Canadian men’s national lteam coach John Herdman has made it something of a trademark to throw young players right into the mix. With six teenagers seeing the field in Canada’s 5-0 win over Dominica, it appears its steady on with that philosophy.

Almost out of nowhere, it seems, Ricketts sits just six goals back of Dwayne De Rosario’s all-time Canadian record of 22 goals.

There’s one game scheduled in September in Jamaica and with no World Cup qualifiers or Gold Cup games of any sort for years, the program will have to try and continue developing on friendlies.

A second-place finish in Group A to go with a no-fear sort of performance against both Costa Rica and Honduras will continue to stoke the still small hope that Canada is, indeed, heading in the right direction under head coach Octavio Zambrano.

“I think we’re going to make something of this Gold Cup,” said goalkeeper Milan Borjan, who, like many other players around him turned in an excellent performance. “With a new, amazing coach that gives the guys the confidence, gives the spirit for the games. It’s really good.”

Canada has been waiting on Alphonso Davies to get that Canadian passport for a while and now that he has it, he’ll already be heralded as the future of the Canadian program looking for a talisman.

As yet another Canadian men’s Under-20 cycle comes to a premature end, there is the little consolation that it ends on a high note.

Canada lost its second straight game at the 2017 CONCACAF U-20 Championship, this time humbled 5-0 by defending champions Mexico, a team that has not lost in this event since 2009.

There was no way that Canada’s men’s under-20 team was going to qualify for a first World Cup in a decade in its first game, but, after a 1-0 loss to Honduras on Friday night, the drought looks set to continue.

Jayson Leutwiler plays his professional soccer in England. He was born in Switzerland and played for that country’s junior national teams. But, years ago he decided he want to represent Canada at a senior-national-team level. Late in 2016, he finally got his chance to play for the Canadian side.