ORLANDO – Cyle Larin will come into his latest Canadian national team camp a new man.
Having scored his first international goal last time out for the Men in Red in a 3-0 friendly victory over Puerto Rico on March 30, and four times since then with his club, Orlando City SC, Larin has come a long ways since making his senior-team debut just more than a year ago having never represented Canada at the youth levels.
No longer a wide-eyed newcomer, the No. 1 pick in this year’s MLS SuperDraft said he feels like a complete different player and will relish a chance to make his mark in a home-and-away World Cup qualifiers against Dominica on June 11 and 16.
“I am coming in with the confidence that I can score and with the confidence that I can play at that level,” Larin told MLSsoccer.com. “I definitely feel I can contribute more to the team now and impact the game more.
“It is a combination of playing consistently at this level, starting a series of games and getting the feel of being in form. When I am in form like this, I know I am capable of scoring goals and that I can carry it over to the national team.”
Canada head coach Benito Floro handed Larin his national-team debut while he was still at the University of Connecticut in March 2014. When he hit his first goal for Canada, he had only chalked up one professional appearance, as a 71st-minute substitute for Orlando against Vancouver on March 21.
But the 6-foot-2, 190-pound powerhouse believes he has picked up a wealth of valuable soccer insight in the past two months – insight that could be invaluable to Canada with all-time leading goalscorer Dwayne De Rosario now retired and the national team’s goalscoring future in the hands of Larin and fellow youngster Tesho Akindele of FC Dallas.
“It has been a question of finding my feet, and I know I will need that experience for World Cup,” Larin said. “Coach Floro is more old school and teaches us more about the tactical side of the game, getting us to think about the situation of the game [in qualifying terms].
“It is a vital to have that awareness of what it needs in World Cup games, and coach drills that into us each time, telling us that you don’t get a second chance and there is no game after if you don’t do what you have to do.”
Larin is well aware Canada’s only World Cup finals appearance was back in 1986, and he has made it one of his personal goals to get the team back on the biggest stage.
“It would definitely be one of the accomplishments of my career,” he said. “Anything can happen, but we have the players to do it and we have a different mindset now – everyone has one goal, and that’s to make it to the World Cup.
“It would mean a lot to me. I have watched all the recent World Cups, either on TV or the highlights on YouTube, and it is definitely a dream of mine to get there.”
