Richard Hastings, part of 2000 Gold Cup champions, enters Canada Soccer Hall of Fame

Football

Published 14.03.2023

Richard Hastings, part of 2000 Gold Cup champions, enters Canada Soccer Hall of Fame

Richard Hastings thought he was getting on a Canada Soccer name with former teammates Paul Stalteri and Julian de Guzman to reminisce concerning the 2007 Gold Cup.

Instead Hastings, who made the Gold Cup Best XI that 12 months, discovered himself on the road with Canada captain Atiba Hutchinson, coach John Herdman and former Canadian internationals Jason deVos, Iain Hume and Craig Forrest.

It was Hutchinson who broke the news that Hastings was headed to the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame.

“Obviously I was surprised but then once I kind of knew what was going on, it started sinking in,” Hastings recalled. “It was just a great feeling, in terms of acknowledgment and recognition. Not just from the (Canadian Soccer) Association but from my peers … It was a really nice feeling and obviously a proud moment.”

Hastings and former defender Carmelina Moscato, who gained 94 caps for Canada in addition to a bronze medal on the 2012 London Olympics, are the most recent Hall of Fame inductees.

Hastings, 45, will likely be honoured March 28 on the Canadian males’s CONCACAF Nations League match in opposition to Honduras in Toronto. Moscato, 38, will likely be showcased earlier than a future girls’s nationwide crew recreation.

While primarily a defender, Hastings is most remembered for the profitable objective in opposition to mighty Mexico within the 2000 Gold Cup quarterfinal in San Diego.

At the time, the Mexicans have been ranked first in CONCACAF and tenth on the earth. Canada was ninth within the area and eighty fifth on the earth.

The Canadian males had simply three wins of their earlier 22 conferences with Mexico (3-13-6) and had been outscored 52-14.

So the percentages have been in opposition to Canada that day in 2000 at Qualcomm Stadium. And it appeared business as regular when Ramon Ramirez put the Mexicans forward within the thirty fifth minute.

But Carlo Corazzin headed dwelling a Martin Nash cross within the 83rd minute and, after the regulation 90 minutes, the sport went to sudden loss of life.

The profitable objective got here in transition after Canada defended a Mexican nook. The Canadians cleared rapidly and went on the counterattack. With three onrushing teammates to select from, Nash discovered Hastings — the farthest to his left — with a wonderfully floated cross that took three Mexican defenders out of the play,

The ball reached Hastings outdoors the penalty field. Without breaking stride, he used his proper thigh to redirect the ball in entrance of him. And when he caught up with the ball, he roofed it previous goalkeeper Oscar Perez.

Canada went on to defeat Trinidad and Tobago 1-0 within the Gold Cup semifinal and Colombia 2-0 within the last to finish an unlikely match run that had required profitable a coin flip over South Korea simply to succeed in the knockout rounds.

Hastings was named the match’s high rookie. Corazzin took high scorer honours, deVos the Fair Play Award and Forrest was named match MVP.

A 22-year-old Hastings got here in off the bench in Canada’s match opener in opposition to Costa Rica to interchange injured defender Paul Fenwick. Canada coach Holger Osieck then threw Hastings a curve forward of the following recreation.

“He said I would be starting, which I was delighted with. But he then said I would be playing in centre midfield,” Hastings recalled. “I just was astonished. I had to make it clear to him. I said ‘That’s great Holger. But you do realize that I’ve never played centre-mid before?’ And he went ‘Ah, you’ll be OK.’”

“He had trust in me, in what he saw in me … For the tournament to have gone the way it did, I could never have dreamt for it to go that way,” Hastings added.

He performed in midfield the remainder of the match in Osieck’s 3-5-2 formation on a Gold Cup squad that has since been acknowledged as a Canada Soccer Team of Distinction.

It’s a lesson Hastings has taken into his personal managerial profession, empowering gamers “to go and do a job that they maybe didn’t think they could do.”

As proud as he’s of the highlight-reel strike in opposition to Mexico, the one objective of his senior worldwide profession, Hastings is equally pleased with profitable 59 caps (together with 54 begins) from 1998 to 2010.

At membership stage, he spent most of his profession with Inverness Caledonian Thistle but in addition performed for Ross County, Hamilton Academicals and Brora Rangers elsewhere in Scotland, Grazer AK in Austria and MVV Maastricht within the Netherlands.

He retired in 2013.

Most lately Hastings managed the Highland League’s Inverurie Loco Works FC from Inverurie, steeping down in late January. He had taken over the semi-pro membership in the summertime of 2021.

He beforehand served as Inverness under-17 coach and Ross County’s academy and under-18 coach.

Hastings got here to the 2000 Gold Cup on the again of serving to Inverness upset Celtic 3-1 within the Scottish Cup third spherical at Celtic Park.

It gave start to the well-known Scottish Sun headline “Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious,” a homage to an earlier Liverpool Echo headline reporting on a Seventies showcase efficiency by Ian Callaghan for Liverpool in opposition to Queens Park Rangers — “Super Cally Goes Ballistic, QPR Atrocious.”

Born in Prince George, B.C., to English-born mother and father, Hastings was seven when the household moved again to England and 12 when it shifted to Scotland.

Now a father of three with two boys enjoying youth-level soccer at native golf equipment, Hastings spent a few years in Canada after retiring as a participant earlier than returning to Scotland the place he makes his dwelling in Inverness.

He has been impressed from a distance with the present Canadian squad.

“I think it’s going to open the door for a lot more young Canadian players to come across (to Europe). Because now Canadians are taken a bit more seriously for their display at the World Cup,” he stated. “I see that as a huge takeaway.”