Standards set after setbacks

Hutchinson took the road not taken and Canadian soccer followed along

- DAVE FESCHUK

When Atiba Hutchinson announced his retirement from soccer in 2023, no Canadian had played more matches for the senior men's national team.

Which means it's possible no Canadian had been the target of more training-session trash talk from professional club teammates strictly on account of his passport. As Hutchinson details in a new autobiography, enduring verbal abuse from European pros amounted an occupational hazard during much of his 20-year tenure with the national squad.

"We knew the s--- we would take when we went back to our clubs after an embarrassing outing with Canada Our European teammates had never even heard of some of the countries we'd lose to," Hutchinson writes in "The Beautiful Dream: A Memoir," co-authored with sportswriter Dan Robson. "They couldn't understand why we'd waste our time playing for a country that wasn't any good. We'd hear it constantly: 'Man, Canada's so s---.' I hated being told that my country was terrible (at) soccer and that I shouldn't care about representing it."