the odds of us going again may not be as high as the 649 odds buts its damn close..we have lost 3 straight under Stephen Hart with it likely to be 4 when we play Argentina...they is no progress here, not enought to get to 2014 in Brzail..2018 might be where we might get back but thats 8 years away..i still bet we have only 2 MLS clubs by them TFC and Vancouver, which still may help, but doubt it.
there are many countries with pro leagues but that doesn't get them into the WC...if we have the talent they will find a place to play...the problem is developing talent to a point that they can play at a pro level... we're not a big country in population and a small country when numbers of people actually playing the game are counted, we can't afford to have an ad lib developmental system...the USA has ome 18 million registered players, if you have a player pool of 9million males you're going to put togther a fairly good team every year, we have a player pool of about a half million, if we do nothing different from the US they should best us consistently as will Mexico...so yes if Australia has a focused development plan that's the route we should take
yes I'm exaggerating and at the same time I'm not...we rely on luck to provide the talent the powerhouses of soccer do not, for them developing talent has become almost a science, a sure thing...we're playing a talent lottery but powerhouses already know the winning number and write them down before they are picked and then pick them as well...odds of us winning vs a sure thing, slim to none...and every year we do nothing they gain and we fall behind still further... I was an optimist at one time but my exposure to the in's and out's of Canadian soccer has opened my eyes...yes it can be done but my experience tells no it won't be done...there's too much infighting and political games at all levels of the game in canada...to fix it it requires a dictator to grab all the organizations by the neck to tell shut up and do as they're told, "this is our focus, this is our goal and here's how we're going to get there"...I don't see that happening in my lifetime, every organzation protects it's own fifedom(jobs/egos) and absolutely no one will tell them what to do...
Well, if that's the case, Spain effortlessly cut apart New Zealand considering that also occured during the confederations cup. You dug this hole yourself.
True, but I think that having pro teams to aspire to goes a long way to helping that happen. Most kids (and I'm thinking of around the age of 12) who are good at soccer are also good at another sport. They are simply talented athletes. The small fraction who are really good at sports and will go on to play at an elite level are going to be choosing their sport right around this age. In Canada, the most obvious choice is hockey because there's a whole structure laid out that can take you all the way to the NHL if you have the talent. Football probably has the the second most obvious path. That's why you see that most Canadian professional athletes are hockey players, then football players, then a big drop down to the smattering of players of other sports. Soccer is just now setting up any sort of structure that will make some of those very talented kids say, "Hey, I could go the soccer route instead of hockey and I could do it right here in Toronto/Vancouver/etc." True, the US and Mexico will always have numbers on their side. I offer two counter-points: First, we don't have to match the US and Mexico all the way down the table. We just need to make sure our twenty best can play at the level of their twenty best. Look at international hockey for an analogy. The medal winners at the 2006 Olympics were Sweden (population 9 million), Finland (5) and Czech (10). They beat out Canada (35), Russia (142), and the US (300). Why? Because it doesn't matter that the bigger countries each had another 50 or 75 guys of Olympic calibre while Sweden didn't. It just matters that you can field one suitable team. Second, we don't have to become a CONCACAF superpower and (consistently) beat the US and Mexico to make the World Cup. We have to beat Costa Rico and Honduras which are countries that, despite their strong soccer culture, have far less money than Canada. Let's first focus on making it to the World Cup on a regular basis and then worry about dethroning the ruling CONCACAF powers.
