How the CanMNT can use Gold Cup to refine tactical identity: "We have to be the aggressors"
It’s a unique balance.
For the CanMNT, the next few weeks are going to be quite busy, as they tackle the beginning of the 2025 Gold Cup, starting with their opening match vs. Honduras at BC Place on Tuesday.
Usually, Canada would have a simple goal in a tournament like this - to win it all. For a team that hasn’t won a major tournament in 25 years, there is pressure on this team to snap that drought. That’s been something they’ve embraced, even if they’re not going to outright call themselves the favourites.
At the same time, a lot of their focus will also be dominated by a simple reality - the World Cup is now less than a year away, meaning that every day Canada spends together pushes them closer to that tournament. All of a sudden, every training session and game takes on new meaning, as they’ll start to become in short supply as next summer gets closer.
Because of that, Canada knows that while their focus is on ensuring they lift the Gold Cup trophy at the beginning of July, it’s important that they make the most of the journey there. Sometimes, as a team, you can get caught up in survival mode in these tournament settings, which is natural, but not necessarily what this Canadian team needs, especially in the early stages of this Gold Cup.
“When I look at the potential of where we can be in a year, with all the names you can write on the board and all of the quality that we would have in our depth, you start to get excited about the possibilities of what we can create,” Canada’s head coach, Jesse Marsch, said last week, as he outlined his team’s long-term plan. “With each of them, if they’re at step 47 out of 100 on any given day, we're trying to get them to step 48, and then once we get to 48, it's not like, ‘great job guys’, no, it’s getting to step 49, and that's what my job has been with this team, meeting those demands to push their development.”
Gold Cup favourites? 🏆#CanMNT 🇨🇦 head coach Jesse Marsch and star Jonathan David aren't paying any attention to that label 🙂↔️ pic.twitter.com/7MTr8NRn5t
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) June 16, 2025
For Canada, it does help that they experienced what survival mode can look like at a tournament during last summer’s Copa América, where they made a run to the semi-finals, with each game they played embodying what grinding through a top-level tournament can look like.
As a result, survival mode in this Gold Cup will likely only come when they play teams like Mexico and the US, who surely stand in the way of a potential triumph - certainly that would be fitting as the only time Canada has ever beaten either of them at this tournament came in 2000, when they beat Mexico en route to their lone Gold Cup title to date (and last major tournament honour they’ve claimed). Along with the struggles that they’ve had with beating the US and Mexico in other big tournament games, such as the Nations League, they know that to become kings of this tournament, they’ll have to get through them.
Until that potential matchup against the US or Mexico comes, however, Canada will feel a lot more confident in their ability to handle the other games in this tournament - that’s where they’re at as a team, as their last year has shown. Because of that, these early games vs. Honduras, Curaçao and El Salvador will instead be about further developing Canada’s burgeoning identity as a team, as well as solidifying their overall game plan.
ON LOCATION 📍@AlexGangueRuzic checks in with Jesse Marsch, on the competition for places within the #CanMNT 🇨🇦 squad as the team's depth increases in options & quality – and how Marsch plans to keep that trend going 📈 pic.twitter.com/4pSW5DH8nU
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) June 14, 2025
Having done a great job of securing the services of every player that was available to them for this Gold CUp, no easy feat, as the US will attest to (and a sign of the pride this Canadian team feels for their badge right now), Canada will want to make the most of this time together as a group to work on important details, as that time will be in short supply after this ahead of next summer.
That wasn’t lost on Marsch, who was hoping to have everyone to count on during this summer and was willing to push to make that happen. To his surprise, he didn’t have to make much of a pitch, however - a further sign of the commitment this team has, and the understanding of what they need to do ahead of next summer.
“I've explained my feelings about this tournament to the team over the last months, but I didn't really have to, they all said to me: ‘We're coming, we want to win’,” Marsch said. “That's a big statement, but that's how they feel, and I'm glad that I coach a team that feels that way.”
On that note, however, what should Canada look to work on in this tournament?
No doubt, they find themselves in a good place when it comes to defining their own tactical identity - their ability to play aggressively on both sides of the ball, controlling the game with their press and direct attacking identity, has led to some memorable performances, with a recent 4-2 win vs. Ukraine is a prime example of what this team can look like at its best.
Within that identity, however, they know that they can polish some things, and they learned that first-hand in another recent friendly, a 0-0 draw with Côte d’Ivoire.
In that game, they were unable to impose themselves as much on both sides of the ball due to Côte d’Ivoire’s impressive physicality and technical skill, and that made for a frustrating Canadian performance, as they were left to play most of the game on the back foot against the defending AFCON champions.
That’s something to watch, as this Gold Cup will allow Canada to work on what they learned in that game, with it being expected that they’ll face some similarly tough matchups, especially in terms of how teams will challenge them physically - a staple of Concacaf tournament play.
