Maxime Crépeau, along with Jeremy Gagnon-Lapare from the first team, and Louis Béland-Goyette and Jonathan Grant from FC Montreal, are representing Canada at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto from July 10-26. The team opens competition at the CIBC Hamilton Soccer Stadium on July 12 against world powerhouses Brazil before wrapping up play in Group A with games against Panama on July 16 and Peru on July 20.
JOURNAL ENTRY #2
Last Thursday, we had an intense session that lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. Friday proved to be the busiest day, while we had a recovery session in the morning, before heading to the athlete's village in Toronto.
The village is frankly superb! All countries are represented and all possible services are available for the athletes. We were given a tour of Canada house, where there are a lot of things going on, with people playing cards, ping pong, board games, foosball, etc. We even met the Prime Minister who came to visit the athletes in order to wish them good luck in their respective competitions.
In the evening, we took part in the opening ceremony, which was simply amazing! Music, atmosphere, organization, in short, there was nothing missing which made for an incredible evening and it was a beautiful experience to walk into the Rogers Centre in front of a crowd of 55,000 people cheering for the Canadian delegation.
Now to the serious stuff…Saturday, we had a session in preparation for the match and then we watched the Canada play Jamaica in the Gold Cup that evening.
Judgement Day! At around 7pm, we arrived at the stadium while the Panama-Peru game was under way, since they played before us. There's an electric atmosphere for our game. More than 22,000 spectators were at the game, with many there for Brazil, but a number obviously there as well for Canada.
Exiting the tunnel and being part of the starting XI for this match alongside my club mates Louis and Jeremy was a special and emotional moment.
As soon as the game started, we realized that Brazil was a highly skilled team and they were there to win. Whenever we got into the offensive third, the crowd literally carried us towards their goal. Despite the four goals conceded in the match, supporters never stopped encouraging us and we thank them greatly.
Our next step will be Thursday night, when we face Panama, who defeated Peru 2-1 in the 89th minute of the game on a penalty kick.
