The Canadian national football team scored a massive 3-0 win over El Salvador in last Wednesday’s CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying match at the BMO Field.
This latest victory earned the team five points through three games, making them equal with Panama and just a level short of Mexico in the current CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers.
The match seemingly started as a game away from the Canadian team’s home turf. More than half of the almost 15,000 football fans in attendance were members of the local Salvadorian community residing in Toronto.
Jonathan Osorio, midfielder for Team Canada, related that the chants of the Salvadorians for their national squad drowned out the cheers for the Canada MNT before the game started. “It felt like an away game,” he shared.
However, just five minutes into the first half of the match, Atiba Hutchinson, the Canada MNT’s 38-year-old captain, launched an attack that resulted in a quick goal. This helped boost the confidence of the whole squad, which ultimately led to the 3-0 run.
Although older than most of his teammates, Hutchinson is still deemed a force to reckon with in the Canadian MNT. “Atiba, even at his age, he’s still playing, he’s playing well, he’s a leader on and off the field,” forward Jonathan David pointed out. “I was really happy for him to get that goal. When you put in the hard work, you always get rewarded.”
Team Canada’s 3-0 victory over El Salvador silenced critics who doubted the squad’s offensive capabilities. And that’s even without left-back and winger Alphonso Davies, who is presently recovering from injury after sustaining a blow in the team’s matchup with the Americans in Nashville, Tennessee, last Sunday.
When asked how their performance during the game was, team captain Atiba Hutchinson said they “didn’t really look back” after the first goal. “We did what we wanted to do early in the game, and things worked out in our favor,” he added.
During the post-game conference, Team Canada’s head coach John Herdman emphasized that “there was real growth” in the way his squad performed on the field.
“We shifted structure three-four times, and the players were seamless with it.”
