Gold Cup: Canadian goalkeeper and captain Borjan eliminated

Canada captain Milan Borjan will miss the rest of the CONCACAF Gold Cup with an unknown injury.

Canada Soccer says the goalkeeper has returned to Europe so he can recover ahead of the 2023/24 club season.

Borjan becomes one of several top Canadians out of the tournament.

Alphonso Davies, Jonathan David, Cyle Larin, Tajon Buchanan, Alistair Johnston, Atiba Hutchinson and Ismael Kone were all excluded from the tournament.

The team then announced the day before the opening game that Stephen Eustaquio and Samuel Adekugbe were replaced by Jayden Nelson and Liam Fraser.

Borjan was in goal for Canada’s 2-2 draw with Guadeloupe last Tuesday in Toronto and the 0-0 draw against Guatemala in Houston on Saturday.

Canada (0-2-0) must now win the Group D final against Cuba (0-0-2) in Houston on Tuesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup. The scoreless team of Cuba, which is last in the group of four teams, lost 1-0 against Guatemala last Tuesday and 4-1 against Guadeloupe on Saturday.

Canada are currently third in the group, with just two points from those first two games.

Guadeloupe (1-1-0) is ahead of Guatemala (1-1-0) as first with a difference of plus-3 points compared to the last plus-1. The two will also play against each other on Tuesday in the hopes of holding onto the top two seeded teams to advance to the quarter-finals.

Borjan leads the men’s national team in games by goalkeeper with 77 and clean sheets with 35.

The 35-year-old player has been playing club football with Red Star Belgrade from Serbia since 2017, but was loaned to Slovan Bratislava from Slovakia last month.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 3, 2023.