Johnston confident CanMNT can ‘go from impossible to possible’ at World Cup

It’s all starting to become real for Alistair Johnston.

A whirlwind two years has seen the 24-year-old Vancouver-born right-back go from uncapped prospect to key contributor to Canada’s CONCACAF qualifying campaign to about to take the pitch at the World Cup in Qatar.

“You know, I still kinda have to pinch myself to think that not only am I going to the World Cup, but Canada is going to the World Cup,” Johnston told TSN.ca. “It really is just that unbelievable. It’s great because whenever I’m in a bad mood, I’m like, ‘How can I be in a bad mood, man? I’m actually going to a World Cup at the end of this year.’ It’s hard to really put into terms how big it is and even still to this day…it still hasn’t really sunk in yet. I think it will, hopefully, when I get over there and think, ‘Wow, we’re about to play Belgium.’”

Having never represented Canada before at any level, Johnston was called up to the senior men’s team camp for the first time in January of 2021. What he saw there was a group of players good enough to compete among the world’s best. But what Johnston also found was a CanMNT unburdened by expectations of any kind of success thanks to years of underperformance. Canada’s lone World Cup appearance came at Mexico 1986, a tournament so far back in the rearview mirror that all but two Canada players weren’t even born at the time. Things were about to change under manager John Herdman.

“When I got into the group, I looked around and I couldn’t believe the amount of talent we had here and the lack of expectation there was for the program,” Johnston said. “When we got to the Octagon, people were saying, ‘Wow, it’s a great qualification that they even made it this far’ because we hadn’t in a couple of decades. And that just shows how difficult it is in CONCACAF, but you look around that room with the amount of talent we have, especially with guys coming into form and really growing into their roles with another year under their belt with John, it’s been just so special. He’s an unbelievable coach and just has everyone pulling in the same direction. Having all that, when I got into the locker room, I thought, ‘This team is special. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be going to a World Cup.’”

Because of the pandemic, qualifying was condensed in such a way that despite it being only 22 months since his first cap, Johnston now has 28 appearances under his belt. The intensified fixture schedule also helped foster belief within the team that this group of players was truly on the precipice of something special.

“When we got to the Octagon, that final stage of World Cup qualifying, we had a goal of finishing first,” Johnston said. “If you told anyone from outside of our group that, they would have been laughing. ‘Yeah, okay. Good luck. You’re going to beat the U.S. and Mexico for the top? Maybe just focus on winning a game first.’ Within our group, though, there was never a snicker or someone going, ‘Oh, that doesn’t seem realistic.’ Everyone had truly bought in and believed in it. So that’s kinda how we’re seeing the World Cup now. If we just keep doing what we’re doing and keep elevating and getting that one per-cent better every day, in every category that we can, we have a real chance to do something really special and that’s never been done before.”

It’s that kind of camaraderie amongst the players in the squad that Johnston has tried to help instil in those who have entered the national setup after him, like CF Montreal teammates defender Joel Waterman and midfielder Ismaël Koné by paying forward the support that he received.

“I remember how guys treated me when I first got into the program and it was with open arms,” Johnston said. “It wasn’t, ‘Oh, this guy might be taking away potential minutes or something from me,’ it was, ‘Wow, this guy can help us. How can we help him feel like he’s a part of this group?’ That’s kinda what everyone does that’s the inner Canadian in us. That’s what’s been really special about this group. You sometimes forget that, but we are all Canadian and we all have really good hearts and morals. It’s a special group in terms of that aspect and it’s just about trying to get everybody on the same page as quickly as possible and to feel as comfortable as possible so that you can go out there and perform at your best because if we get everyone on our roster performing their best possible, the peak of their powers, then there’s a lot of things that go from impossible to possible for us.”

Leading the way for Canada is its captain, talisman and longest-serving team member in Brampton, Ont.’s Atiba Hutchinson. The 39-year-old midfielder made his first club appearance for the season for Besiktas last week and played 70 minutes after being sidelined with a bone bruise. After it appeared that he might cruelly miss out on Qatar following his years of service to what had often been a moribund program, the captain should be headed to the World Cup. Should he see game action in Qatar, Hutchinson will become the oldest ever player to make his World Cup debut. Johnston says that Hutchinson embodies what the CanMNT is all about.

“If you need any extra motivation as a player, you just look over at Atiba and it’s all there for you,” Johnston said. “He is the ultimate, consummate professional. He’s just the perfect representation of what it means to be Canadian. He’s just unbelievably humble, hardworking, selfless…he’s everything you [ask] for in a leader. And he’s one of those guys that when he walks into a room, the air kinda just changes. There’s an aura to him. He just has that kind of presence. He’s just a really special individual. It doesn’t matter if you’ve only been with the program for a day or for 10 years, you feel like you can have a conversation with him. More important than just a footballer, he’s a great man, a great friend and father. And I’m just really lucky to know him. So this is the perfect swansong to an unbelievable Canadian career that he’s had. To be able to get to a World Cup for him is really special and there’s no one who deserves to be on the world’s biggest stage than him.”

But the closeness of this Canada squad has its downside. Because Canada doesn’t have the elite player pool that the likes of an England or France or Brazil does, Herdman picked from the same group of players for the duration of qualifying and will do so again with his final roster on Sunday. While this has built bonds, it means that when a fellow CanMNT member misses out on the World Cup through injury, like the ones in the past several days to defender Scott Kennedy (shoulder) and goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau (leg), or simply through roster consideration (squads are limited to 26 players), it stings teammates even harder.

