Copa America is the chance for the Canadian men’s team to show why soccer matters

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On Thursday, seventy-some thousand came to Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium to see Lionel Messi. Canada was there, too.

Though Messi is theoretically on permanent tour through North America, tickets were running hot. Messi’s willingness to travel for Inter Miami CF seems dependent on a few variables – the flight, the weather, the turf, his astrologer. But he always shows up for Argentina. This was one of the few games you could be sure to see him.

Messi’s job was to be magical. Canada’s was not to make it too easy on him. Everybody did what they were supposed to and Argentina won 2-0. No surprises there.

For Canada, this was the beginning of a couple of eras.

The first is the Jesse Marsch era. He’s the new American manager of the Canadian men’s team.

Canadian soccer passed the hat around to come up with the money to hire Marsch. Only in this country could that be a nice story.

Marsch’s CV standout is that he’s coached in Germany and England. He didn’t succeed in either place, but that still makes him a soccer unicorn as far as the Canadian establishment is concerned.

What does the Marsch version of the Canadian team look like? Let’s call it a work in progress. In the Copa America opener against Messi, the ratio of well-coordinated Canadian moves to sudden eruptions of panic was running at about 1:2. That’s not Marsch’s fault. Yet.

The important thing now is that Canada can move to phase two – starting its World Cup host era the right way.

This should be easier than it’s going to be. Three years ago, people were champing to be seen as fans of the men’s team. Doing so made you an early adopter and an independent sports thinker.

It was a simple plan – Canada would go to Qatar, the players wouldn’t pooch it, they would come home cult heroes, and they would not make people regret wanting to like them. By the time the 2026 home World Cup rolled around, they would be the biggest thing going.

They did go to Qatar. They did pooch it. They made people regret wanting to like them. Whenever they’re in the news these days, it’s usually got something to do with money. Complaining about it or wondering why there isn’t more of it.

We get it. Athletes expect to be paid. But that doesn’t mean everybody wants to hear about it all the time.

The men’s team is not as activist as the women’s in this regard, which makes them look worse. At least the women are out there advocating for themselves. The men are usually coming in over a shoulder going, ‘Yeah, what she said.’

So instead of building on three years of growing popularity, the men have to reconvince people that they’re fun to be around. Just soccer talk, right? You’re not going to start ranting about the Canadian Soccer Business contract, are you? Promise?

The Copa America is their first and last chance to take care of the soccer part. North Americans have only just been invited to join, presumably so they can be roughed up by classier sides from South America.

Canada isn’t going to win this thing, or come anywhere close. But it would be good if it won a game. It would be really helpful if it made the knockout rounds.

It’s a big ask, but with two group matches remaining against Peru and Chile, it’s possible. Sort of.

If Canada does well, that’s a high that might be stretched out for the next two years. If it bombs out, that’s a problem.

Because what comes next is nothing. Canada is already qualified for 2026 by virtue of being co-host. This is its last chance to make a significant impression in games that people care about.

The next thing to factor in is logistics. Per the usual, the initial estimated cost of hosting a World Cup and the actual cost do not exist on the same plane of reality.

When the city of Toronto pitched this thing six years ago, it said it would it would put it back somewhere between $30- and $45-million. We’re up to $380-million now, and I guarantee that number will seem like chump change once the cheque hits the table. But for now, the actual cost is theoretical.

By 2026, the world will be hotter, gridlock will be worse and hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been spent fixing big-city quality-of-life problems is going to seem very real.

By the time the World Cup gets here, a sizable number of Torontonians and Vancouverites will be ready to fly to Europe on their own dime so they can burn down FIFA headquarters.

Every citizen of every city that’s been turned upside down and shaken by these diet-tea salesmen has felt like that. It is a pattern so predictable it could be used to forecast bird migration.

That’s the reality Canadian soccer should be thinking about now, rather than the one it has frittered away.

The way through is success. Not success that’s always one more tournament away. Success right now. Success you can mount a counterargument on the back of.

When Canadian sports and public funding converge, the result is often overdemanding and under-delivering. We have convinced ourselves that the only way to be good at anything is to spend huge amounts of cash on it. When it goes wrong, the solution is even more money. Maybe Own the Podium is to blame.

Whatever it is, the men’s soccer team has this chance to mitigate that problem. Win a couple of games, get back some goodwill in the process and maybe smooth the path toward an event a lot of people are going to hate on principle.

It’s that or keep doing what you’ve been doing, and prepare for 2026 to become a summer of rage.