Canadian Olympic Team Roster

[Captain Canuck]

The roster hasn't been released yet, but it has been confirmed that the Canadians will be without star striker Iain Hume and midfielder Mike Klukowski. Their clubs, Tranmere & La Louviere, will not release them for Olympic duty. At least La Louviere is being consistent, as they didn't release Onyewu for the US Olympic team either.

There is also some doubt as to whether De Guzman, Nsaliwa & Dunfield will be released by their European clubs, and Nsaliwa might be injured in any event. The only good news on the day is that Atiba Hutchinson has signed with a new team in Sweden (Helsingborg) and will be available for the qualifiers, since the Swedish season doesn't begin until well-after the qualifiers are over.

[Captain Canuck]

A number of key players missing, but actually not as bad as I had feared. We only get Julian for the first match unfortunately, but I had been expecting him to not be available for any, so in that sense its good news. I wish we had him for the US match though.

Men's Olympic (U-23) Team
Friday, January 30, 2004
Twamley Releases Olympic Qualifying Roster


Ottawa, Ontario – Canadian Men’s Olympic (U-23) Team head coach Bruce Twamley today released his 20-player roster for the CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualifying tournament in Guadalajara, Mexico from February 2-12, 2004. The two finalists will qualify for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Canada will compete in Group A with Honduras, Panama, and the United States. Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, and Costa Rica are competing in Group B.

Canada’s opening game of the tournament is against Honduras on Tuesday, February 3rd. Their next opponent is the United States on Thursday, February 5th and finally Panama on Saturday, February 7th to end their group play in the tournament.

“We’re going to give it a great effort,” said Twamley. “We have to get the results to advance and we will have to use the entire squad for this condensed tournament.”

The Roster includes seven players from the Youth team that recently made the quarter-finals at the 2003 FIFA Word Youth Championship in the UAE; Elliott Godfrey, Kevin Hamse, Alim Karim, Winston Marshall, Sita-Taty Matondo, and Josh Simpson. Brampton native, Atiba Hutchinson who was recently named to the FIFA all-star team at the World Youth Championship will be available for the tournament.

New to the roster is Windsor-native Stephen Ademolu who plays for Cleveland State University in Ohio. Ademolu, who was named the 2003 Horizon Conference (NCAA) Player of Year, made his debut for Canada in the 1-1 draw with Martinique in Fort de France on December 29, 2003.

Unable to join Canada in Guadalajara due to club commitments are Terry Dunfield who plays for Bury in the English Third Division, Iain Hume of Tranmere Rovers in the English Second Division, and Mike Klukowski of La Louviere in the Belgian First Division. Julian de Guzman who plays for Hannover 96 in the German Bundesliga will join the Canadian squad after his Sunday match against Hamburg. Following the match against Honduras, de Guzman will return to Hannover for his club’s February 8th showdown with Bayern Munich.

“It is unfortunate that we weren’t able to get all our European players. We will have to compensate with the other players,” added Twamley.

Deadline for roster changes is tomorrow, Saturday, January 31, 2004.

Games

Date Game Time
02/03/04 Canada vs. Honduras 18:00 (local)
02/05/04 Canada vs. USA 20:00 (local)
02/07/04 Canada vs. Panama 18:00 (local)
02/10/04 Semi-finals
Group A Winner vs. Group B Runner-up 17:30 (local)
Group B Winner vs. Group A Runner-up 20:00 (local)
02/12/04 Third Place 17:30 (local)
Final 20:00 (local)


Roster

# Position Name Hometown DOB Club
1 GK OLIVIERI, Andrew Montreal 27-Mar-81 Montreal Impact
2 DF BRAZ, Adam Dorval 07-Jun-81 Montreal Impact
3 DF MARSHALL, Winston Scarborough 26-Feb-83 Wright State University
4 DF OPPONG, Victor Scarborough 04-Sep-81 FC Saarbrücken
5 DF POZNIAK, Chris North York 10-Jan-81 unattached
6 MF NSALIWA, Tam Edmonton 28-Jan-82 SSV Jahn Regensburg
7 MF WILLIAMS, Chris Toronto 01-Jun-81 Montreal Impact
8 MF PLACENTINO, Rocco Montreal 25-Feb-82 US Avellino
9 MF MATONDO, Sita-Taty St-Laurent 28-Dec-84 Montreal Impact
10 MF DE GUZMAN, Julian Scarborough 25-Mar-81 Hannover 96
11 FW FRIEND, Rob Kelowna 23-Jan-81 Moss FK
12 MF MASCIANTONIO, David Oakville 17-Dec-81 A.C. Isola Liri
13 MF HUTCHINSON, Atiba Brampton 08-Feb-83 Helsingborgs IF
14 FW ADEMOLU, Stephen Windsor 20-Nov-82 Cleveland State Univ.
15 MF SIMPSON, Josh Victoria 15-May-83 University of Portland
16 FW GODFREY, Elliott Toronto 22-Feb-83 Watford FC
17 DF HARMSE, Kevin Coquitlam 04-Jul-84 Tromso
18 DF THOMPSON, Justin N.Vancouver 09-Jan-81 unattached
19 MF SAVARIA, Mathieu St-Hubert 14-May-81 Fairleigh Dickinson Univ.
22 GK KARIM, Alim Scarborough 20-Apr-83 Syracuse University

