Canada comfortably shut out Curacao with a 2-0 victory in the CONCACAF Nations League
By Alex Windley
The Canadian men's national team secured the 2-0 victory over Curacao as goals by Jonathan David and Cyle Larin secured John Herdman's side all three points.
In their first competitive match since the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Canada got an easy win. The scoring got started in the 23rd minute with a Jonathan David goal provided by right-back Richie Larryea.
Curacao didn't react well, getting frustrated quickly until defender Jurien Gaari got sent off with a second yellow just 38 minutes into the match. After that, the Canadians never looked back, dominating possession and shots on target, culminating with a Cyle Larin strike in the 43rd minute right before halftime to make it 2-0.
Giving comments after the match, head coach John Herdman thought his squad did the job well and applauded his team’s effort.
"A really professional performance from the lads. Coming here is not easy. It was a very motivated Curaçao team. I thought the players controlled their emotions well. I thought strategically, they did well today and defensively were tight, and then [we showed] our quality in the moments we needed to.”
The Canada manager also hailed the budding partnership between David and Larin playing up top as a strike duo.
“They’re in great form. They’ve been training all week, they’ve partnered well, you can see they’re starting to read off each other playing in a front two. [If you give] them half a chance they’ll take it," he said.
Now, the team must turn their attention to Monday's match against Honduras to close out the March window.
“I just hope that they come with the spirit to open up [systematically] and can make a game of it. The fans, they’ll enjoy our match against Honduras. [It's] always competitive and always physical. And it’ll come down to our quality. If we’re able to show what we did tonight [against Curacao] in the big moments we capitalize, we can win that match, but they have quality.”
Canada will get the chance to clinch their group and advance to the CONCACAF Nations League finals as they play Honduras on March 28th at BMO Field in Toronto, Canada.