The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Building a Canadian Soccer Dream

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Canadian soccer star Atiba Hutchinson never gave up on the dream of taking this country to the ultimate competition: the World Cup. He joins us to discuss his memoir "The Beautiful Dream."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Atiba Hutchinson had a dream to bring Canada to the ultimate competition, the World Cup. And in his new memoir, The Beautiful Dream, he chronicles the rise of the beautiful game in this country, as well as the ups and downs of becoming one of Canada's top athletes. And Atiba Hutchinson joins us now for more. Great to meet you. Thank you. Lovely to have you in that chair. Let's start with a real simple question off the top.

Why soccer? My family, my parents are from the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago, and that's the biggest sport over there. So they came over to Canada and when the kids were born, my brother and I, they put us into football and I loved it. I loved it from the first moment I started playing. But you were born and raised in Brampton and Canadian kids play hockey.

So at least that's my bias. So did you ever fool around with hockey? Just on the streets. I never put the two together, you know, with the skating and handling a puck and all of that. I couldn't do that. So yeah, just for fun on the streets. See, I don't get that.

I don't know how you can play an entire game only using your feet and not using your hands. Because I play hockey. Yeah. But somehow you've figured out that you're better with just the feet. Just the feet. That's it. Got it.

Your dad played an integral role in your early years of playing. He influenced you to switch positions to midfield. He coached you until you were 14 years old. What effect do you think that very hands-on approach, what effect did that have on your personal relationship with your dad? Yeah, it was great for us. You build a special bond that way,

with me knowing how much he supported me throughout my whole days of playing football. We would take long drives drives and he was always there to make sure I got to where I needed to get to for these games and training sessions. And you build a special relationship in those times that are spent in the car on those long drives and that one-on-one time on the pitch.

So it was great for our relationship. That sounds wonderful, but are there times when you just want dad to be dad and not to be wonderful. But are there times when you just want Dad to be Dad and not to be coach? Yes, there are times you just want just to have him there and just watch you play and not really be in your ears and telling you to do this and to do that. But yeah, I think overall it was great for us

to have that special connection. How do you say, back off, Dad. I've heard enough coaching right now, just be quiet and be my dad? Yeah. Do you say that? There's times, of course, there's times where you're just like, I don't want to hear it anymore,

let me just focus and do my thing. And the older I got, the more I thought, I knew what I was doing, so I didn't need to hear him in the back of my head, so yeah, just like that. As you got older, did you realize you were becoming one of the best soccer slash football players in the world? I started realizing it the older I got. Yeah, when you start playing in other parts of the country.

I started playing with the provincial team and you go to other parts of the country playing against BC, Quebec and you're still kind of standing out so the belief starts growing more and more and I think that helped me. It's great when you can be good in your local areas but when you get that chance to travel then you still stand out. It kind of opens up your eyes.

I was happy with that, but I just wanted to continue to develop and become better and better, and I just kept pushing myself forward. The reason I ask the question is, you spent, I think, quite a bit of time early in your soccer development getting cut or sitting on the bench.

And I wonder, I mean, there must have been moments when you thought to yourself, why am I still doing this? Why am I subjecting myself to this humiliation of thinking I'm good and yet I'm still getting cut? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely hard moments when you feel like you belong in that team and it's never easy being told that you can't play on the team and you're not good enough.

You know, it really hurt me. So why not quit? I had strong support behind me and I just continued to believe in myself. You know, I trusted my abilities and as I said, my family just, they'd never let me get into that position where I would just give it up.

So yeah, you basically have to just keep working. You know, never give up and just stay consistent and just be focused on what you want to do. When you started to get better and you started to dream about being professional, it was always Europe, right? You wanted to play in Europe, how come? Well, I watched a lot of football growing up.

I watched the Premier League almost every weekend and that was football for me. It was Europe, you didn't get to see much of any football in North America. There was no teams in Canada, definitely at the time. I did have one or two trials in the MLS at the time and I would have taken that, obviously. To sign a professional contract would have been great

but I really had my mindset on getting my foot in the door in Europe, and luckily that happened. Who would you really want to play for? Well, my favorite team was Manchester United. Yeah, I had a player that was from Trinidad and Tobago, where I'm originally from, obviously, and I just watched him a lot, and he really inspired me. And I always felt that that was the best team in the world.