“I think that Côte d'Ivoire was a good match for us to understand what Honduras is gonna be like, because I think Honduras is probably, after us, the next most physically athletic team,” Marsch offered, when reflecting both on the Côte d’Ivoire match and how it ties into Canada’s Gold Cup journey.
On that note, what did Canada learn vs. Côte d’Ivoire, in Marsch’s words?
“What I said about Côte d’Ivoire is I felt that we could have done a better job, even if they’re they're as athletic as us, or even more athletic, we could have still really focused on setting the tone, and we kind of backed down a little bit,” he said. “When I looked at our physical numbers after, it wasn't at the rate that we'd normally be at. When you play a physical team, you can't back down and reduce your physicality, you have to raise it, you have to run more, you have to sprint more, you have to try to cover ground, and you have to be more compact but disciplined.”
“You have to be up for duels and physical moments, and we could have done better with that, so we have to use that experience and make sure that we understand that when we play Honduras, the first line of our competitiveness has to be understanding the physicality of what the game would be, and then the other matches will require different things. But we also know that we'll have the ball more than we did against Côte d’Ivoire and Ukraine, so we're also going to have to continue to build some of our philosophies and concepts on the ball, so that we're clear about that on the day.”
Jesse Marsch wants this #CanMNT to fight at the Gold Cup.
— Ben Steiner (@BenSteiner00) June 16, 2025
"In no way do we take anything for granted or assume that we are better than anyone. We have to fight for everything on the pitch. That has to be the first thing in our mentality for what it's going to take and to earn…
Yet, that perfectly sums up Canada’s tactical goals going forward, which have remained consistent - they want to dominate opponents physically, even if it’s tough to do so. It doesn’t have to be through constant duels, or heavy tackles, either - physicality can manifest itself in different forms, such as running, or the tempo at which one plays with the ball, as astutely put by Canada’s Jonathan David, who will know what that looks like given his intelligence as a player.
“I think in that (Côte d’Ivoire) game, we talked a lot about us being a bit too passive, even though we knew it would be a strong team and would maybe be more physically stronger than us,” David said this week. “This is something that we knew, so especially in the first half, we cannot play like that if we want to have big ambitions, big goals, so that was a big talking point for us. It’s about not sitting back and not letting the other team set the tempo for us, we have to be on the front foot and we have to be the aggressors.”
Nobody megs coach 🙅🤣
— CANMNT (@CANMNT_Official) June 15, 2025
Aucune toilette sur le coach 🙅🤣
🎟️: https://t.co/fwQ45uW0wu#CANMNT pic.twitter.com/StVr8iXvNN
Where Canada will need to strike a balance, however, is ensuring that their desire to play physically doesn’t manifest itself in overeagerness, as that’s hurt them in the past, such as their 2-0 loss to Mexico in the Nations League semi-finals in March.
There, a sloppy and rushed turnover cost them early, forcing them to play on the back foot against a veteran-savvy opponent, one they never managed to quite break down in the end.
Because of that, Marsch knows that his message can’t just be for his team to play 100 miles an hour at all times - it’d be naive to suggest they could keep that up over a long, gruelling tournament, especially against savvy Concacaf opponents.
Yet, that shows the challenge he’s issued to his team for this Gold Cup - he wants them to manage the ebbs and flows from game to game, half to half, and even minute to minute.
Sometimes, Canada is going to need to come out flying, playing with incredible pace on and off the ball, forcing their opponents to bend and maybe even break. That can come at the beginning of a match, when players are fresh, or at the end of a match, when their legs are tired.
Then, in other moments, they’ll have to be a little more calculated, as they figure out how to dial back their press and focus more on their mid-block defensively, or make an extra pass to beat a low block in the attack, or even do something as simple as keep the ball away from a high-traffic area in possession.
That’s the maturity they’re looking to find as a team, however, as they know that good sides sometimes have to be fluid in their overall approach, even if they remain driven by one overarching philosophy - for Canada, that being their aggression, of course.
Therefore, look for Canada to flex that wisdom as they navigate the early parts of that tournament, knowing that if they find it in large quantities, that might help them massively in their quest to lift the Gold Cup in a few weeks.
“We still want moments, where when the game gets fast, that we are 100% committed, right?” Marsch said. “But then we also want to have the ability with the ball to manage things a little bit more. I’ve said a lot in training to play fast, but don't rush, we have to know that the game is going to move fast, and that we're ready to play faster than the opponent can throw at us, but do that in a way that everything is clear, we're not panicky in our head, we're not too rushed, that we're still clear on exactly what we kind of want to achieve with the ball, what we want to do without the ball, and certainly what we want to achieve in transition moments.”
