Immanuel Mathe is looking to secure a promotion within the Canada Soccer men's national team system.
After earning an invite to the under-17 camp in fall of 2022, the Burnaby centre back is set to attend the under-20 team's camp this month in hopes of cracking its final roster for the 2024 CONCACAF Championship.
The camp is set to include three international friendlies in Chile. According to a Canada Soccer statement, the matches will be key to selecting its squad for the 12-team continental tournament.
Mathe is one of four players with camp experience from the under-17 cycle nearly two years earlier.
And, at the time, under-20 head coach Andrew Olivieri was managing the cohort, which could put Mathe in a favourable position to get to the big stage.
"We welcome any opportunity to bring the youth teams together and being able to head into a difficult environment with three matches against high quality opponents is an important next step for this group," Olivieri said.
"We saw the talent of this group in the qualifiers back in February and now we’re looking forward to taking the next steps towards competing at a higher level."
In April, at age 18, Mathe put pen to paper on his first professional contract with Vancouver Whitecaps II (WFC2) of MLS Next Pro — one league below the majors.
He has been able to play in his own backyard as WFC2's home matches are held at Swangard Stadium.
The Cliff Avenue United FC alum has played 11 games in his first campaign, was part of the starting XI in 10 of them and has clocked 922 minutes of field action. He also has the sixth best pass percentage on WFC2 at 87 per cent.
Mathe is one of three players representing B.C. at the national camp alongside Jeevan Badwal (Surrey) and James Cameron (North Vancouver).
He'll suit up for Canada for the friendlies in La Calera, Chile, on June 19 against the host country, June 21 against Ecuador and June 23 against Paraguay.
If successful, Mathe could be heading to Mexico in late July with Les Rouges in hopes of winning the U-20 CONCACAF Championship.
Canada is in Group "B" and will square up against the following:
- July 20 = Honduras
- July 23 = Dominican Republic
- July 26 = El Salvador
Canada is calling 📞🇨🇦@CanadaSoccerEN announced #WFC2 defender Immanuel Mathe, midfielder Jeevan Badwal, and forward Myles Morgan have been called up to the #CANM20 squad for the upcoming 2024 @Concacaf U-20 Championship 🏆https://t.co/XfmJuRGACY
— Whitecaps FC 2 (@wfc2) June 7, 2024
