3 CB options that could look to stake a starting claim for the CanMNT under Jesse Marsch
Mauro Biello’s legacy from his stint as interim manager of the Canadian men's national team might very well be more about the players he left behind than the ones he opted to include. One of those players he phased out was Steven Vitória, who made Canada wait a long time for his services, but who stepped up when he was needed most in World Cup Qualifying.
His absence has left Canada scrambling for one of those strong defensive stalwarts that seem impossible to come by.
Here are three names that come to mind when we consider CB’s who might feature prominently in the leadup to 2026.
Derek Cornelius
Cornelius has lingered around CanMNT starting XIs for longer than he'd probably like. He was left back to mingle with the Under-23s at the beginning of the 2022 World Cup qualifying cycle, and though he dutifully accepted every call, he was generally John Herdman’s spare CB during the qualification process.
You can attribute some part of that to the level of play he fought through. The Vancouver Whitecaps didn’t protect him for Austin FC’s expansion draft, and he was subsequently loaned out to Panetolikos FC in Greece.
It was here, well under the radar, that he found his form and earned his move to Malmo FF, where he hasn’t looked back. One Allsvenskan championship later, and he’s already being linked to high-profile moves in the Eredivisie.
When you’re dealing with national team players plying their trade in inaccessible zones of coverage, it’s best to break out of the Twitter hype cycle and read a little local sports journalism. Google Translate is your friend!
I was downright skeptical of those links to Ajax and Feyenoord when I first saw them – and I still am. You have to admit, it’s a strange route to take to a club of that caliber. Allsvenskan analyst Dennis Liljeberg helped me see the light a little in a piece where he dubs Cornelius a ‘Defensive Colossus.’
In short, Cornelius has the fundamentals down pat. Alongside former Sweden international Pontus Jansson, he’s stonewalling opposition attackers, winning 80 percent of his ground duels and 70 percent of his aerial duels; but, if you watched the CanMNT's ugly 4-1 defeat to Japan in October, you might not be surprised to learn that his distribution leaves a little to be desired. Malmo are a big fish in a small fjord - that he can’t seem to pick out his passes with a team that so thoroughly dominates possession should be troubling if these links have any basis in reality.
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If we’re going to be ultra charitable, Cornelius was forced into unfamiliar positions in his two starts for Canada under Biello. In Japan, he was stuck in the middle between two diminutive defensive partners in Kamal Miller and Alistair Johnston. In that equally disastrous second leg of Nations League against Jamaica, Biello played him on his off side.
With the quality he's shown this season in contrast to Miller's struggles with Portland, and with Scott Kennedy injured by default, Cornelius is near inarguably in Jesse Marsch’s best XI... particularly if paired with one other player who might accentuate his best qualities.
Moise Bombito
No, it’s not just cause his name is awfully fun to say – particularly when MLS commentators try to put a Spanish tinge on it. Instead, Bombito's shout here is because he's actually been really, really good this year. And we really, desperately needed a young CB to be really, really good this year.
Approaching a year ago now, and to the astonishment of many, Herdman brought Bombito to the Gold Cup… and deployed him as a defensive midfielder, where he never once played in college. It may go down as one of the shrewdest tactical decisions of Herdman’s tenure.
But when you look at the guys Herdman was willing to bring in before they really made their mark at the club level – guys like Alistair Johnston and Ismael Kone, and now, Bombito – you have to acknowledge, he had a knack for spotting young talent.
If you haven’t heard, Bombito is fast. Like really bloody fast.
Fastest players in #MLS in 2024:
— Ben Wright (@benwright) May 24, 2024
1) Moise Bombito 🇨🇦, Colorado (23.16 mph)
2) Jacob Shaffelburg 🇨🇦, Nashville (22.78 mph)
3) Alenís Vargas 🇭🇳, Sporting KC (22.69 mph)
4) Alvas Powell 🇯🇲, Cincinnati (22.66 mph)
5) Sang Bin Jeong 🇰🇷, Minnesota (22.64 mph) pic.twitter.com/RTIfhtiQNp
That’s 37 km per hour, which is faster than any Alphonso Davies speed ever recorded in the Bundesliga. It isn’t very fair how casually we churn these guys out, eh? Far be it from me to tell Canada Soccer what to do, but if there’s no foot race in the next Training Uncut? We riot.
It did take him some time to adjust - despite his 6’3 stature, he was poor in the air last season - that’s all changed in 2024. Like Cornelius, his defensive metrics look pretty good, even if he is a little error prone.
As a ball progressor, he’s sort of a strange case. This is, perhaps, what Herdman saw on the training ground - he love love loves hoofing the ball forward, aiming nowhere in particular. It’s probably why that experiment to slot him in at fullback last season failed.
Though the Rapids have looked less than impressive as a defensive unit as of late, you’d be hard pressed to say Bombito hasn’t been our best centre-back in MLS this season. Armas basically said it himself: With that sort of pace, at his size, you wouldn’t bet on him staying in the league for long.
Colorado haven’t tried it, but if Marsch intends to stick with a back three, Bombito absolutely deserves a chance in the middle. It would give him every opportunity to showcase his pace and aerial prowess while lightening the load on his distribution.
Kyle Hiebert
Call It What You Want hosts Jimmy Conrad and Charlie Davies didn’t mince words in their interview with Jesse Marsch – they called Canada’s centre-back depth "the weakest part” of the national team when they asked about Marsch's lineup plans.
Marsch, predictably, wasn’t so keen to throw his new backline under the bus. One of the first names he brought up is someone who hasn’t been involved with the senior team since March of last year - that’s St. Louis City’s Kyle Hiebert. Hiebert is a difficult case to analyze for a few reasons.
For one, we don’t have a lot of data to pour over: The man was grinding it out in MLS Next Pro two years ago while playing chess and working as an accountant. The data we do have is skewed by Bradley Carnell not knowing where to play him - his defensive actions are inflated and deflated in different places by virtue of playing fullback half the time.
For that reason, we’re gonna stick to this season, where he’s almost exclusively played CB:
His aerial duels are probably the most notable improvement. Hiebert is Kamal Miller-sized at a flat 6 ft, but he and Joakim Nilsson have been the more aggressive CBs next to the taller but relatively uninvolved Tim Parker. Hiebert is very willing to get up in the air and he’s done a good job at it too. It's the same story on the ground - Hiebert is tenacious and quite willing to commit to his challenges before the opponent even has a chance to enter the final third.
Have you heard this one before though? It’s the passing that hasn’t been up to snuff - and it’s why Hiebert shouldn’t be a fullback for club or country. Sometimes, the diminutive CB is still a CB. He makes up for his size a heck of a lot better than he makes up for his relative lack of pace.
And that’s probably what Hiebert is - a good depth option on a good MLS team who warrants a place on the edge of the CanMNT.
Conclusion:
You might’ve noticed a bit of a trend here. In Cornelius, Bombito and Hiebert, we have three CBs who have a place on the road to 2026. They’re all very good at doing things centre-backs ought to do. They’ll fight the other team’s big mean guys in the air, and they’ll get you the ball back more times than not.
None of them, though, are distributors. And though it will be fun to see new guys getting opportunities with the national team, we probably haven’t seen the end of Joel Waterman and Kamal Miller, who, in a word, are better at progressing the ball into the next third.
