THE Scottish coach who has helped Canada to reach the Copa America semi-final has admitted he is looking forward to their mouth-watering encounter with World Cup winners Argentina tonight and insisted the underdogs are capable of pulling off a major upset.
Stirling-born Ewan Sharp has been by manager Jesse Marsch’s side both on the training field and in the dugout over in the United States during the past three weeks as “The Canucks” have defied pre-tournament expectations and made it through to the last four.
The former Wallace High School pupil, who has performed a variety of prominent roles behind the scenes at New York Red Bulls, Chicago Fire, Toronto, Lokomotiv Moscow, Manchester United and Leeds United in the past, was brought on board by Marsch as assistant coach and head analyst back in May.
The 31-year-old, who first teamed up with the renowned American during his time at the Red Bull Arena and who worked with him again when he was in charge at Elland Road in the 2022/23 season, has relished every minute of his Copa America experience.
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The 60-1 outsiders edged out Peru 1-0 in Kansas City and drew 0-0 with Chile in Orlando during the group stages last month to qualify for the knockout rounds.
Celtic right-back Alistair Johnston and his team mates then beat Venezuela 4-3 on penalties in their quarter-final in Texas last Friday night after their match had finished 1-1 at the end of extra-time.
“It has felt like every game has been an away game. The South American fans have turned up in big numbers. It is a South American tournament that we are a part of and it has certainly felt like that.
“But we had games against the Netherlands and France before the tournament. Our first three games were against Netherlands, France and Argentina. We were thrown right in at the deep end. But it was great for this group of players.
“Playing those games away in Rotterdam and Bordeaux and feeling like we were able to hold up against the world’s best in them set us up well for the tournament.”
This is the first time in the 108 year history of the Copa America – the longest continually-running and, with a television audience of millions around the globe, third most-watched continental football competition in the world – that Canada have taken part.
However, if they overcome defending champions and favourites Argentina in the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey tonight they will go through to face either Colombia or Uruguay the final at the Hard Rock Stadium in Florida on Sunday evening.
That, of course, will be easier said than done.
They lost 2-0 to the world champions in their opening Group A match last month in front of a crowd of 70,564 fans in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Georgia.
Lionel Scaloni, the South Americans’ manager, is able to field the likes of Rodrigo De Paul, Alexis Mac Allister, Emiliano Martinez, Lautaro Martinez, Nicolas Otamendi, Cristian Romero as well as a certain Lionel Messi.
However, Sharp is, having worked at the very highest level of the European game since 2021 after catching the attention of the visionary German manager Ralf Rangnick at MLS franchise New York Red Bulls, undeterred at the prospect of Canada facing Argentina and believes they have an outside chance.
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“It does help us that we have played Argentina already,” he added. “We know they are dangerous, we know they have got lots of good players. There are lots of different ways they can hurt us. But we also know that we held up positively against them in lots of different ways and can hurt them with some of our weapons and strengths.
“We grew a lot during that game and learned lessons from playing a top level team. We have grown a lot in the three games since then. We have improved and adjusted and are clear about how to use the players that we have in the best possible ways to maximise their strengths.
“We haven’t given up much in way of goals. We were 0-0 until half-time against Argentina and have kept clean sheets. For me, we have not rewarded ourselves for some of the attacking moments that we have had. In the last game against Venezuela we feel we could have scored more goals.
“We are focused on the process and aren’t getting too carried away. We are trying to build on what we are trying to do. We are going to get challenged in a big way tomorrow night. But I think we know that we can hurt them, we know we have lots of speed and power and a really dangerous in transition and we know we have created a lot of chances.
“We now just need to calm ourselves down and convert some of those chances. If we can do that, we can definitely be in the game and hopefully try and get a result.”
