The Leagues Awaken

What’s Next for our Leagues and Teams

@AtletiOttawa/ Twitter

With the exceptional victory against Mexico on Tuesday, a fresh new era of Canada soccer is beginning to take form, and we absolutely love what it may do for soccer across the country. After two amazing goals from Cyle Larin against El Tri, the crazy atmosphere in the stadium despite it being snowing and -10 degrees, and the national support for our boys wearing our maple leaf, soccer is looking to be on the rise in Canada. Canada may finally be a footballing nation.

A lot of people look at this and immediately think of the great players our nation has on its side and the potential for both the 2022 and 2026 World Cup, but here at white whale mktg, we look at things from different perspectives. After Canada’s symbolic victory against a well-respected national team, things are looking positive for the future of Canadian soccer, our leagues especially.

In the future, we can see our nation’s youth looking up to players like Cyle Larin, Jonathan David, Alphonso Davies, and Tajon Buchanan, with the hopes of even being in their shoes one day. And now Canadians more than ever have the perfect opportunities to do so….. In Canada.

The Canadian Premier League played its inaugural season in 2019 and has since introduced 2 more teams into the league, with goals to introduce many many more in the coming years. What better way to inspire the youth of today and tomorrow to one day reach the international stage than to have a high-quality domestic league here in Canada. Canada’s symbolic win may even inspire the youth to dream of playing for CPL teams rather than leaving to play abroad. Having development and drafting leagues like League One, USL, and even USports to drive these players to the top of their game is going to create a lot of great talent for the national team.

In the next coming years, we hope to see a lot of shifts in the way players think about Canadian soccer. The next future stars aiming to play for the top teams in Canada, and hopefully for the national team one day. These leagues will start investing their time and money into Candain development in order to become a top footballing nation in the world, after already climbing the FIFA rankings drastically in the past few years. Leagues like USports and the CPL developing these young players to become some of the best players in the world such as Davies and David, both domestic and continental champions this past year.

Now, we may not be like the MLS just yet, but we’ve already seen teams like HFX wanderers put up intense fights against Canadian MLS teams in the Canadian Championship and even Hamilton Forge making it to the CONCACAF Champions League. It’s CRAZY. In only 2 years our brand new teams are amongst the best in the continent, playing for top honours each year. Imagine what it can be like in a few years’ time, with the best talent wanting to play for Canadian teams, and eventually our boys in red.

It’s going to be an exciting and interesting few years to come leading up to the Canada-US-Mexico World Cup in 2026. And if there’s one thing you can never do, is underestimate the power of Canadians.

Published: November 19, 2021 - Issue 14 of The Sport Marketeer