Aug 22 the boys take to the field against Iceland. Hopefully Mr. Mitchell calls something resembling the first team. If at this point he does not know who his top 24 players are, including young guys with a chance to break into the first team in the next 18 months, then we are in very very big trouble.
He's going to want to get the likely WCQ starters some playing time togehter. On the other hand, there's still some time left. I'd be tempted to take a significant number of "bubble" players to help me round out the final roster for WCQ.
Mitchell will have to call his best players. He's under pressure since the U-20's debacle and he'll want to do well in his first game and for his first home game as well. He should call some of the GC guys, specially at the GK and defense positions just to be sure to have some familiarity at the back. My only change would be Mckenna instead of Hainault and maybe Lars for Onstad but wouldn't mind seeing Onstad in goal. from those who wheren,t at the GC I would like to see Nsaliwa, Occean, Brennan, Imhoff and Radz.
Not actually that much time left though. If the timeframes are similar to the last go around, we are about 8 months away from the first round. In this round we have approximately a 1 in 10 chance of playing either Cuba or Haiti. I think we can beat both of these sides, but I think we have to be pretty sharp to do it. Given the paucity of games the CSA is typically able to arrange, we might have, if all goes really really well, six games to get our act together. I agree with Simon99 that Mitchell also needs to have the team show well. By this I mean play the same style as we did in the Gold Cup and really make an impression with the players and the fans and keep the momentum building.
seeing taht sutton is surely out, and stamatopolous is with tfc, do you think he will get the call? not sure if this interferes with tfc's schedule yet... how about brennan, braz, pozniak and lombardo?
I don't care who plays as long as they're aren't any TFC players, because if any more of our players got hurt in any kind of friendly...
Mo was very burned about Sutton. That is, how Sutton hurt himself in practice, and then they still played him in the game. He said something about how he would be in a different frame of mind next time they came calling ... especially now for another keeper that he had to claw the ground with his fingernails to get to replace the guy they possibly mishandled ...
Canada roster vs. Iceland LARS IS BACK!!! http://www.canadasoccer.com/eng/media/viewArtical.asp?Press_ID=2824 1 Hirschfeld, Lars 2 Ledgerwood, Nik 3 Klukowski, Mike 5 Hainault, Andre 6 De Guzman, Julian 7 Stalteri, Paul 8 Bernier, Patrice 9 Radzinski, Tomasz 10 Friend, Rob 11 Hastings, Richard 12 Nakajima-Farran, Issey 13 Hutchinson, Atiba 14 Imhof, Daniel 15 Occean, Olivier 16 Gerba, Ali 17 Hume, Iain 22 Begovic, Asmir
Re: Canada roster vs. Iceland This is terrific. I had thought there might be some bad blood between Lars and Dale Mitchell but hopefully that's not the case. Any background on this roster in regard to the absence of defenders McKenna and Hastings and midfielder Nsaliwa? I suspect we will not see Tam playing for Canada while Mitchell is there. Otherwise, very promising. Great to see Ledgerwood get called up along with Begovic.
Re: Canada roster vs. Iceland Hastings is there. Why do you say that about Tam? Is there some bad blood between him and Mitchell I am not aware of? The McKenna ommision is the most interesting, hopefully we will find out the reason for this soon. I am pretty happy with this selection though.
Re: Canada roster vs. Iceland Right, I had meant to remove Hastings from my post. I don't think Tam has any warm and fuzzies about Mitchell given that he and Yallop f*d him over in the last WCQ round. Just one man's opinion of course.
Re: Canada roster vs. Iceland Someone on the V's said that Mckenna had game on the 20 and 24 with Koln. Maybe he asked not to be call but will be in Toronto in september against the Ticos?
Re: Canada roster vs. Iceland Yallop f*d him over. How much Mitchell as assistant coach had to do with that is pure speculation. If Mitchell wanted Tam to play I don't think Tam should be using what happened several years ago when Mitchell was not the one making the decision as an excuse not to represent his country. Nor do I believe that is the reason he is not there. I think it is much more likely due to the uncertain status of him on the Canadian team since he has given up his Canadian citizenship to get German citizenship.
Re: Canada roster vs. Iceland Well, Brennan came back, Lars as well, so I hope Tam will do the same but I still think the German citizenship stuff we heard about a few months ago is the real problem for the CSA and Mitchell (let's hope someone will ask Mitchell about Tam absence).
I like this line-up and there are fewer notable absences than usual although it would be nice to have DeRosario. So, assuming we play a 4-5-1 does it line up as: ------------------Hirsch ---Stalteri--Hastings--Hainault--Klukowski Radzinksi--Deguzman--Hutchinson--Bernier--??? ------------------Friend So, who lines up on the left? Perhaps Ledgerwood/Stalteri in the back and Kluka in the midfield? Or Hume slotted into somewhere as a starter?
I would go with: Lars Stalteri------Hastings----Hainault-----Kluka ------------Hutch----------Bernier--------- Hume-------------DeGuzman----------Radz -----------------Occean------------------ Occean is scoring at an impressive rate this season, we must start him as he is currently in top form. Friend has just started his season and he's not a starter, Gerba isn't in season as well. I wouldn't mind seeing Imhoff starting over Hutch or Bernier just too see how he does. I think it's a strong lineup and we can win this game.
With four out & out strikers called I'm less certain of the 4-5-1 now, unless Mitchell plans to give them each a 22 minute session up front by themselves, or simply not play a couple of them. However, if you are correct I expect we will see what we saw in the Gold Cup, with Radzinski playing left attacking mid in the absence of DeRo, Klukowski at LB instead of Jazic and Imhof in the holding d-mid role instead of Martin Nash.
I did not think of Imhof holding when I drew this up...Makes sense and allows Bernier to play the right. Who is the 4th Striker? I got Gerba, Occean and Friend but all of Radzinski, Hume and Issey have featured in the MF for club or country I think. At least, it is my recollection that Issey was in the MF for at least some of his few Nats appeareances.
Tam absence could be do AEK upcoming CL qualifications. He is expected to start tomorrow against Sevilla. Mind you, Lars and Rosenborg are in the same position.
I was thinking of Hume, as he hasn't played as a right-sided midfielder for Canada for some time now. Granted I guess Mitchell could play him there, but I'm thinking that we might see two formations in this game, start with a 4-5-1 then sub Imhof off for another striker & go with a 4-4-2 in the 2nd half.
This article (I believe written by Neil Davidson) indicates that Tam's club (along with McKenna's & DeJong's) prevented them from attending the Canada game next week & doesn't make any mention of the renounced citizenship. http://www.tsn.ca/soccer/news_story/?ID=216145&hubname=soccer Also indicates that Mitchell & Mo haven't talked yet, but I guess that will happen before the Costa Rica match.
According to this article 4 players were asked but couldn't go: http://www.tsn.ca/soccer/news_story/?ID=216145&hubname=soccer Four players were invited but were unavailable for the Iceland trip: goalkeeper Josh Wagenaar (ADO Den Haag, Netherlands) is injured while defender Kevin McKenna (FC Koln, Germany) and midfielders Marcel de Jong (PSV, Netherlands) and Tam Nsaliwa (Palonius, Greece) were all kept at home by their clubs. It's nice to have the details of who were called first and give us explanations of the notable omissions. Good to know that Mckenna and Nsaliwa were called so we can avoid the speculations (I hope to see them both in Toronto). Also nice to see DeJong back on the fold, he's only 20 (will turn 21 in October) and should be an excellent prospect for us.