And I just always had dreams of maybe one day playing there. What's his name? That was Dwight York. Dwight York. Yeah. And how disappointed are you that you never got to play for that team? Yeah, I'm not too disappointed.

I think in the end, it was a great pathway that I had. That's a huge club. I was lucky enough to get the chance to play against them two times. So that was a special moment in my career that I'll never forget to play in that stadium, one of the biggest and best stadiums in the world with the atmosphere and everything there. And in a Champions League game, it was huge for me.

So yeah. Did you get a chance to talk to him? He wasn't playing there at the time. Yeah, I was a lot younger when I was watching him. And we played, he was already retired at the time. Gotcha. Well, speaking of retired, you, do I remember this correctly? Three knee surgeries over 18 months

before you're the age of 30. That's a lot to come back from. Why did you keep trying to come back? Well, I was still young and obviously still loved the game and I didn't wanna, you know, I had no thoughts of giving up after that. It was hard because I just had so much pain. I was always dealing with pain and I felt like

this is how it's going to be for the rest of my career. I didn't really see past it. I didn't think I could get to a point where I would just be playing pain free. But I just, I continued to work at it. I had some good people around me helping me with treatment and stuff like that. And I found a way to get past that. And obviously, that helped me a lot.

But yeah, a lot of difficult moments when you're going through injuries like that and you're back on the operating table and you know that the recovery is going to be that much longer again. Because when you have operations in such a short amount of time, it prolongs the recovery. So yeah, I found a way.

And it kind of builds a real character. When you have knee surgery, how long can't you play for? It all depends on what type of operation it is that you're doing. Mine was a meniscus tear, so normally it should be a quick recovery, but I didn't do the right things at the time, so kind of rushed it back and I didn't do the right rehab right away after the surgery.

So that was the biggest mistake to start with and you know I learned as I went along and I got some other operations after that with my ankle, but That that helped me after you know knowing what I had gone through with the knee So I think the biggest lesson with that is just kind of listen to your body and get into it You know when you're ready again at the right time and don't rush things, don't feel pressure to get back when you're not ready. How boring is rehab? It's extremely boring, very boring.

You're going into the club and the guys are always asking you, when are you ready, when are you ready? You're not even close to ready and you're just seeing them training and you just miss being out there and being with the guys and having the training. So it's, yeah, it's boring. How many operations all over the body? I've had four. I've had three on the knee and then one ankle operation. How do you feel now? I feel good. I don't feel like I've had any kind of operations. I think that will come later on with with the arthritis and all of that but for now I feel very good. Because you're what? You're

40? I'm 41 now. 41 now. Yeah. And you feel good? now I feel very good. Because you're what, you're 40? I'm 41 now. 41 now. Yeah, yeah. And you feel good? I still feel very good, yeah. Let's do an excerpt from the book here. Sheldon, if you would, let's bring this graphic up. You write, I just finished the most successful year of my career as the plane touched down in Toronto

that December day. I was as famous as I could have possibly dreamed in Denmark. There is nothing quite like leaving a city where you can't even pay for a meal and returning to where you grew up and almost no one knows your name. Tell me about that.

How disappointing was that? Yeah, I think for not just myself, but a lot of guys that had been playing in Canada, playing for Canada and maybe playing in other parts of the world in Europe and you know you get that recognition in those clubs and countries that you're playing with but you come to Canada and you're never ever noticed and you know nobody really follows the sport here and you're representing your country and still not you know getting that recognition that you would have you know like to have. So yeah, it's kind of hard.

I mean, not hard, but kind of plays in your head. And you hope at some point it would change. And I think that's what we started seeing towards the end of my playing days with the national team, that interest and seeing more and more fans supporting the country, putting on the jerseys and really getting behind us. In the end, I think it turned out in the right way. I love the whole journey and how it started with not having the support in Canada and to what it's come to right now.

