Түүхэндээ анх удаа хэсгийн шат болон хасагдах шатанд хожил байгуулсан Канадын шигшээ баг 2030 оны Дэлхийн аваргад амжилтаа бататгахын тулд бүтцийн томоохон өөрчлөлтүүдийг хийх шаардлагатай байна.
Канадын хөлбөмбөгийн холбооны гүйцэтгэх захирал Кевин Блү даваа гарагт мэдэгдэхдээ, 2026 оны Дэлхийн аварга нь эцсийн зогсоол бус харин спортын хөгжлийг хурдасгах хөшүүрэг байсан гэдгийг онцоллоо. Тус холбоо ирэх намар шинэчилсэн стратеги төлөвлөгөөгөө боловсруулж, тоглогч хөгжүүлэх тогтолцоо болон үндэсний сургалтын төвийг байгуулахад гол анхаарлаа хандуулах юм. Энэ нь залуу авьяастнуудыг илрүүлэх, хос иргэншилтэй тоглогчдыг шигшээ багт татах үйл явцыг сайжруулахад чухал ач холбогдолтой юм.
Шигшээ багийн ахлах дасгалжуулагч Жесси Марш багийн залуу бүрэлдэхүүнийг ирэх тэмцээнүүдэд бэлтгэхэд гол үүрэг гүйцэтгэнэ. Тэрээр 2027 оны Алтан цомын тэмцээнийг 23 хүртэлх насны тоглогчдыг түлхүү тоглуулах боломж гэж үзэж байгаа бөгөөд ахмад тоглогчдоос залуу үе рүү шилжих үйл явцыг түргэтгэх шаардлагатай байна.
Тус улсын хөлбөмбөгийн холбоо “Canada Rising” хандивын аяны хүрээнд төлөвлөсөн санхүүгийн зорилтоо хугацаанаас нь өмнө биелүүлсэн нь дэд бүтэц, залуучуудын хөгжилд томоохон хөрөнгө оруулалт хийх боломжийг олгож байна. Мөн Канадын Премьер лигийн тоглогчдыг шигшээ багт татах нь ирээдүйн амжилтын нэгэн чухал нөөц болохыг мэргэжилтнүүд онцолж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Canada’s World Cup is over, but there is reason to believe that the future of the men’s national team and this sport domestically might be positive.
With Canada’s team having just finished a World Cup that included their first ever group stage and knockout round wins, let’s look at why this team could return to these heights at the 2030 World Cup and what steps Canada Soccer must take to ensure long-term success.
“The word legacy is used oftenas we have thought about the long-term strategy for not only our organization but our sport,” Canada Soccer CEO Kevin Blue said on Monday. “The World Cup in 2026 was always positioned to be a catalyst, not a finish line. And the legacy of this World Cup will come in many different forms.”
Young talents will improve… but more must be found
Many Canadian players who had unquestionably strong World Cups, albeit sometimes in limited minutes, were aged 25 or under: Luc de Fougerolles (20), IsmaëlKoné (24), Nathan Saliba (22), Promise David (25) and Niko Sigur (22) among them. Each feel likely to be starters at the next World Cup.
Moise Bombito is only 26 and would not let his broken leg, suffered in October, and then very few minutes before the tournament, get in the way of dogged World Cup performances.
The spine of Canada’s team is strong and gained necessary experience at this World Cup that should help them be more cunning and decisive in 2030. Yet even with some promising pieces that will likely factor into the 2030 World Cup team, Canada Soccer must increase their efforts to find and recruit players from around the world.
Consider De Fougerolles: he was one of Canada’s best players at the World Cup, yes. Yet he only fell in Canada’s lap after his father reached out to a Canada Soccer coach on LinkedIn and alerted him of his son’s eligibility to play for Canada.
Luc de Fougerolles was one of Canada’s best players at the World Cup (RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP via Getty Images)
In the increasingly-competitive world of international soccer, young players often have multiple options to consider for their development. It should not be a foregone conclusion that Canada can land the players they want to.
Canada could move on from the disappointing 2022 World Cup knowing that the likes of Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David, the two most talented players in the program’s history, would still very much be around in 2026. Now, Canada Soccer does not have young players with that kind of talent emerging just yet in Canada.
Maybe they will emerge over the next few years. Just as much, the organization needs to find them.
Consider that Canada took their time with any interest in Luka Kulenovic, a Canadian-born striker who ended up opting to represent Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national team. Kulenovic’s five goals in the Dutch top division for Heracles Almelo this season might have been a boon to a team that struggled to score at the World Cup.
And so there are two things Canada must do to ensure their core for 2030 is supplemented.
First, Canada Soccer must dedicate personnel and resources — far more than in the past — to finding and then recruiting dual nationals.
“Canada Soccer will, in the fall, start the process of preparing an updated strategic plan,“ Blue said. ”This will be a broad exercise that involves lots of consensus in building and input gathering. It will include not only some of the business side items, but also some continued refinements and strengthening for how the player development pathway is shaped and changed.“
Canada cannot let, say, Canadian-born Grady McDonnell head to Ireland’s senior team after making recent appearances for Ireland’s youth national teams. McDonnell became the third-youngest player in CPL history at 16 in 2024 before eventually signing with Nottingham Forest last month.
This is exactly the kind of player Marsch and Canada should elevate into the national team program — if possible — to determine his fit with the team.
Next, Canada’s coaching staff must quickly move on from veterans who will not factor into the team’s plans for 2030. In 2023, after Canada’s 2022 World Cup, Canada wasted valuable minutes on veterans like Milan Borjan in Nations League qualifying games that should have been allocated to their younger core. The more time Canada use immediately to usher in the next wave of talent, the better.
