After watching the Canada-US game a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by something. Canadians often lament their team's lack of skill. But I think Canada's skill actually isn't that bad, relative to the rest of Concacaf. I thought your bigger deficiencies were in the areas of athleticism. My take on the Canadian team was small, short, and not very fast. Thoughts?
We're not as athletic as many of the top teams in the region, but our skill level is pretty high for individual players. What we need is a set of tactics that play to our strengths.
From what I saw in the Gold Cup (saw US game in person, watched streams of other 2 games), I was also quite impressed by the skills of some of the players, namely Josh Simpson and Simeon Jackson. I don't feel like the style of play really suited them though. Especially in the US game, it was like watching robots who were programmed to make short passes from wing to wing. But once the ball was on the wings, the wingers didn't really try to take on the side backs, and there weren't many incisive runs to try to pass onto, so the attack completely stalled. Will Johnson looked particularly uncomfortable on the right wing in the US game, and I agree with the switch (Johnson to AMF and De Rosario to RW) made for the rest of the tournament. Given the skill set of guys like Josh Simpson and Simeon Jackson, I wonder if Canada should adopt a counter attacking approach. Jackson looked good on the counter attack in the Panama game, and I think his skill set is well suited for this approach. Another problem is the lack of depth in the central midfield. Hutchinson and De Guzman are way better than anyone else there, and they never got to play together this Gold Cup. De Guzman did have some good moments, while Hutch was very limited in the US game.
Canada's deficiency is lack of funding towards talent scouting and development. We have players with the raw skill but we don't have people to bring out that talent in a group setting and we don't have scouts who can find the role players that every team needs in the midfield and defence. This goes for both men's and women's teams.
Both, when you get beyond the key starters and you have to rely on "the bench." We have no depth, plain and simple, especially in the age range of 21 - 25, and so we have no competition for starting spots. They are all benchwarmers at lower league clubs, guys who see very limited (if any) first team action. And at that a small minority of them might be of international calibre. Our RB is a lower German league journeyman (Ledgerwood) who got the job by default because he had more first team minutes than his younger competitors for the position (Straith and Peters). If we get to the Hex I'll be geniunely impressed. But we're kidding ourselves if we think we can qualify for Brazil 2014 with the younger players we currently have eligible to play for our country. Perhaps we can underpromise and hopefully we can overdeliver instead of bullshitting ourselves into thinking we have "bright young things" in the depth department. We don't.
Canadian soccer is simply not competitive. The few talents we have basically relied on being a solo player to get anywhere. There's no true competition in canada. It's a number of factors, one is that very few adults push there kids, most children's leagues place value on simply being on a team, and holding back kids from wanting to be true competitors. I.E. Hockey is insanely competitive in comparison. There's the obvious lack of funding as well for fields and proper league management as well. And of course the fact that there isn't just a lack of recruistment, there's absolutely no money being the recruitment. If you wanted to get the level of competition up, you would have to start offering prizes money to the top playing ten year olds. Seriously I think most north american's are totally ignorant to how soccers is basically set up so that winning isn't even part of the game.
Our best athletes don't play soccer, simple as that. When the time comes for young elite athletes to pick where they want to focus their talents they choose sports that have a real chance of a professional career or Olympic success.
They don't play soccer(as much as they should) because they don't see much opportunities at pro careers in this country.And where should it start?At home of course...That's where not having our own league hurts us...just sayin...
In the past that may have been true, but today soccer has the level of participation for kids in the country. That alone may signify better things to come.
Sure, hopefully that will help; I'm not going to disagree with that just to disagree. My point was with regards to kids who by 13 and 14 years of age demonstrate real significant athletic prowess and the mental discipline to develop it. In Canada they tend to choose to focus away from soccer if they were playing it to begin with. I don't think people should underestimate the Olympic type sports in Canada either. More elite athletes will attempt to make a go at rowing or speed skating or skiing than a sport with a minuscule chance of professional payoff.
Agreed the gov goes out of it's way to reward the success sports and to not sponser the weaker ones it's the way she goes I guess.