Anyone that has followed the Canadian women's program over the years understands that things often don't go as smoothly as you might hope.
One needs only to think back four years. That wasn't the best time in the program as a lot of long standing issues boiled over. There was talk of strikes if the program wasn't given "equatable" funding to the men. Head coach Caroline Morace was threatening to leave and the team's senior players weren't happy about it.
It was a difficult time to cover the team as there were a lot of voices trying to use you to get a message out. What the truth was was difficult to determine.
What wasn't hard to understand was that there were real divides in the program and that those divides were hurting the team's performance. A year later we learned just how badly they were hurting the team when it meekly went out of the World Cup with an 0-3 record. Although they don't actually rank teams that fail to advance from the group, it became popular to point out that Canada had finished "in last place" in Germany.
Morace quit, likely before the final game of the World Cup had even been played. It was ugly.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
That ugliness is mostly forgotten today based on the bronze medal run at the Olympics.
That run has created a lot of new fans of the program that aren't even aware of the past problems, and has allowed older fans to overlook the history based on their faith with new coach John Herdman.
As hosts of the 2015 World Cup Canadians have little choice but to trust Herdman. The amount if faith placed on him caused panic attacks amongst the faithful when the England job came available a while back. Herdman eventually extended his contract with the CSA based largely on that panic and on the bronze run.
There is a lot to like about Herdman. He's one of the most prepared coaches I've ever dealt with and he articulates his philosophy very well.
Additionally, the bronze medal can never be taken away from the women. The question is whether we can reasonably expect such a performance to be repeated. I don't think the coaching staff thinks so, which is why a lot of the focus has been on bringing in young reinforcements over the past two years -- another place Herdman deserves credit.
But, it would be a mistake not to keep a critical eye on a program that has had problems in the past. Problems that have happened with the same women in the same leadership roles they are currently in.
Last month I was told of conflict within the women's camp. It was much of the same issues I heard about in the lead up to 2011. Some players feeling that they were out of the loop when it comes to being part of the preferred generation, players feeling pressured to play club football in certain places and trepidation about leaving their club teams for an extended period of time for a residential camp leading into the World Cup (and whether the CSA will properly insure their contracts while participating in that camp).
Oh, and money. The women I spoke with claimed to have not been paid for their participation in the most recent camp. Needless to say this caused hard feelings.
The money issue is one that will not go away. Many women feel under appreciated by the CSA and will continue to feel that way until they are more consistently compensated.
However, putting that to the side for a moment the more worrisome issue is the extended camp. As I reported on The Equalizer last month, the CSA plans to keep its players away from their clubs for the majority of the NWSL season next year. That decision is based on a feeling that the technical side of the NWSL is not up to standards. That's upset a lot of Americans involved in the league, but upset Yanks is not really our concern.
The players killing each other is.
Again.
No team, no matter how "together" the present publicly, is going to survive an extended camp in isolation without conflicts -- both real and imagined -- popping up. From what has come out after the fact, infighting was a major issue in the 2011 camps. That begs the question:
Why are we doing it again?
It's here that we are asked to trust Herdman. Certainly he prepared the team well in the lead up to London, but that doesn't mean we should blindly believe the 2015 plan is in the team's best interest. We need to make sure it's the right plan, not hope it is.
For too long those in Canadian soccer were allowed to operate without critique. As much as we want to blindly trust Herdman we can't. If we want to sport to thrive we must constantly demand accountability.
That's especially the case with a program that's about to host a World Cup.
This post was made during the site's 48-hour blogging marathon. We are attempting to raise funds to keep the site running through to the end of 2015 (and hopefully beyond).
We are 25 percent of the way to our goal of $2,400.
There are four ways to donate.
1) You can send an EMT to CSNDonation@gmail.com
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