But c’mon, this is Canada.
I’m Canadian (and have mostly come down from last night’s high, thank you) but since I root for an MLS team and like to talk about soccer online I am basically forcibly immersed in the Discourse surrounding the USMNT’s increasingly frequent embarassing defeats to non-Mexico teams in CONCACAF, so listen to me now and believe me later on when I say that the mindset leading anyone to write this sentence is the entire reason this keeps happening to you, because you consistently overrate your talent, underestimate your regional opponents, and undervalue regional tournaments, so that you can frame losing games like this entirely as a result of your own team’s and federation’s failings rather than, say, other teams being better than you expect.
A team with Christian Pulisic,
against a team with Alphonso Davies,
Weston McKennie,
Mark-Anthony Kaye or Sam Piette or Scott Arfield,
Josh Sargent,
Jonathan David,
and Jordan Morris
and Lucas Cavallini or Junior Hoilett or even ****ing Cyle Larin,
should have no problem dispatching the **** Canadians, let alone getting comprehensively beaten by a 2–0 scoreline that if anything flatters the USMNT.
should really have a more thorough understanding of their opposition and/or a more realistic view of themselves, or else no process changes or management changes will have any effect on whether they get outplayed by a team that actually takes the competition they’re in and the opponents they face seriously.