It's been amazing. I don't mean to harp on this, but if you'd gone into hockey, you'd be a household name everywhere. That's right. Well, okay, think about it for next time around. Next time, huh? So your relationship to fame, clearly in Denmark where you played,

you're a big name, everybody knew who you were, you come back to Canada, not so much. Did you want to be famous in Canada? Yeah, I think when you're playing a sport and you're representing your country, you're doing well with your club and obviously was in Denmark, you kind of want to be famous. It's not something I was like, I need to be famous. Obviously not, but it would be good to just be recognized

for what you're doing on the pitch. So obviously it would have been nice when I was younger, but I don't think I would change it for anything. Let's talk about the journey to the World Cup, and I want to take you back to a game that was very distressing for you because it didn't go your way. And again, Sheldon, an excerpt from the book if we can here. The score still haunts me, but it became an emotional driver for me.

All of those negative feelings turned into fuel for my desire to see Canada reach a World Cup. That's the thing about failure. If you're willing to learn from it, it becomes a catalyst for success. Alright, I want to take you back to 12 years ago. You're playing Honduras 2012 World Cup qualifying game. What happened? Oh, hard, hard, hard day.

It was a game we just needed a result, we needed a point, and that would have been enough for us to get to what was called the hex at the time. So a tie would have been enough? A tie would have been enough. We're playing away in Honduras, and we're feeling good about this game. We feel confident and we think that we can get something.

And we just, we didn't show up in this game and they got their early goal and it just continued from there. We dropped our heads and we couldn't really get back into the game and we ended up losing 8-1 that game. And for me and a lot of the guys on the team, obviously was one of the toughest moments for us in representing you know the national team

and in our career so yeah very very difficult time to deal with kind of played in our heads for such a long time for years you can see it still bugs you you know it does it definitely does, so many bad memories from that. And, yeah, obviously I found a way to get past that and luckily enough, you know, things turned around after that. There was another game in which you played in which you thought you had scored a goal that was going to tie you with your opponent and for whatever reason the referee made a call and disallowed the goal.

And you were pretty sure that you were in the right and the referee was in the wrong. And this was another big, was this the CONCACAF game? This was a Gold Cup game. Gold Cup game. Okay. Against the U.S. And what do you think really happened in that game? I felt we just weren't supposed to get through to the next round.

They kind of just maybe had a plan of not having us get through. Maybe the officiating. It was a game against the US. And yeah, in this game we were playing really well. I think we were playing very good throughout the tournament as well. It was probably some of the best football

we had been playing in any one of these gold cup tournaments. They're a tournament that you play every two years and this was for us probably our best football since I had been with the team. Where was the game? We had played that game in, I believe it was Chicago. Okay, and you think the fix was in?

I think so. It was supposed to be a goal. We can clearly see what happened. It's not like the vision of the referee was blocked. And yeah, the ball fell on my foot from the defender on the other team who had headed it back to me. And that's not an offside goal.

And wow, we all took that very hard and just felt like we had been robbed in that game. Have you forgiven the official for that call yet? I can't, I can't. I mean, that's one of the most disappointing moments for me. Like, we were all furious on the pitch that day. How close did you come to striking the official? Never got that far.

I was in the face, but I just couldn't believe it. A lot of us were there, and you have to know how to kind of control yourself, obviously, and stay professional. Obviously, he's human, but it was a big mistake. But there's a moment, you're having an argument with this official, and if I remember correctly, there's a moment where he's just had enough,

he turns his back and walks away from you. And he's gone, yeah. Now, how humiliating is that? Well, yeah, the fact that he's not really explaining what his call is and why he's taking the goal away from us. So yeah, I mean, I've had a lot of moments with referees and you want to have that conversation with them and a lot of rest will obviously explain the call to you.

And yeah, it was just frustrating to not get any answers as to why he called that offside. Let me do a bit of a comparison with you now, Atiba, between men's soccer and women's soccer. Because much of this book is you describing how you, with every fiber of what you had, tried to build up the men's game and make soccer sort of as popular as any other sport in the country. But the women's game was already there, wasn't it?

