Richie Laryea’s mouth is not the only weapon in his arsenal, but it is the most barbed one: Over years of devotion to soccer’s dark arts, he has developed an uncanny ability to whisper opponents into acts of self-defeat.
Before Thursday’s must-win against Qatar in Vancouver, Canada’s anti-ambassador was asked whether his effectiveness as a tormentor is muted at a World Cup.
Is it harder to do what he does when his targets are strangers rather than familiar foes, who might not speak English? Or is trash talk a universal language?
“It’s universal,” he said with a wide smile that belied his more malevolent capabilities. “I won’t repeat them, but there’s stuff you definitely can say. Nothing that crosses the line, but enough to piss someone off in the game.”
At the 2022 World Cup, Laryea went to early work on Yannick Carrasco in Canada’s opener against Belgium.
Most of the time, Laryea begins his agitations with low-level physical affronts, a little pushing, a little tugging, a little extra sharpness in his elbows. He put Carrasco to the ground in the seventh minute, and the Belgian was already raising his hands in frustration to the uninterested referee.
In the ninth minute, Carrasco committed the hand ball that led to a penalty for Canada. Alphonso Davies failed to convert it, but now Carrasco had a yellow card, and Laryea nodded to himself: Time to get down to business. He elevated his bedeviling campaign, ratcheting up the tension with a relentless verbal barrage.
“He gets really touchy, he’ll try to push a little bit,” fellow defender Moise Bombito said. “And then he starts talking. And if he starts talking, and the opponent starts talking back, we know he’s got him. He can crack whoever he wants.”
Carrasco talked back. The broken Belgian was subbed off at halftime and spent the rest of the night shaking his head at the sky.
“I think Richie’s just really smart,” Liam Millar said, recalling Carrasco’s dismantling. “He knows that a lot of footballers are hot-headed. He knows how to get inside people’s heads. I’m very happy I get to play with Richie and not against him.”
Despite Laryea’s insistence that trash talk is a universal language — like the game itself — he does have favourite targets.
“Especially when we play Mexico or the U.S., he just loves to get at guys,” Bombito said.
But the chaotic energy he brings, the crackle of malice, is part of nearly every outing.
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“It’s about being aggressive,” Laryea said. “We’re always on the front foot. I think that coincides pretty well with, you know, getting in people’s faces.”
Laryea’s own game is double-edged. Employed frequently during Davies’s year-long absence from the national team, he’s shown versatility, wisdom, leadership, creativity. Head coach Jesse Marsch has called him Canada’s best player over that stretch.
He should have scored in last week’s opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina, thwarted only by some desperate Bosnian defending and the crossbar.
Laryea still contributed with his unlikely brand of leading-by-example. He no doubt will again when he begins probing a hunkered-down Qatar for weaknesses: There is more than one way to break down a low block. Some sieges are psychological.
“With a team like us, we need Richie,” Bombito said. “He just gives you that extra flame. Sometimes you just feel like, okay, we’re going to play… I don’t want to say easy, but… And then he comes in, and he just messes everything up. And we’re like, okay, if he’s going to play like this, then we’re going to play like this. He sets a different tone. He sets us loose.”
After Laryea was asked about his skills as a professional irritant, he was asked whether the question itself stung his pride. There’s so much more to his game. He can be a beautiful soccer player. Does it bother him when his more sinister reputation precedes him?
“Sometimes it’s highlighted,” he said. “Honestly, it doesn’t bug me.”
That’s only because he wasn’t asking it of himself.
