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Goal.com interview with Will Johnson


sstackho

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I like to see this - a player taking responsibility rather than blaming the coach or the CSA (although there is plenty of blame to go around!)

"Goal.com: Switching gears a little bit, let's talk about your time with the Canadian national team. When you're playing for Canada how different is your role versus when you're playing with Salt Lake?

Johnson: It's kind of funny. My role from Salt Lake is becoming my role with the Canadian national team. Whatever I'm asked to do I'll do it to the best of my ability. At the end of the day I want to be a guy who is dependable on, who, every time he's called up, he honors the call-up and puts on the jersey and plays with pride and passion.

In the past there's been too may times with Canadian camps and players where it's been treated more as a vacation away from their clubs, and that mentality's gone. We're starting to change that. It's a job; it's an honor to represent our country. The results over the past decade have just been poor. It needs to be turned around, and I want to be a guy who can be counted upon to turn that around.

Goal.com: On that subject, it's been 31 years since Canada qualified for a World Cup. What do you think has been the issue and what's it going to take to break out of that funk and get back on the world stage?

Johnson: I think a few things I just touched upon - guys haven't been taking it as seriously as it needs to be. Obviously there’s been a lot of things with not having enough games, ut that seems to have changed over the past couple of years. We've had a lot of games, and we seem to be heading in the right direction. Time will tell, but to not qualify for the last six World Cups is completely unacceptable. We've got to compete with the top teams in the region and at least get ourselves in a position to qualify, which we haven’t done the last two times."

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Goal.com: On that subject, it's been 31 years since Canada qualified for a World Cup. What do you think has been the issue and what's it going to take to break out of that funk and get back on the world stage?

The 1980 World Cup was the best World Cup we ever played. At least we didn't allow a goal.

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