I mean, they were having a lot of success at the international level well before the men were, fair to say. Oh, for sure, for sure. For a very long time, they had done very well, gone to some major tournaments and really performed well and put Canada on the map for football. So they've done very well for a long time and obviously we wanted that as men too. Well that was my next question. Were you jealous of the success they were having? Not jealous. I think we were all happy but obviously as players you kind of want the same thing.

We're definitely supporting them throughout the whole way, but you want that feeling and want to have that support from everybody as well, just the same. So they kind of set the standards for football in the country, and I think finally the men have followed suit. Sheldon, should we bring these images up now? Have we got these? Let's bring these pictures up. And Atibi, you can look at the monitor up there.

Yeah. Wow, look at that. That's a great action shot. Okay, do you want to describe what's happening in this shot? This is a volley that I had on top of the box. This is in the World Cup. I think that's my first shot I've ever taken in a World Cup. And when that ball was coming to me, I was just licking my lips.

I thought this was a goal, you know. And yeah, I didn't connect with it as clean as I would have liked. He's at your mercy, that goalie. Yes, that was the defender. Oh, that's the defender, okay. Yeah, so he kind of threw me off with that touch. Now look at you in this shot. You've got the most serious look on your face here

with your teammates. What's going on here? I don't even know which game this is, to be honest. I think it's maybe just after we lost. I think that's after our last game. This was a World Cup game and you look very unhappy. Yes, yes, yes. This was our last game.

And we didn't get a result in that game either. We were really pushing for it. We wanted something to happen, so just a bit disappointed not to get anything in a tournament that we all felt we performed very well in and just kind of fell short in getting any points on the board. Okay, having said that, 2022 FIFA World Cup,

it's in Qatar. You finally make it. Team Canada is there after two decades of sort of knocking on the door and not getting there. Satisfying? Extremely, extremely. It's what players dream of from a very young age and it was just an amazing experience, I think.

Having the support that we had back home in Canada, you know, seeing how people would erupt when we scored goals, you know, our first goal. And it was just so, so surreal, you know. I had goosebumps in the tunnel, you know, before walking out onto the pitch that first game against Belgium. And just to know that the whole world is watching, you know, you play on the world stage, it's just, it's so hard to explain the feeling

that you really have in these games, and those moments that went by like in a blink of an eye. Does it overwhelm you, those moments? I would say a little bit, a little bit. You gotta stay professional and just be focused, and you know you're going into a game, but this is, it's the world stage, you know? Like, I had never been as nervous as I was for for any other game

than I was for these these games in the World Cup but yeah I mean I wouldn't change it for the world it was it was the best best days of you know my whole career just just having the chance to play in a World Cup right at the end of my career. It is the biggest event in the world like it's bigger than the Olympics right? It's big. I think so yeah. It is the biggest event in the world. Like it's bigger than the Olympics, right? It's big. I think so, yeah. It is big.

Okay. I don't normally ask people personal questions on this program, but you write about it in the book. And so here we go, okay? Right. Because I'll tell you, when I read this, I thought this is fascinating. And this guy, he must have some game if he figured this one out. How long did it take you to meet your father-in-law?

Oh, yeah, it took me. We were, me and my wife, were probably together for about 10 years. 10 years, so it took a very long time. And it took 10 years because why? Well, she just, it was a bit of the culture and everything, and she just never really felt comfortable. And she always had it in her mind

that she would introduce us at some point. But she was just waiting for the right time. And he started getting older. And we had a family. He obviously knows that we've got kids and stuff like that. And earlier on, he just didn't really want to know much about it. And at some point, he was just like,

I'm ready to meet, you know, your... Okay, you're sugarcoating all this here, because he didn't want to meet you, because you are not from the same background as his daughter was. Yes, yes, yes. What's her background? She's Persian.

She's a... Persian? Yeah. You're not? And I'm not. That was a problem for him. It was, it was earlier on, and she felt it would be hard, and he would take it very,

very harsh. So she just held off on telling him for a very long time. And obviously played a lot in both of our minds. But I was obviously very respectful and just patient. And whenever she was ready to tell, I would be ready to meet him. And what finally allowed him to accept you? He was just ready.

