Doneil Henry controls the ball against the United States during their World Cup qualifying match at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 5, 2021.Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
As far as preparations go, being waived by your team four months before the start of the World Cup is some way short of optimal.
It’s certainly not something that Sergio Ramos, Rio Ferdinand or Fabio Cannavaro were faced with.
But if Doneil Henry is to follow in the footsteps of the legendary centre backs he grew up idolizing as a boy in front of his TV in Brampton, Ont., it was something he had to endure. That the Canadian defender was cut by Los Angeles Football Club in July to clear an international roster spot for another iconic defender – Giorgio Chiellini – came as little consolation.
“It’s been a nightmare year for myself,” he says now. “The only thing that has kept me going is knowing that I’m a part of something so big and so, it’s my dreams. We’re talking about the World Cup.”
Henry made just five appearances, and two starts, for the eventual MLS Cup champions before he was waived at the start of July, with a mixture of injuries and competition for places conspiring to deny him playing time. But having played in five of the 14 final-round World Cup qualification games – which included captaining his country during the goalless draw in Jamaica just over a year ago – the 29-year-old has proved himself to be a vital part of manager John Herdman’s Canada squad.
“I understand the business,” Henry says. “They needed international roster spots for the players that they brought in. I’m a Canadian in America. I’m [taking up an international roster spot], we had six centre backs. I get the business. I had probably the worst blow of everything that happened and just trying to figure out how to handle the situation.”
Thankfully for both player and country, the team with which Henry first made his name as a gangly teenager more than a decade ago – Toronto FC – stepped forward with a six-month contract offer to ensure the defender had regular playing time leading up to this month’s World Cup in Qatar.
From the TFC supporters’ standpoint, the season was a mess, with the team unable to transform what was easily the highest wage bill in Major League Soccer into one of the 14 playoffs spots on offer in a 28-team league. But from Henry’s point of view, it was exactly what he needed, giving him six more MLS appearances and a chance to train with purpose on a daily basis.
“Even though my time here was short-lived and it hasn’t been a good season for the club,” he says, “this is a club that I love.”
Like every other Canadian international who was playing in MLS this past season, Henry is now in Bahrain for a training camp for non-European-based players, with the team playing a friendly against Bahrain on Friday. That game represents the final chance for anyone to press their case for one of the 26 places in Herdman’s World Cup squad, which will be announced on Sunday.
Though Henry admits that everyone is “fighting for a spot,” his importance to the team was ratcheted up a couple of notches when another Canadian centre back, Scott Kennedy, suffered a shoulder injury last month playing for Germany’s SSV Jahn Regensburg, which will put him on the shelf until 2023.
Kennedy will be missed, he says, but adds that no one’s place in the squad is guaranteed, a message that Herdman had relayed to his players going into this current training camp.
“The most important thing is, he said, make sure that you are in a good place going into this camp to make sure that if called upon, I can do the job that he needs me to do,” Henry says. “And that’s exactly what I wanted to do for my country.”
Henry was the first TFC academy player to sign for the first team back in 2010. His return to Canada’s original MLS team this past season brings his career full circle, albeit closing the gap on a peripatetic career that has taken him to England, Cyprus, Denmark and South Korea, where he spent two years playing for Suwon Samsung Bluewings in the K League.
On the plus side, should Henry be chosen for the Canada World Cup squad this weekend, living out of a suitcase should hold few fears for him.
“It’s made me more independent,” he says of being away from home. “It’s made me be able to be more of a thinker. I’ve spent a lot of time alone so I’ve gotten really comfortable or been able to have a conversation with myself about what the game’s brought me. But I’m tired of travelling, to be honest.”
That fatigue reached its apex in South Korea, when Henry would make journeys of anywhere between 14 and 36 hours to represent Canada while plying his trade in Asia.
And the pandemic only made things worse.
“I took a very difficult path,” he says. “You have to stay inside for two weeks before you can go outside and engage in team training or anything. So with me travelling to the national team and going back to Korea, I missed a lot of football.”
But with Canada’s long journey back to the World Cup now down to 12 days and counting until its opening game against Belgium, Henry will find out Sunday if all the hardships were worth it.