I do think Stephen Hart will be able to build a top notch Canadian team that will make it to the 2014 WC. Would like to have news/updates of players. Also news on players who left Canada and may want to give us a chance now. I hope that we move on in the GK let Pat Onstad go and we use someone else. If anyone could by position who are the players that needs to get a look at by the CMNT/Hart. Our next tournament is of course the 2011 Gold Cup. We can win this tournament and this would boost morale even higher. Before this happens any friendlies that Canada might be playing. Allez les Rouge!
Hoillett from Blackburn is a future starter. Symeon Jackson, Pedro Pacheco, as well. Cananda is stacked with alot of depth on the back four. At keeper , its al-Shabani. Massey Wassih and Eddy Sidra looked game enough v Venezuela to be included . But I don't think Hart is the coach, the CSA wont spend for a real proven winner.
I think it's potentially a good side. The one area of weakness that bugs me is keeper. With all due respect to the guys out there, we need someone who is playing regularly at a reasonable level. Here's hoping someone emerges in the next year or two who can hold up between the pipes back there. there's so many good youth keepers out there, if just one could break through. Respect to Onstad for all his service but if he's in net again lord help us.
You're definitely right about the keeper position, though Josh Wagenaar is pretty decent, but not enough to be confident about our depth in nets. I like to think it's possible that we'll make it. If New Zealand and North Korea can make it, so can we. Whether or not Hoilett does indeed come aboard is a big factor. The football situation in this country still needs much improvement, but it's the best it has ever been and is headed in the right direction. I'm not in a position to comment on Stephen Hart's ability to take us there. He can't do any worse than Dale Mitchell mind you.
The great thing is MLS will have to more Canadian teams with Vancouver in 2011, and Montreal in 2012. Unlike TFC I would hope they will have more Canadian based players in their teams and maybe GK that will step it up. Also we got to support Hart and believe he can help the red and white to the quest of WC2014 and with that success Canada will begin to build upon it. My main worry for Canada is the GK position. Hopefully someone does rise in the next four years to be our top Gk. I do think we got some good talents in the others positions and hopefully Hart can have them gel has great unit to qualify for 2014, and maybe win ConCaCaf Gold Cup. Hart needs to call in all types of players even those who have decided against playing for Canada maybe just maybe he can convince them. Would love to see Begovic, and John De Guzman change their minds.
It'd be nice but I doubt it as there isn't much MLS level Canadian talent right now, and that's the main reason why TFC doesn't have even enough to meet the quota, and that pool isn't going to grow enough before Van and Mon enter the league. This will improve down the road as these three clubs' academies will improve the talent pool down the road by there will surely be a lag. The only hope in the near future is for MLS to alter the squad rules that would drive US based teams to unload their Canadian talent (e.g. Jakovic and Johnson), or if the three clubs can entice better-than-MLS Canadian talent to come back from Europe (as TFC did with deGuzman the elder).
I get your point Polygong. Well hopefully Van and Mon can bring the Canadian talents they have already in their team. They would not need for MLS to have an expansion draft I think they already the talents for that. I'm not 100% sure who plays for either club but I would hope a good amount of Canadians play for these clubs.
Canada's chances are greatly enhanced with the strong possibility that Jonathan de guzman could be suiting up for Canada in September
Jonathan de Guzman playing for Canada? I thought once you switch nations you have to sit out two years? I think the talent is there, the coaching and tactics aren't. Its hard to support Canada when its alot of longball. The keeper question is overblown-the ball has to get through ten outfield players first before the keeper makes a save. For me its the overall shape of the team thats a question. Tactics, formation, style etc. Also, I'd like to see Canada play with more of an edge. I cringe inside, but I wanna see more diving shirtpulling and those little professional fouls that every other team commits. The Brazilians give it a name; "maladragem' (i think) and consider it necessary to the point its recorded like a statistic. Its time to be more cynical.