Something in his mind told him, like, it's time to meet the man that is with my wife. He had heard a lot of stories of who I was from friends that were close to him, and they had told him, you gotta meet him at some point. And yeah, one day he just picked up the phone, called his daughter and said, I wanna meet him at some point. And yeah, one day he just picked up the phone, called his daughter and said, I wanna meet him. So yeah, and it was great.

Ever since we've been very, very tight. And he's got four grandchildren. He's got four grandchildren. From you, anyway. That's right, yeah. And how? Well, five is his son as well. Okay, how does he do with your kids?

Very close. He's very close with the kids. He's a grandfather that every child dreams of. So it's happy to have him around. Good. You signed a two-year contract in Turkey, assuming you were near the end of your career. What year was that?

That was in 2013. 2013. We're 11 years later, and you are still in Turkey. Yeah. Why did you stay? It's a great place. You know, we had 10 amazing years of my playing days there, but it's just been home away from home for us.

People have really welcomed us from the first moments we moved there. And there's just so much to offer there. You know, the people are very warm, and the country is we moved there. And there's just so much to offer there. You know, the people are very warm and the country's a beautiful country and there's just so much to offer there. There is a lot of political disruption there. There are bombs that blow up in buildings from time to time.

Yeah. Not an issue for you? I mean, there was times where, you know, it does obviously cause you a lot of stress. We had gone through some difficult moments there and just hoped that things would get better. So yeah, there's been times where you kind of question if you stay around, if we started having children and is it a safe place to stay.

We kind of just stuck it out and now things have really been a lot better over the last few years. And we're very, very happy to have spent the amount of time there and just happy living there and having the respect and love from the people that are in the country. We should come full circle now and finish up on soccer. And I guess I want to get a sense from you

about where you think the men's game in this country is now? In a very, very good place. I think the boys, they continue to get better and better. They're winning in big competitions now, as we've seen in the last tournament they played in the Copa America, going all the way to the semifinals and getting very, very big results against some of the best nations in the world.

So I think that's what we've all wanted to see here in Canada. We have so much talent that are in the team, guys playing in big clubs in Europe and winning championships, getting trophies in the highest competition. So that's what it takes to be at the very, very top. And we're seeing more and more of that now here in Canada.

And I think the sky's the limit for the guys. I think they're going to continue to get better and better. And we've got a World Cup here in Canada in two years. And I think it's going to be very special. And it's just going to push the whole program to another level. I want to finish up with one more quote from your book. And it refers back to when you

were playing as a child. And here we go, Sheldon, bring this up if you would. Here's the quote, we divided ourselves along ethnic lines for the tournament. Any kids without compatriots were placed in a hodgepodge group that reflected Canada itself. No one wore that title with pride. We didn't dream of wearing red and white, representing our nation against the world. Okay, looking back at those days through the lens of a 41-year-old who's had the kind of

career you have had, what would you tell that kid? Represent your country. Represent the country you're living in. It's a great country. The country has given so much to us, to me. And yeah, just be very proud, because it's a great country. And yeah, go out there and put those colors on. The red and white colors are very powerful. It's a great country. And yeah, obviously now we're seeing a lot more people wanting to represent Canada.

Who's that little kid? Canada. Yeah, that's me. How old are you there? I was, I think I was eight years old then. Eight years old. Yeah, yeah. Could you have imagined at that age that you would be on the biggest stages for soccer

in the entire world representing Canada? Definitely not, no. I was just a young boy at the time, just enjoying myself, playing as much football as I could, but never had pictures of me playing at the highest levels in world football. Well, congratulations, you've had a hell of a run. Thank you very much. Any of your kids playing?

They all play. They all play. Yeah, yeah. Can they skate yet? They've never been on the ice, no. Atiba, we gotta talk. Yeah. We gotta talk. The name of the book is called The Beautiful Dream.

Of course it's about the beautiful game. It's a memoir by Atiba Hutchinson with Dan Robson. We wanna give Dan props. Dan's been a guest on this program in the past and he's a wonderful guy. Great author. And congratulations. Thank you very much.