In doing so, Canada could use the 2027 Gold Cup almost exclusively for players under the age of 23 to provide valuable competitive minutes. There will still be opportunities to win a trophy with the 2027 Nations League and the 2029 Gold Cup.
Jesse Marsch is locked in
As many countries around the world begin their search for their next head coach to propel them towards the 2030 World Cup, Canada Soccer will likely breathe a sigh of relief: they have answered that question, with their head coach having re-signed before the World Cup.
If you’re Canada Soccer’s senior leadership, not only are you still likely pleased with Marsch’s results in the tournament, you feel buoyed in your decision to re-sign Marsch before the tournament. Canada now have a head coach who will continue to develop players in the style of play he wanted to see in 2026 and into 2030.
Marsch will be involved in the coaching staff for Canada’s under-20 team in their pursuit of Olympics qualification later this month. Developing young players is in his DNA. And the sooner Marsch gets a look at possible players who might replace many of the veteran players on his roster, the better.
Off the pitch, millions were exposed to Marsch’s oft-outrageous manner of speaking through the World Cup. With every passing game, Marsch’s braggadocio attracted largely negative headlines around the world. Canada’s head coach concluded his World Cup by stating that even after the 3-0 loss to Morocco, Canada were the “better team” and that despite Morocco moving on in the World Cup, he would “rather be us than them.”
While Marsch’s style isn’t for everyone, there’s no denying he has thrust Canada’s program towards more eyeballs around the world. People are paying attention to Canada in a way they did not in the past. Part of that — not a small part — is because of individual player performances. But Canada also entered the World Cup hoping to elevate their program in a way that fellow co-hosts, the United States and Mexico, did not necessarily have to.
Marsch’s swagger and the results he and the team produced took them into a new place. With Marsch still in row, Canada Soccer won’t have to re-draw the map to try and improve their place in the soccer world.
“I back Jesse,” Blue said, “And Jesse is backing the team and the players. I think sometimes the enthusiasm and emotion that is expressed by everybody, including Jesse, can be received out of context for media that aren’t necessarily fully up speed on the type of breakthrough that this tournament has been for Canada.”
World Cup momentum must be built on
The crowds at Canada watch parties and the television ratings for men’s national team games were unlike anything we’d ever seen. Canada won games, and it became cool to support the national team domestically at a World Cup in a new way.
Whether Canada Soccer as an organization can capitalize on newfound interest and keep soccer in mainstream sports culture remains to be seen.
Canada Soccer announced earlier this month that their Canada Rising campaign, their philanthropic initiative, was well ahead of their target for raising funds to support priorities across Canada’s soccer ecosystem, including “youth access and participation, coaching development, and enhanced high-performance environments for Canada’s senior and youth national teams.” The campaign had originally hoped to reach $25 million CAD ($17.6m USD) in fundraising before the end of 2027 but passed that mark midway through this year.
This is part of the evidence that CEO Kevin Blue’s focus on philanthropy could end up providing important resources to a national team that needs them. And that should, in turn, improve performances.
The surge in popularity of soccer in recent weeks is a big opportunity to grow the sport (Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
So while there is reason for optimism in Blue’s ability to create new revenue streams for the men’s national team, there is further investment in the sport to be made.
But investment in the sport beyond the national team is crucial for the infrastructure of the sport to grow. The Canadian Premier League must capitalize on the popularity of Canada’s World Cup run and market teams to local communities to ensure the league’s growth. And Canada Soccer must continue to consider players from the CPL in youth and senior national team camps.
Upon Canada’s return after the World Cup, midfielder Ali Ahmed called the CPL “a league of opportunity and hidden talent” and that there are “players who could be playing for us in the next World Cup” in the CPL.
There are players either in the CPL or that have recently graduated from the CPL who have the kind of raw talent that could propel them towards Canada’s next World Cup team. The quick and smooth 18-year-old central midfielder Emrick Fotsing is starting regularly for Vancouver FC. Shola Jimoh continues to show promise as a wiry 18-year-old attacker with Inter Toronto and has impressed Marsch in previous Canada camps. Sergei Kozlovskiy was a game-changer for Canada at the 2025 Under-17 World Cup as a solid centre-back and is a mainstay with Atletico Ottawa.
A national training centre is needed
The legacy projects from Canada’s co-hosting of the World Cup appear to be few. Only two teams chose to have their base camps in Canada: Panama and Canada themselves. There were originally plans for multiple new training sites for high-performance soccer, but only one, in Centennial Park in Toronto, was opened with the help of government funding. No real improvements to infrastructure were made because of the World Cup.
As intangible as it is, the true legacy of Canada co-hosting the World Cup might end up being the memories created from the team’s run to the round of 16.
That’s special enough, sure. And Canada’s team being en vogue domestically in the way other national teams have been — again, in Canada — is important.
But more Canada team jerseys being sold and larger attendance at watch parties will not lead to sustainable performances at the World Cup. If Canada Soccer want to ensure Canada can consistently compete at the highest level, they will focus their investment on a national training centre. Canada Soccer hope to have the request for proposals process completed in the fall.
A national training centre will ensure there is consistency in how youth national teams are being coached and taught. It will ensure Canadian teams have access to the same high quality of resources. It should ensure that there is synergy between youth national teams and the senior men’s national team, which could create a better pipeline of talent for the next World Cup.
Canada Soccer appear focused on ensuring a national training centre is built. That’s a good thing for the future of the sport. If that remains the top priority for the organization coming out of this summer, good results in 2030 and beyond should be the expectation of Canadian teams at future World Cups.
“We are aware of enthusiasm and significant interest from so many people around the country,” Blue said of the national training centre, “that we look forward to next steps.”
