Just a head up Henry scored a goal in a big 2-0 win over the USA and Stinson played both games thus far. They can get a result vs Cuba and USA can beat El Salvador they got a good shot avoiding Mexico and making it to the London games.
Keep in mind that this largely due to the fact that the majority of our European based players are not available.
Doesn't FIFA have an international date about a week after these matches? Any idea on why they are playing them on non-international dates, so not having their full squad available, when there is an international date so close by?
Canada was offered a chance to play Russia on the FIFA date but opted to get two games for their money.
Makes sense, turn down a date on an international day with the availibility of your entire squad against a top nation.....to play two games against lesser opposition (USA is arguably not lesser than Russia but we play them a lot) with only a partial squad available. Makes perfect sense if the only thing you consider is the travel budget! With each move the CSA has me more sympathetic to the players who choose to chase dreams with other nations rather than represent Canada (and I have never typed a sentence that was harder for me to spew out than that).
important to evaluate some of the guys in 'B' team to prep for 2018. most of the guys in the 'A' squad won't be around. rebuilding starts now. 'A' team guys will get their chance in March vs Japan
We have no guys playing in Europe that will be around for 2018 Qualifying (which starts, when, 2015?) that is, both, hard to believe and a bit disturbing. This pattern of prepping for events/tournaments by having Euro based players play in games that are over there and NA based players play in games over here is absurd, has hurt us in the past and is done for purely cost cutting measures.
Those players can be evaluated before WC 2018 qualifying starts, which is still a long ways away. A lot can change in that time frame, and evaluations made now will have completely changed by then. I don't think a complete overhaul is needed, but if it does happen, there will be players who haven't even shown up on the radar yet, and players who are on the radar now who wont step up. If fact, IMO looking too far ahead could be damaging. If you start to look at a specific group of players as the future NT, you run the risk of ignoring other talents who show up. The reason I worry about this is because I saw it happen with the Dutch NT. van Marwijk picked some young players who he thought would be the future of the NT, and then kept picking them even when it was obvious that their development had stopped, and other more talented players who had emerged since then were ignored. Obviously it's not the same situation with the Canadian NT, but I see the potential for a full scale version of BvM's mistake if we're not careful. Right now we need to prepare for the Gold Cup this summer. We should be using this training camp to try out players who could contribute to the team this summer. The way I see it, instead of doing a full scale rebuild, we should be doing it on a case by case basis. As young player 'A' emerges onto the scene playing well, and established player 'B'continues to be mediocre, player 'A' is called up in place of player 'B'. Or even if player A is of similar quality to player B, they should still be called up in their place due to their potential to grow more. But if young player 'C' then emerges and plays better than player 'A' in the same position, there should be no hesitation to drop player 'A' for player 'C'. I want the best players in the national team, not just the already established ones. For example, the fact that Morgan rides the pine so that Klukowski can play LB is mindblowing. Hell he has better attacking abilities than most guys who get called up to play LW. But on the other hand, I don't want guys like DeRo and Hutch - who are still playing at top form - discarded to make room for younger guys simply because they're young. If Hutch is still playing as well as he is today, in five years, than I'd love to have him at the 2018 WC (because we will qualify) [/rant] hope my babbling makes sense.
If we were about to start a WCQ cycle, your comments would make sense. Right now, the national team program is (or should be) focused on the end of 2015 which is when the WCQ starts for the 2018 WC. (In reality, they could focus on mid-2016 since, assuming no format changes, the 2015 action is against minnows.) Regardless, now is exactly the time to be trying all sorts of new players. Neither results nor team cohesion is particularly important nor are when or where we play or who we play against. Use 2013 and 2014 to cap people, try people out, experiment with formations, and gradually pick the starters for your squad. By January 2015 the squad should be essentially picked and the focus should shift to welding together a fighting unit. Give them numerous friendlies and at that time (but not now) make sure it is the best players who play, regardless of where they come from. Play on FIFA dates and if you have to fly them in from Europe, Outer Mongolia, or Antarctica then do it. The assembled squad should hit the minnows in November 2015 already well prepped and should gain even more togetherness in the six games against the minnows. By the time we hit the third round, we should have the very best team that Canada can put together. This will not happen, however, if we worry about trying to put together our strongest side for friendlies in 2013. Most of the guys who are our strongest players now won't even be around in 2016 when our qualifying starts to get tough.
