Canada has elite athletes in basketball, tennis and more: where are the elite men’s soccer players?

On a lot of levels, Canada would seem like a strong producer of top soccer talent. There's a massive population base (currently estimated at over 35 million, 37th in the world), huge numbers of registered soccer players (767,000 across the country, the most popular team sport), impressive numbers of fields and organized leagues, and even several high-level professional teams (although those aren't uniformly positive). Soccer success has been found on the women's side, too, with that team winning bronze at the 2012 Olympics and looking like a solid contender heading towards the home-soil 2015 Women's World Cup, and there, one of the key factors has been the emergence of superstar Christine Sinclair as one of the world's best players. That hasn't been repeated on the men's side: elite Canadian athletes are shining in sports from basketball (Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, Tristan Thompson and more) to tennis (Milos Raonic, Eugenie Bouchard) to winter Olympic sports to NFL football (Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, John Urschel et al), but we haven't really seen Canadian men becoming top-tier stars in soccer, and that's a big part of why the men's team hasn't made the World Cup since 1986 and is currently ranked 110th behind the likes of Latvia, Kenya and Ethopia. Why isn't Canada producing male soccer superstars?

Perhaps the largest part of the problem is one that isn't solvable; the depth of the field. Soccer is by far the world's most popular sport to play, and it doesn't have a lot of financial barriers to access (there are countless stories of soccer stars who grew up poor playing barefoot games in the streets), so there are far more people around the world attempting to become star soccer players than tennis, basketball or football players. For many of them, too, soccer is the only choice, which isn't the case in Canada; elite Canadian athletes have plenty of options. That depth of field may also enter into it when top Canadian athletes are choosing which sport to seriously pursue; while becoming a professional athlete in any sport is far from easy, there seems to be a simpler path there in most other sports.

In other sports, that path tends to be closer to home as well. While Canada's professional teams are developing some talent through their academies, it's the long-established academies of the rich European clubs that are really finding the top young talents from around the world and developing them. Some Canadians have followed that route and found success overseas, but that can be a more difficult sell than the path to the pros in other sports. Basketball, hockey, football and other sports can involve moving as a teenager, but usually that's to the U.S. or across Canada, not overseas. Now, this part of the problem is partly solvable; if Canadian academies and the Canadian national team programs continue to improve, it may well be possible for good Canadian players to stay closer to home. Developing world-class talents in Canada seems like a bit of a long shot at the moment, though.

Those far-flung paths to the pros also lead to another aspect of the problem; convincing top soccer talents to play for Canada. Many of the best soccer players with ties to Canada over the years have opted to suit up for another country on the international stage. Keeper Asmir Begovic, who's suited up for Stoke City in the Barclay's Premier League and will be playing for Bosnia and Herzegovina in this World Cup, was born overseas, but played for the Canadian team at many of the youth levels. Midfielder Jonathan de Guzman was born in Scarborough, but has chosen to represent the Netherlands internationally. Perhaps the best soccer player born in Canada in recent decades is Calgary's Owen Hargreaves, a midfielder who played for famed clubs such as Bayern Munich and Manchester United and shone for England in the 2006 World Cup. Nationality can be fluid in soccer, and the Canadian team hasn't always done a good job of convincing players that it's the right choice, as Begovic told Yahoo's Eoin O'Callaghan:

That element of the problem is at least partly fixable, and there have been solid steps taken on that front. The Canadian Soccer Association is in far better shape than it's been thanks to extensive reform efforts, and the national team's shown some progress under coach Benito Floro. It's still always going to be an uphill battle to convince top players to stick with Canada over powerhouses that are locks to qualify for the World Cup, but success breeds more success in that regard; if Canada can hang on to some top talents and start showing improved results, others will follow. Moreover, fluid nationalities can be a two-way street; the U.S. team's become much better thanks to their imports, and Canada may find some success on that front in coming years too.

Even more positive news comes from the way Canadian soccer has revamped its youth development structures recently, focusing more and more on teaching skill at the younger levels and not just winning games. This has led to some interesting moves, such as Ontario not keeping score in games for players under 12; while that's been blasted by some, the idea has worked well in prominent soccer countries, and it may help develop more well-rounded Canadian players. Better and better things are happening at the developmental levels across the country all the time, and that should certainly help in the quest to produce world-class Canadian players. The depth of field issues are unavoidable, though, so it's far from a sure thing that Canada will ever produce the soccer equivalent of an Andrew Wiggins or a Milos Raonic, and given the international issues involved, a talent like that might not even choose to suit up for Canada. It's not impossible that we could see a Canadian soccer superstar on the men's side, but for now at least, the odds are long.