Will Canada learn from a total Gold Cup failure, or just keep talking a big game?

New York Times

4 hours ago

As Jesse Marsch was questioned on whether Canada's relentless style of play would work throughout the Gold Cup and what exactly his Plan B was if things went belly up, Canada's head coach did as he does. He punched back.
'Plan B is a typical question from English people,' Marsch replied to the English media member. 'As managers, we have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, all the way up to Plan double Z. So by trying to simplify us as one thing, I think it's a little bit insulting to me and to the team.'
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Marsch meant to inject his team with confidence. Seated beside him, defender Richie Laryea's prideful smile suggested it worked.
The problem?
As the Gold Cup played out, none of Marsch's plans worked nearly as well.
Canada crashed unceremoniously out of a second tournament in a row, this time with a humbling and embarrassing Gold Cup quarterfinal defeat to Guatemala on penalties Sunday in Minnesota. Canada has risen to 30th in the world according to FIFA's rankings, the highest in program history. You need to open a secondary page on FIFA's rankings site to find Guatemala, all the way down at 106.
Considering the end result – and it following a draw vs. 90th-ranked Curaçao and an unconvincing win over nine-man and 81st-ranked El Salvador – Canada's Gold Cup was an abject failure. Outside of performances from stars such as Jonathan David and Tajon Buchanan and the development of a small handful of young players, it's a failure that deserves to be worn by the entire organization.
Last year's Copa América run suggested Canada under Marsch was going to be different. One year later, it feels an awful lot like more of the same old Canada.
Marsch's men remain eager to prove they can hang with the world's best. Instead, outward displays of confidence were followed by poor game management, questionable squad use and repeated errors that would crush any tournament team. Forget the world's best. Canada struggled to navigate through Concacaf's middle of the pack. As a result, they raised questions about whether they're ready to contend at the World Cup.
For all of Marsch's unyielding public comments, the men's national team appears to have learned little from John Herdman's tournament-defining 'We're going to F- Croatia' remark in 2022. It's more of the same: too much emotion, not enough results. You can't continue to talk a game as big as the country itself, until the players show they're ready to follow suit on the pitch.
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Canada might be different under the current regime, but is it truly better off? Not yet. And right now, it's in danger of losing so much of the goodwill Marsch has built up over that past year. The approach has to be adjusted.
'I still felt really strongly that this was a really good group, and it was really important to develop more players with this team and see how far we can push it,' Marsch said.
The justifiable expectations of this team are far too high to cite individual player development as a reason for success in a tournament. These are expectations the team has invited.
'We want to win the World Cup,' Marsch said earlier in the month.
You can downplay results if the performances themselves were admirable. But strip away the veneer of development and growth? Canada hasn't put up commendable performances in games that truly matter in a year. They were lacking in cunning and experience with its game management against Mexico in the Nations League semifinals in March, going down a goal in the opening minute. Marsch made poor tactical and game-management choices against Guatemala. Individual errors from his players didn't help matters, either.
If Marsch wants to mold this team in his image, which so many coaches do, he has to understand that with relentlessness comes errors. Jacob Shaffelburg's two yellow cards weren't tactical in any sort. They were a byproduct of a player not knowing when to hit the gas and when to hit the brakes.
'Moments change matches, and the double yellow right before half obviously then changes the match. So it's frustrating. I don't think the first (yellow card) on Shaffelburg is a yellow. I agree with the second one, but not the first one,' Marsch said.
Marsch has taken aim at Concacaf and its officials plenty – he was suspended for the first two games of the Gold Cup as a result – and there may be validity to claims that Canada has not been treated historically with the same reverence as the region's two traditional powers, the U.S. and Mexico. But Concacaf alone cannot be blamed for Canada's failure to make a final in two tournaments over the course of three months. Accountability has to play a big part, and that comes with an honest look in the mirror.
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How Canada's players and coaches wear this failure will define the most important tournament in their lives next summer. Because if Marsch and Canada can't take a step back and re-evaluate how they approach tournament play, there's reason to suggest they might suffer an even more disappointing fate on home soil, on the biggest possible stage.
