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RedNation Online recently had the chance to catch up with Canadian midfielder Will Johnson during Canada's training sessions in advance of the 2011 Gold Cup and the Real Salt Lake stalwart offered his thoughts on a wide range of topics including the advantages of playing in the CONCACAF Champions League for Canadian Internationals, the importance of outworking the opposition, his physical state after a very busy recent schedule and whether or not the Gold Cup will provide a good barometer for the Canadian National Team as it prepares to commence the next round of World Cup Qualifying.
RedNation Online: Will, what’s the mood like with the team heading into the match against the U.S.A?
Will Johnson: It’s good. I think it has been a good camp so far. We’re still working on some things that we are trying to focus on and to get on the same page and everybody up to the same level. But the mood is good and the guys are excited to start the tournament and everybody is definitely excited about that first game.
RedNation Online: You and Real Salt Lake obviously had a fantastic run in the CONCACAF Champions League and the two leg championship final featured what I thought was an exceptionally high level of play. Do you feel that playing in that tournament has you in good form heading in to the Gold Cup?
Will Johnson: Absolutely. I think CONCACAF, whether you are playing in the Champions League or internationally, is a similar experience. And I have had a lot of experience in CONCACAF over the past year. The more that the MLS teams can make up the gap with the Mexican teams in terms of that competition is good. And we played some fantastic games in some hostile atmospheres and I think that experience is something that will help me throughout the Gold Cup.
RedNation Online: Would a Gold Cup win erase some of the pain from losing the Champions League final?
Will Johnson: No, not really.
RedNation Online: Amongst all of your qualities, you are known for your work ethic and Real Salt Lake is a very hardworking team. At the International level, when all the players are so skilled, is it often a matter of which teams work harder?
Will Johnson: In a lot of cases, I think in any game, from my point of view, if you get outworked there is a very good chance that you are going to lose the game. If you outwork the other team, you just put yourself in a better position to be rewarded for that hard work and to potentially give yourself a better chance to win the game. I also think you need skill and you need great players. You can’t just have a bunch of guys who are just hard workers and expect to win tournaments at this level. There is just too much skill and too many good players. But I think the bare minimum any time you are asked to put on a national team jersey – and the same is true with Salt Lake – is that you don’t get outworked. For me that is just unacceptable.
RedNation Online: You have played a lot of soccer recently and endured a lot of travel. How are you feeling physically?
Will Johnson: Not bad. I feel like it is the end of the season already. I think the second half of the MLS season will be a bit of a grind. But I feel good and I love playing soccer. We (Real Salt Lake) have played in some massive games already, but it’s been strange emotionally because whenever you put so much into a game and so much into a tournament and a run, you get so emotionally invested in it and you go from an amazing high to an absurd low. And that is hard to take, so emotionally it catches up with you a little bit. But all you can do is get back out there and look forward to doing it at another tournament. And I’m glad that the Gold Cup is finally here.
RedNation Online: Recent weeks have been an emotional and mentally tiring time for Real Salt Lake. Taking into the account the cliché that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, are you a stronger player due to all of the recent adversity?
Will Johnson: I firmly believe that you always learn a lot more when you lose and fail than you do when you succeed. Obviously I think those are things that you learn from and reflect on over time. As far as that game and that run, it’s still pretty recent and not much time has elapsed since that happened. I think that through the course of the year it will help through to the end of the MLS season and things like that will make us stronger as a team and I’ll be stronger as a person. And those experiences will help me throughout the rest of my career.
RedNation Online: Will the Gold Cup provide a good barometer for where the Canadian team is at heading into another World Cup qualifying campaign?
Will Johnson: Yeah, I think so. We have a good squad of guys now who have been playing friendlies for a year or so. We are all getting on the same page with respect to what Stephen (Hart) and Tony (Fonseca) expect of us. I believe it will be a good barometer. There are only so many friendlies that you can play and we now need to play some games where there is something real on the line. There are places in the next round of the Gold Cup on the line and then hopefully we get to the point where it is win or go home. I think it will be a great measuring stick for us as we head into World Cup qualifying, although you do have to remember that our number one focus for the long-term is qualifying for the World Cup. That’s got to be our number one goal. But for the short-term, make no mistake, I think our number one goal is to win the Gold Cup.
RedNation Online: At the post-match press conference on Wednesday, Stephen Hart indicated that while he was happy to get the result against Ecuador, he wasn’t overly ecstatic about the team’s performance over the full ninety minutes. Does it say something about the team that it can grind out a result against a strong opponent even when Canada doesn’t play its best?
Will Johnson: I think that’s true with any team. I think you have to be able to win games when you are not playing your absolute best, because the reality of anything you do in soccer, or life, is that you are not going to be 100% perfect in every game. That’s just not how it works, so you have to make sure that you can manage those mistakes and still win games. I wouldn’t get too caught up in a one off friendly. We still have to remember games like the one against Peru where we didn’t show up and we got spanked. It’s something that can definitely be said – that we are making progress and that we are making strides, but still there were lapses in that game where we lost focus and we got punished, because it is such a high level that you do get punished. So we have to make sure that we understand that and are focused for ninety minutes. It’s not always about the mistakes that you make, a lot of the time it is about how you react to those mistakes. And I still think that we are coming up a little short in some areas, when we make mistakes. It’s something that is often easy to correct, you can fall back and get yourself in a good spot and not give up a goal. Mistakes don’t have to lead to goals. We’re working on that and I think we will be well prepared at the end of this camp and we’ll be ready to go.
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