Assuming he makes Canada's starting 11, Mark-Anthony Kaye will likely match up against Belgium's Kevin De Bruyne.COLE BURSTON/The Canadian Press
Like so many other soccer-crazed kids across the planet, Mark-Anthony Kaye’s first memories of the World Cup involved the iconic team that wears canary-yellow shirts and blue shorts.
With Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo on board, that 2002 Brazilian national team was a “dominant” outfit, Kaye said, and stormed through the tournament in South Korea and Japan to capture the country’s fifth, and most recent, world championship.
Though Kaye was just seven at the time, it also served as a crash course in the realities of World Cup heartbreak, as his own team of choice – England – was sent packing by the Brazilians in a memorable quarter-final.
Twenty years on, Kaye has a chance to see where he himself stacks up against the current pantheon of soccer-playing greats, beginning next Wednesday when Canada meets the world’s No. 2 team, Belgium, in their Group F opener in Ahmad bin Ali Stadium.
Given Kaye’s role as a defensive midfielder, the match also meets pitting wits with Kevin De Bruyne, arguably the most creative force in European soccer at the moment. The Belgian playmaker, who finished third in the recent Ballon d’Or voting, has nine assists in 14 games for Manchester City this season, three more than the next closest player.
While some players might shrink from that defensive assignment, the Toronto FC midfielder certainly won’t be undone by a lack of enthusiasm, assuming he makes the starting 11.
“Oh yeah, you’d be foaming at the mouth for that opportunity,” the 27-year-old said. “You want experiences like that. You want challenges like that. I would give everything to be in that moment.”
It can be argued that Kaye was undone for an excess of enthusiasm earlier this year in the qualification campaign. With Canada needing just a win in Costa Rica to secure its World Cup spot, the midfielder accrued two yellow cards inside of 33 minutes, earning his first red card for his country.
While controlled aggression has been a hallmark of Canada’s return to respectability as a soccer country, with John Herdman instilling a steeliness in his squad that translates into a refusal to be bullied, the bright lights of the World Cup are no time to for ill discipline.
Kaye, who has had only one red card in 117 games in Major League Soccer, says that Herdman is constantly pushing his team to evolve.
“I don’t think that’s on anyone’s mind,” Kaye said of team discipline. “And I think the big thing that John has spoken to us about is that what has gotten us here to this point won’t get us to the next point. So we all know, we need to step up and really bring another level to our game.”
Besides, he adds, negotiating some tough road trips in getting through the CONCACAF qualifying rounds has put this team through the wringer. Whatever happens in Qatar, it would have to be something truly out of the ordinary to rock the foundation that this squad has painstakingly built, brick by brick, over the four years since Herdman took over the program.
“The biggest thing is how close we are as a team,” Kaye said. “I think there were different games throughout the qualifying that were challenging but they never really fazed us and we really just stuck together to get it done. So I’m excited to go into a World Cup with those guys because I know they’ll have my back and I’ll have theirs.”