The Globe and Mail

It’s the news Canadian soccer fans didn’t want to hear. 
 
Jonathan de Guzman, 20-year-old Feyenoord phenom, one of Europe’s best young attacking midfielders and, oh, by the way, Canadian, announced Wednesday he will pursue his international soccer career – with the Netherlands.
 
His Dutch passport is fact.  His citizenship, also.  So even though so many of us dreamed he would join his brother Julian in the deepest and most talented Canadian midfield on record, he won’t.
 
It’s over.
 
Blame him?  Not really.  It’s like asking Steven Gerrard whether, as a young lad on Merseyside, he dreamed of playing for Liverpool – or Tranmere Rovers.  No knock on Tranmere.  Canada’s Iain Hume put in some outstanding seasons there.  But Liverpool?  Or, rather, the Netherlands?
 
Jonathan’s been living, breathing and excelling at Dutch soccer since he was 12 years old.  That’s right.  He pulled up stakes, left home, left his family, throwing his lot in with Feyenoord at an age that would shock even the dangerously reckless Canadian Jr. A hockey establishment.
 
But, by gosh, he made it.  And now, with both the Olympics and World Cup qualifying racing towards us from the near horizon, he has decided the shirt he wears on the world stage will be orange … not red.
 
No one here wants to hear this tonight, but he’s got a perfect right to do this.  There are no guarantees in this business, except that Canada’s national soccer program is under-funded and dreadfully mismanaged.  As amazing as it would have been to see Jonathan and Julian pressing forward together to gut Guatemala or crush Costa Rica, the kid has bigger fish to fry.
 
Okay, that’s the facts.  Now – feelings:
 
Argh!  Aw, I wanted so much for this to go the other way.  This isn’t like the Owen Hargreaves to England mess of 2001.  That Canada team had nothing.  This one, if they click with their coach and the bureaucrats stay a million miles away, could have some righteous potential. 
 
If Jonathan de Guzman is this good at 20, what wonders are still on the way?  Like just about any Canada fan anywhere, my mind has filled in recent times with images of what he and his brother could create, side-by-side in Canada shirts.  Toss in Atiba Hutchinson, Dwayne de Rosario – that’s a midfield, people.  That’s one spicy, spicy midfield.
 
Of course it was never likely, but we’ve just come out of a year of soccer miracles.  This would have been a great way to kick off ’08.
 
The one thing that’s really leaving a bad taste in my mouth?  It looks like he lied to us.
 
In an interview that ran on Sportsnet just this past weekend, de Guzman told my former colleague Gerry Dobson he had no intention of making his decision any time soon.  He said he was going to concentrate on his club side, and make the decision weeks, maybe months, from now.
 
Well, tonight he told the CBC he’d made the decision a while ago.  They’re already calling him Judas de Guzman on the fan message boards.
 
It’s not like Gerry was badgering him or anything.  Dobson is fairly deferential in his interviewing style.  He clearly wanted an answer, but it was far from a hardball question.  The kid wasn’t forced into lying, in other words.  Unfortunately, the fans have a long memory for things like that. 
 
It’s too early to tell how much the ongoing soggy CSA mess played a part in this.  There are many good reasons to opt for Holland without even glancing at the situation back home.  But I think we all know it didn’t help.
 
Saddened as I am, I want to wish Jonathan de Guzman all the best.  I hope he gets his chance over there, and fate is kind to his dreams.  I also understand this is a ringing kick in the molars for Canadian soccer, and the young lad’s untruthfulness isn’t doing bug-squash to mitigate the pain.
 
When you are a small club or country, things like this will, alas, occur.  We still have one brilliant de Guzman, and some very exciting players who now have even more motivation to step up and show all of CONCACAF – and, I hope, the world – that they can run the ball, press, attack, score goals and win big games.
 
That which might have been is gone.  That which will be is yet to be determined.
 
Alas – but onward!
 
(My colleague Peter Mallett got some great quotes from the de Guzman family, by the way.  His article follows directly after mine.)