Canada wins 2-1 Alphoso Davies (16 years old) is the real deal. He will be in Europe in a top league in no time. My god he's good at such a young age. Larin still struggles in team Canada...we don't get it... Hoilett is just pure quality talent. Arfield being at the Gold Cup will strenghen further our midfield. Bernier was solid as always...Piette very physical. Jackson-Hamel is unbelievable!!! Montreal are crazy to not start him, let alone make him the new face of the franchise and he's from Quebec on top of that. Montreal Impact marketing is bizarre...or is it an MLS thing? Defense is crap, except James. Give the spot to Cordova who's from Chile.
Some sloppy play but we still got the win. There are two take home messages here: First, it's definitely good that we're doing more friendlies and especially this one before the Gold Cup to knock the rust off our team play. Second, we don't need to consider Montreal again as a host city for national team games any time soon.
Toronto's going to have to improve on its attendance record for the Jamaica game or it'll Vancouver forevermore.
I'm also in favour of spreading things around, especially for friendlies. Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and maybe even Hamilton would all be good choices.
I think they'd rather play of grass than turf, so I'm guessing for competitive matches they'll play in Toronto in the summer and Vancouver in the winter. But yeah, spread the friendlies around to different locations. I am a little frustrated that Canada had to fight hard to beat a nation of 160,000, but then look at Iceland...
I'd imagine though that their players get a lot of their training in the Dutch system. Population doesn't mean too much really. China is ranked 82 and India is ranked 100.
India is up from 163rd a year ago. Indonesia is 175th with an estimated population of 263,510,000 and Pakistan is 200th with an estimated population of 201,995,540.
http://www.fifa.com/news/y=2017/m=6/news=elephants-lions-and-a-tank-2895288.html says: "16 years and 223 days was the age at which Alphonso Davies became Canada’s youngest-ever player on Tuesday. The Vancouver Whitecaps player broke the record of the late Domenic Mobilio, who was 17 when he debuted in 1986."
Pretty decent turnout at BMO tonight for a friendly. Guessing that Toronto wants to win back some of the competitive matches from Vancouver.
More impressive than the attendance was the very professional performance of the team. Except for that one moment when Davies maturity level actually matched his age the squad were all very good. Skipping MOTM for a more Canadian 3 stars..... 1. Hoilett 2. Piette 3. Osario
Davies hardly made contact but a Rivaldo like performance made sure the red was out. At least that mistake was not in a WC qualifying campaign. He will learn from it. Junior Hoilett - yes indeed. And how great was it to have Atiba back out there? Such a classy player. His press allowed Hoilett to create the first goal.
I think this game proved once again that Larin is a liability. I rated him behind Cavallini before this game and afterwards, I'm not sure he's better than AJH. Another talking point was the partnership or lack thereof between James and Jakovic. It's unfortunate that we don't have anyone in the player pool who can challenge Jakovic as he's not good enough IMO. Perhaps things would be different if Johnson were in midfield to guard the backline but Jakovic is not particularly good at winning headers either. It's a shame Doneil Henry has fallen off the map.
Think that was his second game for them (out on another loan from West Ham) and where he sustained the injury. My guess, he is pretty much done.
Zambrano's interview on Sportsnet: http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/octavio-zambrano-canada-national-team-soccer-junior-hoilett/
Octavio Zambrano laid down a challenge for Jonathan Osorio.He embraced it & it's paying off: https://t.co/63dSJQNinZ@JohnMolinaro #TFC pic.twitter.com/HHA6oB7dcP— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 7, 2017
Just spoke to Zambrano. Said he's hopeful that despite Italy call up that Cristante could still play for #canMNT. Story soon.— John Molinaro (@JohnMolinaro) October 6, 2017
Bryan Cristante just made his debut for Italy as a sub. Well, I guess that's settled. #canMNT https://t.co/C3Re3moofI— John Molinaro (@JohnMolinaro) October 6, 2017