some canadian guys writing about soccer

In Soccer in Sun and Shadow, Eduardo Galeano has the following words to describe the life of the goalkeeper:

The rest of the players can blow it once in a while, or often, then redeem themselves with a spectacular dribble, a masterful pass, a well-placed volley. Not him. The crowd never forgives the keeper. Was he drawn out by a fake? Left looking ridiculous? Did the ball skid? Did his fingers of steel turn to silk? With a single slip-up the goalie can ruin a game or lose a championship, and the fans suddenly forget all his feats and condemn him to eternal disgrace. Damnation will follow him to the end of his days.

Reading that, it’s tough not to think of Pat Onstad, who has likely won his last cap for Canada ever, after he was excluded from the roster for the team’s next two World Cup qualifying matches. Twenty years of loyal service to the men’s national team, and his final meaningful contribution was punching a Jamaican corner into the back of the south goal at our National Soccer Stadium.

Those south-end supporters did not forget it, and by most accounts, the reception that Onstad received when his Houston Dynamo visited Toronto FC last weekend would have made sailors blush. Is that all par for the course? Is it all part of supporting the club? Surely, I’ve yelled astoundingly inappropriate things at professional athletes in an attempt to destabilize them (including remarks about their personal lives). But this seems different, somehow.

Although the sting of the dropped points to Jamaica was still fresh in my mind when the boys rolled into Stade Saputo to face Honduras, I still — for reasons unknown even to myself — took it upon myself to hurl not abuse, but encouragement at Pat Onstad during the pre-match warmup. Clint Lalonde over at The Footie Fool might have hit on my rationale, to a degree:

Sure, the goal was horrendous and hurt us. I think [for] all our bluster and “analysis”, we fans out here in the cheap and easy seats sometimes forget these are not robots, but real people. I have no doubt that Onstad was, and still is, gutted about that goal and has yet to make peace with the fact that because of it, he may never get a chance to play in a World Cup. As much as we the fans want to get there, I have no doubt that the players want it more than we will ever know.

Maybe it’s because I’m a former keeper, maybe it’s because I don’t like seeing those I support get ganged up on… but if we crash out of this qualifying campaign (which, in all mathematical likelihood, will occur within the next week and a half), you have to think that no one will take it harder than Patty Onstad, and that’s unfortunate. Did he concede a shite goal? You bet. But was it his fault that our “best in CONCACAF” midfield couldn’t dominate a patchwork team from Jamaica? Or that his Jamaican counterpart stood on his head for most of the latter part of the match? Or that we came out completely flat in the second half against Honduras and coughed up the match?

Onstad will now have to live with the (unfair, but reinforced by TFC supporter yobs) perception that he cost us a shot at qualifying for South Africa 2010. And that will be it. He’ll have no second chance, no shot at redemption. He will have become the Bill Buckner of Canadian soccer.

I just hope that, like the real Bill Buckner, Pat Onstad will one day be able to come home, step on the Canadian turf and be greeted by a crowd satisfied that its sporting victory has been achieved.