Qualifying from different confederations is not equally easy or difficult. Assuming CONCACAF gets 4 or fewer teams in World Cup 2014 and Canada doesn't finish above USA and/or Mexico, Canada will need to finish above at least one of Costa Rica and Honduras plus everyone else in CONCACAF to qualify. If CONCACAF changes the qualifying format to a final group of eight or two final groups of four, reaching the final eight would be a step up for Canada whether they qualify or not.
Understood, but I don't see how qualifying through AFC is any easier. They get only one more spot (i.e. 4 spots plus a fifth inter-conference spot) than we do (i.e. 3 plus 1 inter-conference). AFC also has a few more teams in competition and have three countries (Japan, S. Korea and Australia) that are basically "shoo-ins" like Mexico and the US are in CONCACAF. For New Zealand, they'll walk through OFC qualification with ease but then have to face #5 from AFC. In a nutshell, N Korea and New Zealand both rank below Canada in the FIFA rankings and have no easier path through to the finals than we do. That to me says that Canada should always believe that making it is a real possibility.
I see 2014 as a big question mark. Canada will pretty much be going into it with the same sort of talent pool and organization it had while attempting to qualify for 2010. This isn't too bad (consider what might have been if Hart had been coach then) but hardly makes us any sort of lock for the third spot behind the US and Mexico. The problem is that any changes we make won't have time to take effect by the time qualifying for 2014 starts in, presumably, 2012. To my mind, 2018 is a far different story. By then we'll have had several years of three MLS teams. We'll hopefully have had several years of FC Edmonton and Ottawa (and hopefully one or two others) in NASL/USL1. We'll also have had several years of solid tier three teams like Victoria and London. That's enough time to find, polish, and launch to Europe several Nana Attakoras to provide talent pool for the national team. To summarize, while I think we could qualify for 2014 I think it will come down to a bit of luck. By 2018, however, we should aim to be a lock along with the US and Mexico.
Just out of curiosity, say if Canada did become a third lock for CONCACAF do you think that FIFA would change the CONCACAF allotment since the only chance any other team would have would be to take fourth then having to compete with CONEMBOL #5 to get in? CONEMBOL already enjoys a large number of WC spots, they have potentially 5 spots for a 10 team confederation, potentially sending half of their membership to the WC finals, a far greater percentage than any other Confederation gets.
Any source for this? Great if true. True, though I feel those are far easier teams to go through than Honduras, Jamaica or Costa Rica. There is a lot of talent in the final 6. Virtually any of those teams arguably deserve a spot in the WC in place of North Korea or New Zealand. Costa Rica certainly deserved to be in the cup considering how well they fared against Uruguay who are now in the semi-finals, and Honduras managed to make every match respectable despite being down two of their most important players to injuries. CONCACAF definitely deserves 4 spots in the tourney, but FIFA won't budge. My worst fear is Canada making it all the way to #4 in the final qualification round to earn a playoff with CONMEBOL in 2014, which for all intents and purposes is a death sentence. While it's nice to have gotten that far, having your hopes yanked so high and so close to the prize presents a very sharp sense of disappointment. I can hardly imagine what fans of Ireland, Costa Rica or Bahrain must have felt.
It really depends on what criteria FIFA uses to determine each region's "fair" allocation. I can't see an easy way to expand the WC tournament, nor would that necessarily be desirable, so there are only 32 spots to go around. If Canada became a lock it might make sense to transfer a CONMEBOL spot north. That said, Asia and Africa are also improving and could make a case for more representation. Based on this year's quarter finalist, CONMEBOL is in a good place to argue their allocation is a-okay. The big questions is who is going to give up a place for some other "deserving" region? Europe would seem to be the fattest target with 13 spots but it's not like the European teams that make the WC do so badly either. I'm not so sure it is a death sentence. Difficult, yes, but qualifying for the WC should be difficult. The CONMEBOL teams did very well this year but it isn't always the case that they are so good. Besides, even if the CONMEBOL team was the favourite, a chance is always better than no chance.
Well let us hope that Hart can bring in a Canadian style of game. A good balance between attack and defending. I think Canada with the players coming up could go 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 and if we are bold we could go 3-5-2 seems more international team are going for 3 defenders. Will see what happen for the remainder of the 2010 year to he Gold Cup. I do hope John does play for Canada and Hoillet also those could help big time to improve Canada chance to qualify. I was two years old when Canada was in the world cup.
