For most of the 25 years since the last time Canada’s men’s soccer team hosted the United States in World Cup qualifying, fans north of the border dreamed of what they saw Sunday.
Sure, the Canucks had already ended a 39-year losing streak to their brash southern neighbors, in 2019 in the Concacaf Nations League. But World Cup qualifying games are the biggest of all, and Canada hadn’t reached the final round from 1997 until now.
On Sunday, a gathering of around 12,000 home fans in Hamilton, Ontario, finally got to truly let it out. Cyle Larin set the crowd at Tim Hortons Field alight with a seventh-minute goal, and Sam Adekugbe sealed the 2-0 win with a breakaway goal on the game’s last play.
It didn’t matter that the U.S. outshot Canada 7-2 in the first half and 13-8 overall, including a Weston McKennie header in the 42nd minute that Milan Borjan saved off his crossbar. Borjan came up big again to deny Brenden Aaronson’s low drive in the 59th.
And that shots advantage didn’t matter for the U.S. either, because starting striker Gyasi Zardes was even more ineffective than Jesús Ferreira was in Thursday’s win over El Salvador. Zardes registered just one attempt in 69 minutes.
“It’s hard for me to remember a performance away from home this dominant without getting a result,” U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter said after the game, a remark that drew instant scorn from social and traditional media alike.
He was also scorned for waiting until well after the hour mark to make any substitutions. When the time came in the 69th minute, it was a triple-move: Ricardo Pepi for Zardes, Jordan Morris for and Kellyn Acosta for Tyler Adams, who had taken a seat on the field after getting banged up. Berhalter said after the game that he believed Adams suffered “a slight hamstring strain.”
Chris Richards also was sidelined for the final minutes by a foot injury that left the U.S. a man down, having already used all its substitutions.
Pepi contributed more than Zardes, including springing Christian Pulisic for a sharp cross that Borjan caught in the 75th. Right after that, Paul Arriola replaced Yunus Musah and Reggie Cannon replaced Sergiño Dest to add more firepower.
There were times when the U.S. played good soccer, and there were times when it played boring soccer. But there were only rarely times when the U.S. truly threatened: McKennie’s header, Aaronson’s shot, and Arriola’s wild bicycle kick attempt in the 87th minute that didn’t miss by much.
A Pulisic long-range free kick in the 92nd minute was the last attempt, and Borjan easily saved it.
The good news is that the U.S. (5-2-3, 18 points) didn’t really need to win, or even to tie this game to qualify for the World Cup. Thursday’s home game against last-place Honduras, to be played in arctic conditions in St. Paul, Minn., has always been a must-win.
But the lack of American scoring punch is a problem. Of the team’s 13 goals through 10 games so far, just three have been scored by strikers, with none since Pepi’s pair against Jamaica on Oct. 7.
“We know that generally we create chances for our striker [in a 4-3-3 setup] with our game model, and we believe that we have quality guys that can finish them off,” Berhalter said. “To me, it’s not an issue. … We look at the whole team, how we’re moving, how we’re moving the ball, and how we’re getting into dangerous areas.”
He might not think it’s an issue right now, but lots of other people disagree with him. And none of the strikers on the current U.S. squad — specially Zardes — look capable of fixing the problem.
Canada, meanwhile, looks more than ever like the continent’s best team right now. Manager John Herdman, who has long stirred the pot with rhetoric aimed toward the U.S. — toward the women when he coached Canada’s women’s team, and now toward the men — has real results in his favor. He roared to the crowd behind his bench at the final whistle.
Borjan dropped to his knees to exult, and other players formed a celebratory pile.
Their team, not Mexico or the U.S., is on track to be Concacaf’s first to book a ticket to the World Cup in Qatar.