Staff
Derek Wisdom Head of Delegation
Bruce Twamley Head Coach
Mark Watson Assistant Coach
Earl Cochrane Head of Administration/Press Officer
Rudolph Gittens Team Doctor
Ted Tilbury Therapist
Voon Chong Equipment Manager
Dale Mitchell Canada Staff Coach
Frank Yallop Canada Staff Coach

[Sandon Mibut]

I know five of the players currently play at US universities and five more played college ball in the states before turning pro.

Did any of the others play college ball at Canadian colleges and is that level of play seens as good preparation for getting to the A-League?

[Captain Canuck]

Originally posted by Sandon Mibut
I know five of the players currently play at US universities and five more played college ball in the states before turning pro.

Did any of the others play college ball at Canadian colleges and is that level of play seens as good preparation for getting to the A-League?

I don't think any of these players have played College soccer in Canada, though I'm not 100% positive on some of them. Generally speaking Canadian college soccer is not seen as being as good preparation for the A-league as the NCAA, or for any other league for that matter (MLS, Europe etc.) There have been a few Canadians that have gone from the CIAU (the Canadian NCAA equivalent) to decent careers in the A-league - Nikola Budalic played Canadian college ball & then went on to be the A-league rookie of the year in 2002 with Toronto, before heading to Sweden & now returning to the A-league - but with Montreal. But by & large, as far as the college circuit goes, NCAA players are preferred.

The number of NCAA players on the Canadian Olympic team is a bit higher than most of us would have expected originally, as some of those spots would have been taken by Euro-based players that in the end have been prevented by their clubs from playing.

[Sandon Mibut]

Originally posted by Captain Canuck
Generally speaking Canadian college soccer is not seen as being as good preparation for the A-league as the NCAA, or for any other league for that matter (MLS, Europe etc.) There have been a few Canadians that have gone from the CIAU (the Canadian NCAA equivalent) to decent careers in the A-league - Nikola Budalic played Canadian college ball & then went on to be the A-league rookie of the year in 2002 with Toronto, before heading to Sweden & now returning to the A-league - but with Montreal. But by & large, as far as the college circuit goes, NCAA players are preferred. I know that Mark Watson and Pat Onstad played at the Univeristy of British Columbia back in the late 80s. Both have had pretty good pro careers, which is one of the reasons I asked.

The number of NCAA players on the Canadian Olympic team is a bit higher than most of us would have expected originally, as some of those spots would have been taken by Euro-based players that in the end have been prevented by their clubs from playing. Yeah, that sucks. We're in the same boat.

[CanuckFan]

None on the Olympic team but to answer the question whether any go on to the A-League, we'll see at least 4 top Canadian University players in Calgary with their A-League team this season. I would imagine that number may grow as well. Edmonton will also have some but have not announced anything yet.
Too early to say how they'll do.
And I think we're hurting more from the FIFA ruling on (not) releasing players for the Olympics. Many of your (US) players are MLS based but we have a lot of players in Europe (Hume, Dunfield, Klukowski, de Guzman, Nsaliwa) affected by the ruling. Julian de Guzman is going to put his starting place with Hannover 96 (Bundesliga 1) on the line by flying out of Germany after his Sunday Bundesliga game, play against Honduras on Tuesday, then back to training in Germany for a match next Sunday vs Bayern Munich. Hume is not released at all from Division 2 Tranmere. Nsaliwa is named to the squad but I think he is injured with Jahn Regensburg (Bundesliga 2). Dunfield is also not released by his crap English club. Klukowski is need by his Belgian 1st division club La Louviere.