One of Marsch's priorities with this Canada team has been coaxing more braggadocio out of this team. That space, where you can only walk with your chest puffed out to the sky, is one that Marsch occupies. A 6-0 dismantling of Honduras in the opening match made it seem like they'd be able to maintain their strut throughout the Gold Cup. Yet Canada rarely looked convincing through the following three games. Marsch's tactical plan – no variations either – never took hold.
'I told the guys, we win as a team and we lose as a team, and we learn from it and we grow and we get better. And we are fixated on exactly what it's going to take to be successful next summer,' Marsch said.
It's the right message to deliver to the younger players in the group. But missing was Marsch's admission that he, too, has learning to do.
Though he might want otherwise, Marsch has made himself the face of this team. He named Alphonso Davies captain before Copa América, a questionable move considering Davies hadn't been captain for club or country since he exploded as a player in 2018. Marsch then named David, an even more reticent character, captain for the Gold Cup.
His goal was to transfer the balance of power to his players.
But Marsch's outward charisma and penchant for making headlines with controversial statements, well, makes headlines. From the outside, the most memorable moments of Canada's long month of June include Marsch alleging that Concacaf allowed his players to be poisoned and his dig at the U.S. by pointing out how he didn't have players asking out of the Gold Cup (all while the U.S. wrestled with Christian Pulisic's summer decision).
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What was missing from the headlines were Canadian results and the admission that learning has to be done. Canada deserves credit for dismantling Ukraine in a friendly, yes. Yet all month, Marsch did nothing to extricate himself from the center of the conversation. He hoped his players would take the ball and run with it. Without results, Marsch's efforts feel more like bluster than a damaging wind.
Come the World Cup, Marsch has to learn the balance between sticking up for his players in public and setting them up to do their own talking on the field.
As much as the greater Canadian public likely appreciate having a coach who can stand for his team, what will truly resonate next year is results. Canadians want to adore their national teams. The proof is in seeing local sports bars explode with joy when Canada's hockey team toppled the U.S. in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February.
Canadians will remember that uber-likable head coach Jon Cooper didn't utter his most famous line of the tournament and after Canada earned the gold medal.
'Canada needed a win,' Cooper said, 'and the players bared that on their shoulders.'
Cooper knew enough to let the results do the talking until he could follow suit. The Gold Cup proved Marsch has to approach the World Cup differently from a messaging standpoint. Otherwise, he and the federation could risk losing a nation desperate for its defining soccer moment to a global audience.
On the field, the Gold Cup revealed where Canada needs to be better: the goalkeeping debate is not over and Canada's center backs didn't look capable of locking down a must-win game. Canada's midfield duo didn't break games wide open late in the tournament and no forward proved beyond a doubt they are ready to start beside David.
Marsch has hard questions with a deadline to answer: June 12, 2026, the date of Canada's World Cup opener. But the questions Marsch will have to ask of himself will be the most pressing.
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His game management, heavy rotation and use of substitutions at key moments in the Gold Cup all fell short. Marsch wants his players to be more crafty and in control during games. He needs to do the same.
Whether using three forwards down a man and up a goal against Guatemala was part of his Plan B, C or D, it missed the mark on what the game demanded. Turning to Daniel Jebbison and Cyle Larin, both of whom have not looked in control of recent performances for Canada, to finish off a game suggests either Marsch was either out of options or didn't understand what the situation called for. It shouldn't have been trying to press forward when added defenders or midfielders might have sealed the win. There needs to be more to Marsch's team that just aggression.
Heavily rotating his team throughout the group stage was a means to better understand his depth. But it also meant very few players settled into their roles come the quarterfinal. In the end, Marsch and his depth were exposed. If that happens again in a year, nearly 10 years of gradual growth in the men's program will be for nought.
There's still time for change, even without a tournament between now and the World Cup. The pressure to land high-profile friendly opponents permeates throughout Canada Soccer, and facing Colombia in October fits the bill.
That's when Plans E, F and G, as it were, should be revealed. What those plans look like will determine whether this Gold Cup was a harbinger for change or the precursor for Canada's worst failure of all.