“It’s an unfortunate reality of the business,” Johnston said. “The reality of sport is that there are only so many seats on the plane. And it’s tough because there have been so many guys who have put in so much hard work, time and effort into this journey and not just in this qualification cycle, but in laying the groundwork in previous cycles to get us to where we are now. There are a lot of guys who have done some really selfless work, so it’s tough that not everybody is going to get rewarded with the main goal of going to a World Cup.”

The injuries to Kennedy and Crepeau also demonstrated just how quickly your dream can die.

“I can only imagine what [they’re] going through,” Johnston said. “You’ve worked so hard and it’s your childhood dream to go and represent your country at a World Cup. You were a massive part of getting it there and then at the last possible moment, it’s all just ripped away from you. We understand that, unfortunately, that’s part of the reality of it and it’s happening all over the world with all other teams, as well. It’s the harsh reality of sport. We’ve just got to take it, roll with the punches and knock on wood that we can stay as fit as possible because that could be an X-factor.”

Learning to roll with the punches is something Canada experienced firsthand at the end of September in a friendly against South American powerhouse Uruguay. While the United States and Mexico have offered stiff tests in CONCACAF qualifying and Gold Cups in recent years, the match was this Canada group’s first experience against one of world football’s bluebloods led by the legendary Luis Suarez, Liverpool hitman Darwin Nunez and Real Madrid midfielder Federico Valverde. A beautiful free-kick goal from River Plate’s Nicolas de la Cruz in the sixth minute and another from Nunez in the 33rd gave La Celeste a comfortable 2-0 victory.

Johnston says the match provided a teachable moment ahead of World Cup matches with the star-studded Red Devils, Croatia and Morocco.

“It really opened our eyes to what a Tier 1 opponent can do if you don’t come out of the blocks hot, if you don’t come out ready to match their intensity,” Johnston said. “You can be down 2-0 [quickly]. And I think that’s kinda the difference between CONCACAF and these top teams: these top, top teams in the world don’t even need a chance, not even a half-chance, but just a little morsel of hope and they can bury you there. So that’s what [we] learned, that if we don’t come out of the gates hot and flying, you can be down 2-0 and when you’re playing against a team that has that much quality and is able to defend their box that well, if you go down 2-0, that’s a death wish. We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot like that.”

Still, Johnston says the game also showed that Canada belongs.

“We also learned we can play with these teams,” Johnston said. “That’s what that second half showed. From about the 30th minute on, I thought we were really good on the ball. If you told me two years ago that we were going to lead Uruguay in possession in a match, I’d have said, ‘Get out of town.’ And, of course, possession isn’t what wins the game, but it’s something that gave us confidence. It’s something that we can look back on and go, ‘Look, we can play with these teams.’ At the end of the day, the pitch is still the same size. It’s still 11v11. The ball is still round. They’re not aliens. It kinda really put all of that into perspective for us.”

Uruguay, then, provided the blueprint for the kind of balancing act required for Canada in Qatar. Fearlessness must be tempered by respect for very high-calibre opposition.

“You can’t be naïve, but at the same time, you want to use a little bit of naivety to your benefit – ‘This moment didn’t get too big for us because we almost didn’t know what we were doing,’” Johnston said. “We want to go to the World Cup and show our brand of football. We’re not going to go there to bunker in and sit back because that’s not what Canada is all about. We’re going to be a country and a team that goes out and shows our stripes, come out flying and come out fighting because that’s what we think best represents us and best represents this country. But when you play with fire, you can get burned by it, so it’s going to be about us at the back really making sure that we’re locked in on those moments of transition and we don’t like things get out of hand like it did with Uruguay, for example. They just had a couple of chances and, boom, two goals in the back of your net. That’s kinda where we’re at. We’re trying to find that balance but, at the same time, we want to be aggressive, we want to be a front-foot team and we want to be a team to make people go, ‘Yeah, that Canada team was special. They didn’t come here and just enjoy the experience. They came here to win, to play.’”

It’s with that mindset, Johnston says, Canada will approach its first World Cup in 36 long years. The odds might be long, but all it takes is one spark to light the fuse.

“For us, it’s about making new history and we’re not gonna set a limit on ourselves,” Johnston said. “We just want to go out there and set a lot of firsts. We want to be the first Canadian team to score a goal at a World Cup, the first Canadian team to pick up a point, the first Canadian team to get a win and I think as you slowly chip away at those, before you know it, you might have just advanced out of your group by doing that. And then after that, it’s a single-elimination knockout. It snowballs and with how this tournament is set up, being in the middle of the year for European [leagues], it’s very different. You might see a tournament where things are a little bit different. Maybe there are some underdogs who make deeper runs, or multiple underdogs, because it’s such a different tournament – the first time in the Middle East, the first time in the middle of the season – and these kinds of things can play a factor. We’re just going to be ready for whatever opportunity comes our way. We’re going to be very opportunistic, I’d say, and just leave it out there and whatever happens, happens, but we just want to be proud of whatever we put out there.”

That first chance to make history comes on Nov. 23 against Belgium at 1:45 p.m. ET.