{"id":762276,"date":"2026-06-26T10:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/762276\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:58:11","slug":"with-davies-decoy-claim-canada-soccer-still-cant-get-out-of-its-own-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/762276\/","title":{"rendered":"With Davies decoy claim, Canada Soccer still can\u2019t get out of its own way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada head coach Jesse Marsch told reporters on Wednesday that he didn’t play Alphonso Davies in his team’s loss to Switzerland because he used him as a decoy.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The problem with press conferences is that you can do a million of them well, and all anyone will remember is a slice of just one of them that you got wrong. <\/p>\n

Canada head coach Jesse Marsch had one of those moments after Canada lost on Wednesday to Switzerland. <\/p>\n

He\u2019d said beforehand that injured star Alphonso Davies was ready to go. Not to start, maybe. But Marsch said he\u2019d appear at some point: \u201cI\u2019d expect him to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies did not play. He didn\u2019t even properly warm up. Canada lost. <\/p>\n

Afterward, Marsch slipped Freudianly as he tried to slide by that part: \u201cTo be honest, he wasn\u2019t really ready yet. I was using him a little bit as a decoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: Ten disastrous minutes derail Canada’s easy path forward at the World Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

Someone wouldn\u2019t let him off the hook so easy \u2013 Why\u2019d you do that?<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I wanted Switzerland to have to think about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think it worked?\u201d<\/p>\n

That was when you could see it in Marsch\u2019s eyes \u2013 the confused stare of a person in charge when finally confronted by someone who isn\u2019t being paid to agree with them. Marsch\u2019s reflexive, irritated shrug in response said more than his subsequent (unconvincing) explanation. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Marsch’s decoy ploy didn’t seem to impact the Swiss, who scored a pair of goals early in the second half on Wednesday to win their group, with Canada finishing second.Sydney Shankman\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

This sort of reaction was common in the early days of the drone scandal at the Paris Olympics, before it spiralled. It\u2019s a different program and different circumstance \u2013 to say nothing of an entirely different moral proposition \u2013 but the two things are of a piece. <\/p>\n

For reasons that are obscure, soccer in Canada has a problem with thinking way too hard about things that don\u2019t matter in the least. It\u2019s an affliction common to all high-level sports, but our national soccer has it real bad. <\/p>\n

If the women\u2019s soccer team had been caught putting low doses of ketamine in opposing teams\u2019 water bottles, people would have understood that. They wouldn\u2019t have loved it, but it would have made sense. You were doing something that pretty much guaranteed you would win. <\/p>\n

If you were caught, it would read like a properly villainous caper. It might have made some Canadians secretly proud.<\/p>\n

Instead, the women\u2019s team cheated in the stupidest, most ineffectual way possible. They took the trouble of bringing a drone from home, risked flying it in the most secure airspace in any country not actively at war and, for all that trouble, were able to figure out who was taking the corner kicks. <\/p>\n

Canada fans optimistic after heartbreaking 2-1 loss to Switzerland<\/a><\/p>\n

You can get that from a drone. Or you could\u2019ve bought a BeIn Sports cable package and watched the last few games. No villain would come up this. Not unless she was high on her own ketamine supply. <\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s reaction to the drone scandal wasn\u2019t outrage. It was disappointment. Just before the world economy flipped on us, we were beginning to grasp why there\u2019s no growth in this country \u2013 a worrying lack of vision. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no single fix to a culture problem, but the patch for soccer was pretty simple. Don\u2019t break the rules in a fashion that embarrasses the people who help fund your budget, and get out of your own way. <\/p>\n

As far as we know, Canada has solved the first part of that challenge. The second eludes us. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Marsch isn\u2019t Canadian, but he has us pretty well figured. We are a nation of explainers. Nothing that goes wrong was wrong, because there was a reason to do it. That the reason was flawed does not stop it from being a reason, which I will now explain to you very slowly, like you are a small child or a smart dog. If you still don\u2019t get it, then \u2013 shrug \u2013 I guess that\u2019s on you if you want to get hysterical. <\/p>\n

This inability of sports figures to say the honest thing \u2013 \u2018Yeah, that was silly and it\u2019s on me\u2019 \u2013 is an old problem gone turbo in the digital age. In the past, blame was fleeting because nothing you said was recorded and then stored in a publicly accessible virtual space where anybody with a phone can find it instantly.<\/p>\n

You made the mistake. You put your hand up. At worst, it would be in the papers for a day. Then it was over.<\/p>\n

Now that it\u2019s forever, no coach, or politician, or any sort of public figure can bring themselves to admit wrong in the moment. They won\u2019t do that until the thing spirals \u2013 a la the drone scandal \u2013 and everyone realizes they\u2019re getting fired or worse.<\/p>\n

As a result, everybody\u2019s gripping the controller like they\u2019re trying to snap it in half. You can\u2019t just stick a team\/policy\/Christmas ad out there and hope for the best. You must, at all costs, avoid blame. You do that by turning simple decisions into advanced game theory. <\/p>\n

Canada braces for \u2018track meet\u2019 with South Africa in round of 32<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a sports team, you hire a whole bunch of people to do jobs one person is more than capable of handling. You get all these superfluous people in a room and spend hours going over things that shouldn\u2019t need going over. <\/p>\n

You stumble out of that room a little light-headed, but with a plan \u2013 we will deceive the Swiss into thinking Alphonso Davies will play at some indeterminate point. <\/p>\n

And this has got you where exactly? What\u2019s the upside? That Davies \u2013 one of the most famous footballers in the world, whom several players on the Swiss team routinely face in the Bundesliga \u2013 appears and everybody wearing a white cross goes, \u201cWho the hell is this?\u201d It\u2019s juvenile. <\/p>\n

Hours after Thursday\u2019s game, I was walking back to the hotel. The street was still thronged with fans. The Swiss coach, Murat Yakin, walked past with some friends. His hair really is that incredible. <\/p>\n

He was waving his hands around, telling a story. It didn\u2019t appear that he was compulsively refreshing a page on his phone, trying to figure out if Algeria will play Mohamed Amoura in the next match. Because Yakin isn\u2019t Canadian. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Marsch has fixed the Davies problem. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe will be ready next match,\u201d Marsch said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s the double-double cross, or what?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Canada head coach Jesse Marsch told reporters on Wednesday that he didn’t play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[263469,9335,43,44,2922,41,39,42,40,8023],"class_list":["post-762276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2026worldcupcanada","tag-aud-url","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-noastack","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-topstory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}