Today is the official start to Canada's World Cup qualifiers for Brazil 2014. First up is St Lucia - population 170,000. England and France went to war 14 times over three centuries trying to claim the island as their own. This is the second round of qualifying for the nations who make up CONCACAF. Canada received a bye into the second round while St Lucia qualified by beating Aruba in a two game series. They were tied 6-6 after two games but St Lucia managed to squeak by on penalties 5-4. Their 3 best players play professional football in Trinidad and Tobago. Should be a walk, right? Well, welcome to Canadian World Cup qualifying - we never make anything easy.
Throughout the course of our World Cup journey I will try and complete a profile with each entry on staff and players. I have been with this group since 2008 when we were last bounced from WC qualification. Canada is coached by Stephen Hart. Stephen is from Trinidad and Tobago. He loves a good joke. Heck, he even loves a bad joke. The players adore him - mostly because they appreciate his calm, almost fatherly approach to management after the relatively grim and humorless helmsmenship of Holgier Osieck and Dale Mitchell - both old school coaches who expected players to show up and do their jobs (what? outrageous!)
Stephen was previously interim head coach of the Men's National Team. This is probably his last opportunity to coach at this level - he admitted on a recent away trip to Turkey that no one who takes on this job has a happy ending. Canada will try and change that observation starting today.
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