, they were already eliminated from contention for the round of 16. A narrow loss to Belgium and a brutal loss to Croatia had seen to that.
The game still mattered. The men had secured their first World Cup goal when Alphonso Davies scored 68 seconds into the Croatian game. Now they were after their first point, or, better yet, their first win.
They lost, 2-1. The Moroccans are going through from Group F. So, too, are the Croatians, after they eliminated the Belgians with a scoreless draw.
The Canadians will join them in going home.
Al Thumama Stadium felt like Canada's first true away ground in Qatar. Canadian supporters outnumbered the Belgians and had put up a quality counter to the Croatians. They were no match for the Moroccans, who travelled here in huge numbers and were as loud as engines.
They were also given more reason to cheer. In the fourth minute, Steven Vitoria pushed a poor ball back to goalkeeper Milan Borjan, who had to charge outside his box to meet it. He still had time to launch a clearance. Instead, he scuffed it straight to the dangerous feet of Hakim Ziyech, who lifted an easy lob into the empty net.
"It's tough, you know," Borjan said. "That just killed me."
Not quite 20 minutes later, the deep-lying Moroccans somehow scored another. Youssef En-Nesyri outraced Vitoria and Kamal Miller for a long ball and banged home a shot at Borjan's near post. The Canadian goalkeeper had worked so hard to be here. He was rewarded with a night to forget.
"Today wasn't my day," he said, "and I'm sorry about that to all the Canadian fans and to my teammates. But this is the bad part of the football. This is the part of the goalkeeper."
The Moroccans weren't done scoring — only this time, they angled one into their own net, off Sam Adekugbe's low cross late in the first half.
The own goal wasn't pretty, but it made things interesting, and in the second half, a trio of Canadian substitutes — including Jonathan David, who had been inexplicably benched — added some much-needed pride to the proceedings. They were much better.
