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When Jerson Barandica-Hamilton returned home to Saskatoon from Guatemala on Monday night, he still couldn’t believe that Canada’s inaugural women’s futsal team was able to bring home a trophy from the CONCACAF W Futsal Championship.
“It hasn’t really sunk in and I don’t think it will. When it does, it’s going to be just mind blowing,” said Barandica-Hamilton when asked what it was like to help win Canada its first-ever trophy in women’s futsal.
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Barandica-Hamilton was an assistant coach on the Canadian futsal team. He was also joined on the roster by goalkeeper Jadyn Steinhauer, defender Jade Houmphanh and winger Erica Hindmarsh, who are all from Saskatoon.
In its first game, the Canadian team lost 3-2 to Costa Rica, who were ranked as the number one team.
The Canadians rebounded from their loss the next day, defeating Honduras 6-0 and later qualified for the knockout stages by beating the United States 3-1.
Canada faced Mexico in the semifinal and squeaked out a victory on penalties to clinch a spot at this upcoming winter’s FIFA Futsal World Cup, along with a spot in the CONCACAF final.
In the final, Canada rolled over Panama 8-2 to secure the title.
Barandica-Hamilton admits he didn’t think the Canadian team would do this well in the tournament.
“We knew we could compete, we hoped we could compete, but the reality is we had no clue,” Barandica-Hamilton said.
“We just wanted to be the hardest working team that played with pride and put our country on the map. To win it all against teams that have international exposure — that have had this project for years, and that were building to be at the World Cup? I can’t even describe it.”
Canada Soccer launched its women’s futsal national team at the end of January when Alexandre Da Rocha was named as its head coach. The coaching announcement came shortly after FIFA announced it had planned to hold a Women’s World Cup this November in the Philippines.
Barandica-Hamilton was named the assistant coach of the national futsal team because of his head coaching experience with the University of Saskatchewan women’s soccer program and the work he does with futsal locally in Saskatoon.
Barandica-Hamilton said building competitive futsal competition in the city is something he’s been working at.
“We don’t have a lot of competition in Saskatchewan and so part of what we want to do is build organically competition together and raise the standards,” Barandica-Hamilton explained.
“I currently coach the Saskatoon Green and White team — that’s the team that won nationals last year that’s made up of only current university players.”
Barandica-Hamilton also helped launch the SK Impact team, which won nationals this past March in Regina. The SK Impact is made up of Huskies alumni.
Steinhauer, Houmphanh and Hindmarsh were the only players on Canada’s roster who were from western Canada — the rest of the team was made up of players from Ontario and Quebec.
Although Barandica-Hamilton doesn’t think Canada has an advantage right now when it comes to playing futsal because of our indoor climate, he is confident that there is potential here and one day Saskatchewan could become a powerhouse in the sport.
“I keep saying it to everyone that I talk to, there’s no reason why Saskatchewan cannot be a powerhouse in futsal. There’s actually no reason that Canada on an international level cannot be a powerhouse in futsal,” he said.
“I think if we truly commit to it, we buy into it, we put the resources behind it, futsal is a sport that we can excel at.”
Barandica-Hamilton admits the Canadian women qualified for the World Cup with very limited resources and is hoping the success from the tournament can open up more opportunities for the sport to grow within Canada.
“I think what we’ve accomplished will mean nothing if we don’t see a massive revolution in terms of clubs wanting to implement it in terms of resources allocated to to the national team,” he stated.
“What we’ve done with minimal resources is really mind blowing.
“My hope and my dream is that it doesn’t just stop here and that people across the country were inspired and that they’re motivated to implement futsal and really see it as a sport that they can not only just excel, but actually enjoy,” Barandica-Hamilton added.
“… this is hopefully a massive boost for the sport in this country and we can continue to move forward and not look back. We set extremely high standards, so we have got to be able to live up to them now.”
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