Craig Forrest FIFA U-20

The response to my last blog has been fantastic. A lot of ideas, criticism, and questions. Since my involvement in football in Canada, I knew that the soccer community's voice was just a quiet one but it's getting louder.

The fact that people care will put pressure on the authorities to make changes that are necessary to improve. There has been a lot of negatives coming from the Canadian team's performance at the U-20 World Cup, and rightly so.

Since 2000, the Canada's men national team has won the Gold Cup, been in the semifinals twice, most recently in June 2007 when Canada was robbed of an opportunity of going to the final. Quarter-finals of the U-20 World Cup in 2003 in United Arab Emirates, losing in a golden goal to Spain.

And if that had happened this time around it would have clouded over the fact that player development has to change in this country. But it didn't, so lets make the legacy of this U-20 tournament the turning point for soccer in Canada.

The tournament so far has been a massive success.

Talking to FIFA officials, not much could be better. Attendance figures over a million, well-behaved fans, that's no surprise to me. However, there is one thing: the Canadian team. FIFA would have liked to see the hosts get out of their first-round group.

Mathematically it could still be done but what does coach Dale Mitchell do now? No goals, four against, only two shots on goal in two games.

So much rests on the shoulders of Team Canada on the eve of its opening game of the FIFA U-20 World Cup.

The game of soccer has evolved in Canada. It has been slow, however, it is growing and baby steps are turning into giant steps. This is an opportunity for the under-20 Canadian men's team to take it to another level.

Give our young soccer players (men and women) a reason, a goal, to play and compete for the red and white. A taste of what this game of soccer means on a global scale. It will open the eyes of the media and corporate Canada that soccer stands alone and that it appeals to every walk of life in this the greatest country in the world.