Joshua Kloke

And one thing that I said, um,

and this is the other side of the coin, I guess, is that there are a number of very good and very important Canadian players who have a clean bill of health, right?

Jonathan David, Tayshaun Buchanan, Ismael Kone.

um three attacking players who are going to start up front and and could play every single minute of the world cup max crepeau we can add him in um a lot of alistair johnston right a lot of very good players are very important players who aren't hurt is that being overly optimistic maybe but um i i do think it's important to note you know

Well, they've lost the next factor.

They've lost, you know, one of their most creative, dynamic players.

and really unpredictable players on the roster, right?

Like, you know, Bosnia, or I guess not Bosnia, they qualified late, but Qatar and Switzerland for sure would have spent months and months analyzing Canada.

And Marcelo Flores, who only debuted for the national team in March, right?

Um, you know, a young player born in Canada, uh, to a Mexican father and chose the Mexican national team, um,

to the chagrin of many long-time Canadian soccer fans who maybe felt that him and his camp were stringing Canada along under John Herdman.

Because he only made three appearances for Mexico under the age of 21, he was technically allowed right under the wire to switch to Canada.

And I think if you watched him against Tunisia and Iceland in March, you said, wow.

This is a player that once he gets close to the opposition box...

You know, he can dribble in a phone booth.

He can get in and out of traffic and set up the final pass really, really well.

And for a Canadian team that struggles to score, and they do, Marcelo Flores was incredibly important.

Would he have started?

I don't know.

Would he have been first off the bench when Canada needed a goal?