Matthew Lam - From Edmonton (Canada) to the Heights of Asian Soccer
Canadian Matthew Lam has crossed continents in order to pursue his passion of playing the professional game to the highest levels. Currently, he is settled in Hong Kong to plays for the local giants, Kitchee.
Lam has been at the heart of Kitchee's recent run of success over the past few seasons with his dominant midfield performances and he has also featured in Kitchee's high profile friendly games against Manchester United and PSG Paris.
Lam was born in Edmonton, Canada and spent his formative years growing up in Canada playing soccer under the guidance of his Hong Kong-born father.
Lam is still closely connected to Canadian football and expressed his views on the game in Canada and why the Canadian national team, despite having so many citizens who love and play soccer are not performing better on the global stage.
Lam went onto share his thoughts on the game in Canada in an exclusive interview.
"There is a ton of debate on the Canadian national team and I am constantly taking about it with my friends. I have a few friends who are playing with the national team and I think it comes back to the fact that Canada does not have its own professional league. Canada is part of the MLS (Major League Soccer) with three Canadian clubs in the MLS and three clubs in the American Soccer League (ASL).
For such a large country to only have six professional clubs does not help with development. Though, there are a number of top quality players who come out of Canada and will go onto play in leagues all around the world. As Canada is such a diverse nation and so multi-cultural, these players end up being able to play for national teams elsewhere."
Lam also touched upon how a lack of a professional league in Canada was hindering the development of the professional game at all levels of participation.
"Canada probably should be ranked a lot higher than they are but they are held back by certain things such as not having their own professional league, though I am not saying they should have their own professional league as it is so difficult to sustain a league in a country which is so spread out.
It is extremely expensive and I remember when I was playing in Edmonton and we played basically as a North American league and you would be on an away trip for three weeks and you would be playing in three different cities; one city each week and then you would play a handful of games at home and then you would be on the road again for three weeks."
"It is very difficult league to play in. For example, you would be flying down to Florida and then you would be bussing to the next state kind of thing. For example, bussing over to Fort Lauderdale.
I honestly could not tell you what the answer is; I do have some opinions on it and I think a lot of the money from the national team programme could be put into different areas instead of where they are putting the money now.
I have personal experience of being part of the national set-up and I played with the under-20 national team and I was there for some camps as an under-23 and I played a friendly against the full men's national team and there were some real quality players at the time such as Dwayne De Rosario."
Lam also delved into the concept of how Canadian professional players are not classified as 'local' players in the MLS and deemed 'overseas players' thus hindering any opportunities for growth and development as playing opportunities are limited.
"I think the development of the MLS is now definitely going to benefit the national team and one of the problems is that, with the MLS, Canadian players are only 'local' players with the Canadian teams but they are not 'locals' with the American teams but the American players are 'local' with the American teams and the Canadian teams so that really limits the amount of playing opportunities that Canadians have.
This is a huge factor as if they were able to open up all the American teams and Canadian teams to be local for all American and Canadian players then that would bring so many more opportunities for the top Canadian players, instead of competing for places against top foreign stars like Lampard and Pirlo for spots, the Canadian players could be competing against other Canadian or American players so there are a lot of difficulties there."
"With the Canadian national team, I think the scouting is not the best; it is hard to scout players who are here, there and everywhere in different countries and a lot more of the financial resources should be going onto watching players in different leagues all around the world.
It just seems that the same group of players carry on from youth to professional level like the under-20s and under-23s. It is the same group of players and some may not continue to develop whilst other players who are playing in big leagues in Europe or in England or in Asia are not being looked at, as the scouting factor does not extend so far.
A number of factors are holding development back, but they are starting to improve, but it will be years before the Canadian national team hits the top level."
Thank You!