I'd like to see them go with the future generation for the gold cup, rather than play to win. The gold cup is pretty much meaningless IMO, so start getting the team together for WCQ
This thread is about TFC players who are playing for the CMNT. If you wish to discuss the CMNT in general, please have that conversation on the Canada forum.
OK, I'm going to state my opinion on this and then I'll shut up. I get the fact that this thread has gone off-topic from it's original purpose. No problem. I also get Big Soccer's desire to not have multiple threads on the same subject all over the place. Also, no problem. But to me, this takes away from the whole concept of building a community. I mean, I could go over to the CMNT forum and talk about the CMNT, or go over the the MLS general forums if I want to talk about the possibility of promotion/relegation in MLS (or whatever). But I probably won't. To be honest, I'd rather be discussing this sort thing with, say, Adammac or ErnieE or Adrenline11 or TFCAjax or whoever, because I sort of feel like I know them - even if I don't. So, my suggestion as a compromise would be to make more use of the "NTFCR" board for things like this. That way, you still have the same community, but you keep the main thread open for TFC stuff only. Anyway, I'm not trying to challenge the ruling, just offering a suggestion.
Understood, but the Canada forum exists for a reason. You may have a comfort zone, but you may also find that there are people there worth talking to as well, along with a few familiar faces. There's little sense in TFC, VWFC and IdM fans all having separate conversations on the same subject. I understand that threads can deviate off topic and for brief periods that's fine, but the TFC forum should be kept to TFC related items, and if there's overlap with the CMNT okay, but when the conversation goes completely CMNT, then the conversation really should move over to the Canada forum.
There is a lot of merit in what you are saying.....not sure I agree with it but I think we can agree that regardless of the philosophy, there should be at least one T F C player in every squad.......right?
Alright, I guess we can all take some consolation in the fact that Dunfield made the team and Bernier didn't.
Bekker was good, though I think he was the only TFC player who was anywhere near match fit. Dunfield wasn't that bad, but Morgan and Henry were as poor as I've ever seen them
Morgan, Bekker, Dunfield started tonight for the CMNT. Stinson and Henry both came off the bench in the 0-0 draw with USMNT.
Now that I've seen Bekker play, you got yourselves quite a player imho. Very sharp on the ball, for the most part makes good decisions, completely held his own against the US B-teamers. Got high hopes for that kid now that I've seen him play. Will be interesting to see how Nelson uses him.
I liked Bekker's intelligent off the ball movement and passing. It's too bad that a lot of the players around him didn't know what to do with the passes he was giving them. What I especially liked was his ability to place the ball in the path of runners so well that they didn't even have to adjust their runs. What I thought he lacked was the confidence to dribble with the ball, and preferred pass it to others to run with. This, however, is not a problem if he is surrounded by dynamic players who can find themselves some space on the pitch. If they can do that, I'm confident that Bekker can deliver the ball to them consistantly. Personally, I see him as more of a deep lying playmaker than a #10. Partner him with a destroyer and put some dynamic AMs in front of him and you have a formidable midfield. For TFC I see something like this working: Ecks - O'Dea - Califf - Morgan -------Bekker - Frings/Cesar Lambe - - Silva - - Welshman? ----------Koevermans Silva, Lambe and Welshman could provide the movement that a player like Bekker needs around him to be highly effective. The only question is if Frings/Cesar can provide the appropriate defensive cover.
I like what I saw of Bekker too, but I wouldn't be so quick to use him in the regular lineup. Let him grow up a bit. He's a kid. I think he has potential to be really good in 3-5 years.