Don Garber, 2010: “we will drive the increased quality and success of the Canadian national team.”
Canada Soccer, 2014: “an embarrassingly low 122nd” in the FIFA rankings.
I harp on US Soccer and MLS quite a bit, but at least we’re not Canadian Soccer. They are getting screwed by the North American soccer monopoly.
Canada actually climbed to an all-time high of 40th in the world rankings in December 1996 before collapsing over time to an embarrassingly low 122nd in August 2014.
You know when MLS began, right? Yep, 1996.
But there were no Canadian MLS franchises until 2007, so certainly MLS is not the cause of Canadian soccer troubles?
What’s that? Oh right, correlation is not causation, it’s just a funny sad “coincidence” that Canadian soccer has taken a nosedive congruent with the “rise” of MLS. And here we thought MLS was going to be the tide to lift all Canuck boats.
Right Don Garber? You foresaw the MLS/Canada symbiosis back in 2010:
“There’s no question that part of the success of the U.S. national team can be attributed to the growth and increased quality of play in Major League Soccer,” said Garber. “And we hope, and I know that the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) and our Canadian teams hope, that with three first division professional teams, we will be able to drive the increased quality and ultimately the success of the Canadian national team. I don’t want to make a prediction, but I do believe that in time, Canada will regularly compete for one of those World Cup qualification spots for our region. And it will be because of the success of the three teams in Canada and the growth and increased quality of competition in Major League Soccer.”
Whoops. Hasn’t really worked out has it?
Oh. Well, at least the Canadian franchises “can deliver value to corporations“, if not to Canadian soccer.
