Fasten your seatbelts, folks. The Canadian men's national team is about two weeks away from embarking on perhaps its busiest summer campaign ever, if all goes to plan. June and July of 2021 have been circled in bright red pen for months, but until now they've felt more like nebulous future events constantly situated on the distant horizon. Not anymore. Two weeks from now, Canada will be back for World Cup qualifying action against Aruba, to officially set sail on a few months that could dictate the course of this national team program for years. If things go as ideally as possible (unlikely, but we can dream), Canada could play 10 highly competitive games between now and August 1. Of course, that's contingent on a deep Gold Cup run, but it's not at all out of the question. If things go really well for Canada, they'll have an incredibly busy autumn as well. In all, this is just how busy the next couple months could really get for Canada (matches not guaranteed are marked with a *):
- June 5: Canada vs. Aruba, World Cup Qualifying First Round
- June 8: Canada vs. Suriname, World Cup Qualifying First Round
- *June 12: Canada vs. Group E Winner, World Cup Qualifying Second Round (Leg 1)
- *June 15: Canada vs. Group E Winner, World Cup Qualifying Second Round (Leg 2)
- July 11: Canada vs. Martinique, Gold Cup Group Stage
- July 15: Canada vs. preliminary match 7 winner, Gold Cup Group Stage
- July 18: Canada vs. USA, Gold Cup Group Stage
- *July 24/25: Gold Cup quarter-final
- *July 29: Gold Cup semi-final
- *August 1: Gold Cup final
Continue reading...