DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Whereas Canada is understandably disenchanted to be heading residence following the World Cup’s group stage, in a method the crew’s work is simply starting with an eye fixed towards 2026.The Canadians will flip their consideration to their preparation for the following World Cup, which they’ll co-host with america and Mexico. A part of that work shall be to construct a crew that goes deeper into the match.Canada performed in its first males’s World Cup in 36 years, and simply second total, in Qatar. A 1-0 loss to Belgium within the opener adopted by a 4-1 drubbing by Croatia scrubbed the Canadians’ probabilities of reaching the knockout spherical earlier than their ultimate Group F recreation in opposition to Morocco on Thursday. “This final recreation is about getting a outcome and successful for Canada, and actually making this nation imagine that we’re in the appropriate path for 2026,” coach John Herdman mentioned. Canada has ascended on the world stage within the 4 years since Herdman took over. In 2021 alone, the crew went from No. 72 within the FIFA rankings to No. 40. Due to that low rating, Canada needed to get by means of the 2 early rounds of CONCACAF qualifying, however it emerged atop the sphere forward of Mexico and the third-place United States, which each had byes to the ultimate spherical. Nonetheless, the very best finisher among the many North, Central and Caribbean nations was the second World Cup crew to be eradicated, becoming a member of host Qatar. Alphonso Davies salvaged the crew’s World Cup run by scoring Canada’s first-ever males’s World Cup objective in opposition to Croatia. Davies, who performs for Bayern Munich, is certainly one of a gaggle of Canadian gamers who’ve grabbed consideration internationally, together with high scorer Cyle Larin, who performs in Belgium for Membership Brugge and Jonathan David of Lille in France. A nation extra recognized for hockey, Canada invested closely in its soccer infrastructure heading into the 2015 Girls’s World Cup, which it hosted. Herdman led the house crew at that match and is the primary coach ever to guide each a males’s and ladies’s crew to a World Cup berth. The ladies’s aspect has flourished, led by Christine Sinclair, worldwide soccer’s most prolific scorer amongst males or ladies with 190 objectives. The Canadians, who gained gold on the Tokyo Olympics, will subsequent play on the Girls’s World Cup subsequent summer time in Australia and New Zealand. Impressed by a historic settlement for equal pay between the U.S. women and men and their federation, Canada’s gamers are at the moment in contract talks and searching for the same settlement with Canada Soccer. This previous summer time the boys requested for 40% of World Cup prize cash, a family and friends journey bundle and an “equitable construction with our ladies’s nationwide crew that shares the identical participant match charges, share of prize cash earned at our respective FIFA World Cups and the event of a ladies’s home league.”Canada’s ladies have mentioned they don’t take into account an equal share of prize cash as equal pay. The Individuals’ settlement splits pooled prize cash down the center after U.S. Soccer takes a minimize. Canada Soccer says there was progress within the negotiations and believes a resulution will come quickly. “Canada Soccer has been engaged in ongoing discussions with our nationwide groups, that are and have at all times been anchored on our values of equity and pay fairness — addressing beforehand unbalanced requirements,” the federation mentioned in a press release to The Related Press. ___
Canada heads residence from the World Cup with work to be finished
