Still visibly upset by what happened today on the Canadian national team’s training ground, the defender of Celtic Alistair Johnston spoke to TSN microphones expressing his dismay at the serious injury that occurred to Tajon Buchanan: “This group has been together for a long time, they’ve been through all the ups and downs together. You never want to see an injury like that, especially in training. The guys put in a lot of work and when something is out of the ordinary it makes everyone feel strange. Let’s hope for the best for Tajon, obviously it was hard to see him go down. I hope he can recover soon. This is definitely a bad day for us.”
Given how this group has come together over the years, the news is even more difficult to digest.
“True, we spent many days together; just this last month we were together in retreat, eating and doing everything together. When you sweat and spit blood all together a different bond is born, so seeing someone get hurt is hard. Especially Tajon, a very sweet and quiet boy and an important piece of this team on and off the field.”
How does this accident affect the group’s preparation? How much does it now depend on the team to get back to focusing?
“Tajon would be the first to say it. We have to move forward and focus on our job, what happened gives us extra motivation. We have to do it for Tajon, we know he would have played a big role in these games. Now we have this extra motivation, we have to win for him to give him something to be proud of if he were to watch the games on TV or be at the stadium. He has been an important part of this team and will continue to be so for the future. This is a difficult situation but we have to make sure he is taken care of as best we can and then refocus and go out there to win for him.”
The team is preparing for the first knockout match and something like this happens, what emotions do you feel?
“I repeat, it’s tough. Tajon was training great, he seemed enthusiastic and full of energy. Maybe he started the tournament in a more complicated way than he would have liked, but against Chile he had put everything behind him. We wanted to see what he would bring to the next match, he himself felt that he would have more space. We are all focused on the match against Venezuela, but in sports bad incidents can happen. It was a bit of a strange clash, unfortunately things like this happen. We just hope he can recover quickly, but at the same time we have to think about him because he needs it. They will be difficult moments for him, but I know that the whole country will be by his side too.”
