Canada were held to a disappointing 1-1 draw by Curaçao in their second group stage match of the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup in Houston Saturday.
The Canadians lined up against the small island nation riding high after their 6-0 demolition of Honduras in Vancouver Tuesday. But Canada coach Jessie Marsch, who was serving a suspension and watched from the stands, saw his side produce an underwhelming performance at the Shell Energy Stadium Saturday.
“We’ve got to learn from these types of games,” said Mauro Biello, Canada assistant coach. “We let it get a little bit too wide open, we gave away silly fouls and they were just pumping balls into the box and we had a hard time dealing with second balls, set pieces.”
Saliba scores early for Canada
Canada began well, and it looked as if a repeat of their opening match was on.
Nathan Saliba scored for Canada early, in the 9th minute. The goal resulted from a deep free kick that Curaçao only managed to half clear. The ball fell to Saliba on the edge of the penalty area. And the Canadian midfielder applied a controlled first-time finish to score his second goal in national colours.
Loading ...However, Canada failed to improve on their advantage, and allowed Curaçao into the contest.
Marsch had chosen to rotate some of his squad from Tuesday. He will have expected his replacements to reproduce the high intensity performance against inferior opponents. But the confidence and guile from their win over Honduras was absent. And Canada’s defence looked particularly frail.
Curaçao earns deserved draw
Yes, Canada will correctly feel they let themselves down with Saturday’s poor display. But Curaçao deserves credit. The islanders smelled blood and pushed for a result, particularly in the second half. They were full value for the point they eventually earned.
Curaçao thought the equalizer had come in the 66th minute when Jurgen Locadia was allowed to turn in the Canadian penalty area before expertly smashing the ball past keeper Dayne St. Clair. A VAR offside call came to Canada’s rescue however, pulling the goal back.
But Curaçao were eventually rewarded for their positive play. Winger Jeremy Antonisee capitalized on one of Canada’s many defensive errors to pull his side level in the fourth minute of stoppage time to divide the points.
“We had warnings just to tell us to be a bit more careful, but they kept pushing and got the equalizer,” said Canada forward Jonathan David after the match. “So obviously it’s frustrating to get a tie like that but we have to keep moving forward.”
And despite the nature of Saturday’s discouraging draw, Canada were still top of Group B with four points at time of publishing. And they’ll feel confident of progressing to the Gold Cup quarterfinals with a positive result against El Salvador in Houston in three days.
