If Nothing Else, Canada Win Levels Playing Field

Sir Bobby Charlton, the legendary England goal scorer, was there to pass out some trophies. Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, also was on hand, successfully resisting the urge to lean into the microphone to proclaim, “The future of football is Canadian.”

More conspicuous at Sunday’s Gold Cup final at the Coliseum, however, were those invitees who failed to show:

The Mexican national team.

The U.S. national team.

Eighty thousand or so flag-and-umbrella toting local soccer aficionados.

Not much of a party without them. The game went on, in front of an announced audience of 6,197, leaving who, again, to play for the soccer championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean?

Colombia, which, last time we checked, has yet to be annexed from South America?

Against Canada, which began this tournament ranked 85th in world soccer, just below Togo, but, to look on the bright side, a full notch above Namibia?

Chuck Blazer, secretary general of The Football Confederation, formerly known as CONCACAF, sat in the Coliseum press box, staring down at the empty seats, watching the final minutes tick away on a tournament that had spent the last two weeks stacking sandbags against bad weather and attendance-killing upsets.

More than a few dark clouds hovered overhead.

Blazer tried hard to convince himself each was merely an escort for the silver lining.

“This tournament has shown that this region is not just Mexico and the United States,” Blazer said. “That’s one of the issues we’ve been dealing with as a region--that we should have more than three representatives in the World Cup.

“The critics have always come back at us with, ‘We know the one, we know the two, but the three?’ In the past, the third team has always been interchangeable. And they’ve said that three teams for us is enough.

“But this tournament has showcased the level of depth we know we have. Canada in the final, Trinidad and Tobago in the semis, Honduras. It shows we deserve more spots in the World Cup.”

Easier selling that to FIFA than a final-four field of Canada, Trinidad, Colombia and Peru to a Southern California fan base uninterested in no-name neutrals. If announced totals are to be believed, combined attendance for the three most important games in Gold Cup 2000--the two semifinals and the final--was less than 13,000.

Blazer admits to the sinking feeling that accompanied the quarterfinal results last weekend--also known as Black Saturday and Even Worse Sunday--when, one-by-one, the United States, Honduras, Costa Rica and, finally, Mexico were eliminated.

“It wasn’t ‘Oh my God’--it was ‘Oh my.’ The exclamation fell short of a superlative,” Blazer quipped. “We are operating in a market that is essentially Latin-based, and suddenly, those teams are gone.

“But, eventually, I could look at it clearly and see the benefits of it. Certainly, our World Cup qualifying matches are going to be much more interesting. There are no longer games you can take for granted.”

It was a lesson the reigning power class learned the hard way.

“The United States lost to Colombia on penalties, putting on a demonstration that looked more like a [Major League Soccer] shootout than penalties,” Blazer said. “It showed that you can’t take anything for granted. Same for Mexico, which had several players play in the Copa Libertadores instead of the Gold Cup. That’s the decision they made. Next time, they might decide to do it differently.”

Certainly, the United States and Mexico never will look at a qualifying match against Canada the same way. If Trinidad can ever get strikers Dwight Yorke and Stern John together, fit at the same time, on the field at the same time, the Caribbean no longer will be Jamaica’s alone to own.

Add a young and attacking Honduras side to the mix, throw in the usual suspects--Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala--and suddenly, the odds on the United States advancing to the 2002 World Cup look a good deal longer than they did two weeks ago.

Of course, had Canada not scored its 2-0 victory Sunday, had the Little Red Machine instead lost to the “guest team” from Colombia, this Gold Cup would have been tougher to spin.

For The Football Confederation, handing its championship trophy to Colombia would be admitting that the fourth- or fifth-best team in South America is better than anything this region has to offer.

“I’m rooting for our team,” Blazer said as the second half began. “This is the one time I can be partisan. And I’m rooting the hell out of it.”

He wasn’t alone--there were a total of seven Canadian flags spotted inside the Coliseum. But it was close.