"The legacy of this tournament has to be an improvement with our national teams." Colin Linford, president, Canadian Soccer Association.

"Today's not a day for analysis of soccer in Canada, I'm not willing to talk today about what the problem is in Canadian soccer. We're playing soccer, we're not playing hockey, so we're not the best in world."  Canadian head coach Dale Mitchell.

"The game is about glory. It's about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom." Tottenham Hotspur legend Danny Blanchflower.

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The U-20 World Cup rolls on into the knockout stages minus the presence of host nation Canada, who went goalless, winless, pointless in three first-round games. No one expected such an embarassing early exit. No one can defend it.

But the fact that the tournament continues it's highly successful run - in the stands and on television - only serves to illustrates the contrasting fates that await the two men who will likely bear the brunt of the collective criticism directed at Canada's national soccer programs.

CSA president Colin Linford and Canadian head coach Dale Mitchell will find themselves targets for all sorts of abuse in the days and weeks ahead as answers are sought to Canada's dismal showing at an event they looked well prepared to compete in.

Linford may well find that his position as president, which looked shaky going into the event, has suddenly become bulletproof, as FIFA's financial gnomes squeak in unbridled joy at the unexpected success the tournament has become.

Ticket sales are miles beyond where anyone thought they would go. The seats have been well filled in all six venues, with paid attendances now topping one million, double the numbers from this event's previous edition in Holland and approaching the record levels set two decades ago in Mexico where ticket prices, if they even existed, would have been mere pennies on the now-healthy Canadian dollars being spent here.

The event has also proven to be a successful competitive laboratory for FIFA to study the effects of playing high-level soccer on synthetic playing surfaces. With venues in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa all using field turf, featuring games involving top teams like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, USA and Portugal, it's let FIFA take a close look at what's needed to make plastic pitches more viable in the future.

It's an issue that's a high priority with FIFA as it looks to find ways to grow, or at least sustain, the sport's development  in regions where climatic or financial concerns make quality grass playing surfaces difficult to maintain.

Regardless of Canada's on-field success, Linford is bound to hear nothing but praise from FIFA and that will only strengthen his position in the CSA board room, where he fought and lost over the selection of Canada's next national team head coach.

Linford had lined up Brazilian Rene Simoes and his accomplished associates to assume the reins of the national team program. A board room battle ensued just prior to the U-20 event kicking off and when the red smoke finally appeared from the chimney at CSA-HQ, Mitchell was the man.

The fact that his current U20 squad, the culmination of seven years in his current post, failed to score, or even remotely excite, is damning criticism. But when you consider that Mitchell failed to score in three games playing striker for Canada in the 1986 World Cup, it may have been a foregone conclusion.

An inability to score, or perform well, on either grass or plastic, could indicate that Mitchell's greatest failing as a coach was his inabilitiy to find another surface to play on.

His tactics were totally wrong in the opening game against Chile, when a passive, defensive stance allowed a swift, skillful side even more time and space to slice open a static Canadian defence.

The fact that Austria totally outplayed Canada from a physical standpoint in the second group game will not sit well with Canadians, who are used to seeing their hockey teams rock the bodies of more skll-oriented European opponents.

It looked like the CSA had a simple, straightforward plan for their men's national team program.

Let Mitchell guide his junior squad into the latter stages of the U-20 World Cup, picking up valuable experience for all of them at a high-level event. Then have Mitchell assume control of the senior men's squad and guide them through qualification for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

His experience and knowledge of the younger players would add depth to, and even competition for, positions on the national team. And he was a good ol' boy, a product of the Vancouver soccer system that has been the backbone of much of Canada's efforts the past two decades or so.

But who would have anticipated that interim coach Stephen Hart would draw such a broad range of fine individual performances and get the natonal team to perform so well in the recent Gold Cup event. They were robbed of a place in the final by a ludicrously poor offside call that negated a late equalizing goal.

There's an old, time-worn saying that goes: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

Most Canadian soccer observers would agree that there's little wrong with the current men's national team. They'd also agree that a lot went wrong with an U-20 side that had the talent base to do much better. The program had a clear path set out for it and it quickly went off the trail into the bush.

As Colin Linford returns to his CSA administration duties after the U-20 World Cup ends, he'll find that the excellent organization of this event has given him back an edge he lost just a month or two earlier. It could be quite a sharp edge to wield.

Dale Mitchell has to wonder whether he'll use that sharp edge to hack out a path to respectability for his coaching endeavours. Or just use it to cut him and work with what 's already working.