I've coached hundreds upon hundreds of kids by age twelve there is no choice to be made regards to soccer vs any other sport, I've run across many soccer/hockey players and none of the Hockey players had the soccer technical abilities to reach a high level of play they were too far behind, playing 3 months of summer soccer is not enough to keep up to those playing soccer all year....football is strictly hand-eye sport you don't need to start learning the technical skills until 14-18yrs...soccer if you haven't got it by age 12 you'll never make it... of course you're right but our 20 best are not equal to their 20 best, depth of talent is factor...our top 20 aren't even a match for many countries B or C squads...for our NMT we dress just about anyone and everyone who plays in any sort of pro league if we're lucky maybe one or two who play in an elite league somewhere who doesn't even have to make the team....where as playing for the Brazil squad or England every player plays in an elite league and had to fight for a position, players that could start for us don't even make their squads or sit on the bench... your hockey analogy doesn't work, the USA isn't a hockey country and russia is a part time hockey/soccer and I think soccer is the bigger one...Finland and Sweden do well for their size, but id hockey had equal amount of talent and members as FIFA does many smaller countries wouldn''t qualify, including Canada...we should be happy not many play our game... small countries like Netherlands should not be a threat to giants like Brazil but the Brazilians fear them...they have focused on development as way to compete consistently with countries with more depth, Brazil doesn't need to go that direction because of the incredible depth that comes with large population...but even with the Netherlands depth of talent becomes an issue when facing Brazil should 2 or 3 players go down... true as well but if you aim for third more often than not you'll miss, aim for first settle for third....the way we develop talent they still have the edge, in countries like Costa Rica and Honduras talent is shaped, allowed to grow and be creative, here unless your very fortunate to have a great coach talent is often stunted by horrific coaching or the creativity is stifled by over coaching... it's development problem, there are some absolutely fabulous coaches in this country but very few and until that's corrected and they all get pointed in the same direction we're just spinning our wheels as a football nation...
you can dispute it all you want..but which one would you rather win the world cup or the confed cup...that would tell you which one is more important
It was your assertation that your opinion was humble that I was disputing. As for the two tournaments; they aren't played at the same time, so it doesn't really matter which one is more important ... though that should be clear. To claim however that the Confederation Cup is a friendly tournament is extremely ignorant.
it is a friendly tournament to make it more than that is wishful thinking, the minnows of the world may make a big deal out of it but the giants of the game do not because most of the serious contenders aren't even in the tournament while minnows get a free ride...
thanks..someone who sees reality..the major problem with the confed cup is more then likely a southamerican tean or european team will win teams for Oceania, Concacaf or Africa have no chance and are there to make up numbers.. if they put something important on the line, like the continent that wins hosts a world cup?
It's clearly not just a friendly tournament; there's another FIFA documents that say the opposite. To make it out to so is also wishful thinking ... and seems prejudicial.
Back to the topic....here are the reasons a Canadian league will not Happen!! 1) No one willing to finance a franchise like MLSE do TFC..you need someone with a lot of $$$ that could help the league fly? 2) Not enough SSS in this country..having a team play out of say Ivor Wynne in Hamilton with the CFL lines on it would make the League look terrible. 3) No TV money...the old CSL had to pay to get their games on TV, and you cant afford that. So until those things are worked on there wont be a Canadian League again, the Current CSL is dreaming if it thinks it can expand out west. its a ontario regional league that that it will remain.
what do expect of course they're going to play it up...but the lack of media and fan attention it receives tells a different story...any tournament without 17 of the top 20 contenders isn't much of a tourney and a hollow victory for the winners... I've played in sanctioned tournaments where there wasn't any serious competition, winning was nice but we weren't challenged like we were in a provincial competiton when all the contenders were present, winning that meant something...
http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_...january-questions-answered-part-4-1.html#more is by American soccer writer Ives Galarcep. In a question and answer he said: "If Canada could sustain its own league there would already be a Canadian League. Given the geographic make-up of the country and the number of markets in Canada, a Canadian league just doesn’t make sense. Think about this, hockey is a religion in Canada yet you don’t see anything close to a Canadian hockey league, do you? I don’t think the current system hurts Canada at all. Having two or three strong pro soccer teams in the country is MUCH better than having none."
Just because something doesn't already exist doesn't mean it's not feasible. A ridiculous argument. As for the "geographic make-up and number of markets argument", it's the same situation (even more so) in Australia, and they have their own league. Don't buy it one bit.
Is it really the same in Australia? If you take out the two furthest teams (Perth and the New Zealand team) then the distance between the two furthest teams would be 2070 km. The distance between Winnipeg and Montreal is about 2300 km. Except with any possible Canadian league you would have at least three teams maybe more outside of this distance (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Halifax, Moncton). Not a fair comparison in terms of travel as the costs would be far greater for a Canadian league than an Austrailian League. Comparison = Fail.
If that were true, then the Perth and Wellington teams wouldn't be able to survive. The fact that our major cities are more evenly spread only gives us an additional advantage. Plus we have a significantly larger population. So, yes, if Australia can do it, Canada can do it. The failure is yours.
Um, no. In Australia have 2 teams with a whole lot of travelling to do. In Canada we would have at least 4 teams with a whole lot of travelling to do. And by being more evenly spread out all that means is that everyone has to pay more to travel.
