Crépeau is the best known of the three, both in Montreal, where fans get to see him regularly training with the Impact’s first team, and on an international level, where he has been identified as one of the Canadian team stars on the official website of the World Cup. Thus, he knows he will be watched closely.
"I feel relaxed," he said before his departure for Mexico. "But, as we get closer to the tournament, things change. The night before and day of the game, I feel the stress level mount. But, it’s a positive type of pressure. I am confident and I will look to take it one shot at a time. Re-acquainting Me with the group will be positive and allow for some good exchange of ideas."
GETTING TO THE NEXT ROUND
The U17 World Cup is made up of 24 nations. In the first round, they are grouped into six groups of four teams, where the top two in each division and the four best third place finishers will qualify for the quarterfinals. Canada is in the same group as Uruguay, England and Rwanda, facing off against each of these countries on June 18, 22 and 25 respectively. Each team has a different style and Canada will discover these differences right away.
“Uruguay has a similar style to Panama, which we’ve already played,” said Crépeau. “But the individual skills are better. I think one of their strikers is being scouted by Chelsea. I saw England play two times before: they are strong physically, play a good ground game and are even better in the air.”
The young keeper, who celebrated his 17th birthday back on May 11, believes in his team’s chances.
“The world feels that Canada isn’t very strong, but I know that if they believe that, we can prove that we can make it passed the group stage. This World Cup is the best opportunity for Canada to show what we got at an international level. The team’s strengths are its speed down the wings and the ability to recover the ball in the midfield. Everybody puts in that second effort to win the ball back. We sometimes lose our technical game, as our weakness is that we play to the level of the competition when we face a weaker side.” The good news for Canada’s U17s is that in a tournament like this one, the competition is rarely weak.
Crépeau has also a few personal goals that he has set for the competition. “Definitely, I want to let in the least amount of goals as possible, but I can’t do that alone. All 11 players are involved. I can say that this World Cup is a successful one for me if I am always there for my teammates and don’t regret letting in any bad goals. And obviously, to help the team go as deep into the tournament as possible.
SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY
At this age, wearing the national team jersey is a fairly new experience. Crépeau was called to play for his country for the first time in February 2010 for training. “I knew that the coaches were looking at the best players in the province of Quebec for the upcoming World Cup in my age category. They came three days to observe us and I realized that I had played well. I got a chance, so I told myself that I had to seize it: a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t often get a chance to play in a World Cup. Therefore, I have to keep working hard.”
There are going to be some familiar faces with Maxime in Mexico, as aside from the other national team players he’s met, Crépeau will make the trip with Marco Lapenna and Ismaïl Benomar, who he crosses paths with daily as members of the Impact U21 team. As such, he is the perfect person to tell us a little about them.
“Despite being trained as a midfielder, Marco regularly plays as a left back with the national team. He is a good positional player, has solid footing, and is dangerous offensively when joining the attack and wins a lot of balls in them air despite his diminutive stature. Ismaïl is coming off of an injury. He is very particular in each of his movements, is solid defensively, wins many battles, especially in the air, and provides good diagonal passes that surprise the defence and creates good scoring opportunities on the counter-attack.”
Crépeau, Lapenna and Benomar were on the field for most of the qualifying matches for Canada for this World Cup. Therefore, it is likely that we’ll see this trio play a lot of minutes throughout the tournament over the next few weeks and they will return to Montreal with a good international experience and, hopefully, results exceeding their expectations.
Matthias Van Halst, Impact Media