Um, no. Canada's population isn't more spread out. Let's go on a pretend A-League road trip. Start in Adelaide, to Melbourne, Sydney, Central Coast, Newcastle, Gold Coast and end up in Brisbane. That's 7 A-League teams in a distance of 2,600 km. You could carry on another 1,300 km to get to North Queensland for a total of 3,900 km. Total population along the route is around 20,000,000. Compare that to a similar road trip in Canada stopping in equivalently sized Canadian cities. Start in London, to Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and end up in Quebec City. Distance travelled = 1,200 km. You could carry on another 1,000 km to get to Halifax for a total of 2,200 km. Total population along the route is around 20,000,000. Canada essentially has the same number of people in half the distance. And I'll admit that the comparison isn't totally fair because the Australia route is a long curve along the coast while the Canadian route is pretty much a straight line. But the direct distance between two most distant A-League teams (NZ and Perth aside) is the 2,400 km between Adelaide and North Queensland. This "shortcut" doesn't get within a 100 km of any other city with a team. The longest distance in Canada is the 2,200 km between London and Halifax which is not only shorter, but you go though every other city on the list. As far as the flying distances, instead of a 2,200 km flight to NZ (population 4,500,000) there would be a 2,700 km flight to Alberta (population 3,500,000) And instead of a 3,200 km flight to Perth (population 1,600,000) there would be a 3,300 km flight to Vancouver (population 2,200,000) There are reasons that Australia has a league and Canada doesn't. But distance/population density isn't one of them.
I agree with you that Canadian geography and population are not the biggest problem. We have the eight to ten good sized cities that would be necessary to make a league work. The two main differences between Canada and Australia in this regard are the lack of national leadership by the CSA and the presence of the US right next door. Remember, the A-League is actually run (not just sanctioned) by the FFA. Can anyone see the CSA running a league here? Second, it is easier for would-be Canadian ownership groups to join an existing US-based league than to push for a Canadian league. Five years ago I did not believe Canada could realistically support a national level league. Now I think things have changed to the point where it would soon be possible (seeing Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, expecting USSF D2 in Edmonton, Ottawa, and Hamilton, and seeing successful tier three teams like Victoria and London). In five more years, therefore, I think we'll have enough (plus or minus an expansion team or two) viable teams for a national league. I think the biggest obstacle will then be that so many ownership groups will have invested large to huge sums of money to join US-based leagues and that they won't want to throw that away just so they can say they play in a Canadian league.
Outside the CFL, how many Canadian only leagues exist in North America? Even the CHL has American teams in all three constituent leagues (9 of 60). Its just the way we do things, much like Australia and New Zealand have a history of cross border leagues (NRL, A-League, NBL)
I don't think that we'll see the end of cross-border leagues any time soon, and I don't think that in the short-term we should be doing so. You're right that the CSA is in tatters and shouldn't allowed to run anything, so the first priority is to get our national association in order, either by fixing the existing one or by forming a new one. Again, Australia were in that very same situation a decade ago, and they turned it all around and have benefited from it. As for having the US next door, that is little more than a mental block. Many countries are situated to countries that are far larger and influential than they are, but they still manage to have their own leagues.
Australia has its own league because it made all the tough decisions to get there. Our highly corrupt, ethinically divisioned and bankrupt governing body (soccer australia) was effectivly overthrown and disbanded by a soccer loving billionaire Frank Lowy. Some of the best experts from all different sports in Australia were signned up by the new goevrning body at significant investment. A well thuoght out srategy for the growth of the entire sport was then devised and has been slowly implemented ever since, despite MASSIVE opposition from within many corners of soccer in Australia. -Australia now have their own league. -An official development program for all players from the age of 6 streamlined across the etire country (based on the dutch model). -Two world cups in a row. (the new administration spared no expense on coaches, travel accomidation to make sure the socceroos qualified on both occaisions). - A formerly 99% anti soccer media is now problay only 60% anti soccer. When the A-league was first proposed the majority of soccer supporters in Australia said it would fail. The new league banned ethnic based clubs meaning that the majority of the clubs in Australia were no longer acceptable. This angered many. Particularly in Australias largest state, NSW, which only began SPEAKING to the FFA again civily in 2008. despite all of this the ''new soccer'' or ''new football'' as the change is known went ahead and is thriving.