Goalkeeper for Canada's future: Hadar Al-Shaibani. Sidrah was amazing against Venezuela, as was Nakajima-Faran. We could really use De Guzman jr. and Begovic, but we can qualify without them. We need more ground passing and less longball. As far as the comments regarding fouling on purpose go, I'd rather our country lose with dignity than win without. a major boundary Canada faces is that it has no top flight domestic league to call it's own. MLS and NASL clubs in Canada are a short-term solution, having 5 to 8 1st and second division teams won't cut it in the long run. The CSA needs to start putting more effort towards developing a professional league. As far as the inter-conference qualification spots go. The simple solution would be to take two spots from UEFA, give one to either CONCACAF or CONMEBOL, and one to AFC or OCEANIA. Then we have whole number qualifiers everywhere, and it's a more global competition. unfortunately, FIFA never does the simple thing.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/soccer/how-canada-will-win-the-world-cup/article1635195/?cmpid=tgc An article someone had put on TFC Academy. How Canada can reach the World Cup.
I'm wondering why we can't put together a purely domestic squad for our WCQ campaign. Our guys overseas like Simeon Jackson have ball skills. The problem is that though...they're overseas. I'd like to believe that we can put together 23 guys from CSL/USL/NASL/MLS. DeRo, DeGu, Will Johnson, Martin Nash (okay, fine, no Martin Nash), Marcus Haber, Adrian Cann, Andre Hainault, Jakovic, and so on. They could hold 1 - 2 week camps, every few months or so. They guys could all meet up in Florida, Toronto, wherever and train together throughout the year. I feel that familiarity with one's teammates trumps skill. I'd rather see 11 guys on the field who know each other. They know who can run for that heavy through ball. They know how far so-and-so will throw. They know that so-and-so's corners will curl in low and hard, etc. I have this fantasy where I have a gazillion dollars and all the power and influence to put together a team of successful Canadian and US based players. Heck, at this point I'm even willing to send the CSL champ (whichever players were not Canadian would be exchanged with other all star domestic players). Yeah? No? Am I totally out to lunch or what?
I like this assessment. However is it really necessary for us to always send our quality players to Europe? I'm tired of Europe being the mecca for our players. Who knows. By 2018 the North American game might be marketable and profitable and worthy enough to stay here. I don't care about big name guys abroad. I want to see results from our national team. People who bash Canadian soccer don't care that Jackson plays in England or that Stalteri plays in the Bundesliga. What they see is our boys getting whooped 5 zip in Buenos Aires and thinking that tallies up the worth of Canadian soccer. As you would probably agree - it doesn't. So let's put together a decent national team that can compete on the world stage. I don't care if we have to play "boring" defensive football a la Greece 2004. Let's just stop getting our asses handed to us and begin earning recognition as more than just a hockey nation.
I see what you're saying, but given the tall order that is making the 2014 World Cup, we need to put the best we possibly can out there, and most of our best play in Europe. Every other CONCACAF team has the same issue, even Mexico to some degree. The US squad that appeared at WC2010 had only two MLS players. Every other team we'll be up against will bring the best of theirs back, and if we don't, we might as well not field a team at all. The "tightness" to be had using only players in Can/USA will not be enough to compensate for the lowered talent pool. It'd be nice to have our whole squad in Tor/Mon/Van, but the reality is that the top leagues are in Europe and the best will always go there. Even Brazil and Argentina have most of their top players playing their club football in Europe.
To use your own terminology, you are totally out to lunch. I appreciate your concern regarding the amount of time the European players get to spend together. It is an issue and, as the league improves, we'll probably see the day where a significant number of Canadian national team players are in MLS and get to play together more often. That said, the upper European leagues are the goal because the level of play is so much higher and players can develop so much farther. By analogy, the Swedish Olympic hockey team had only three members who played in the Swedish Elite League. Finland (bronze medal) had no players from the SM-liiga on its team. The SM-liiga is the third best league in the world and the SEL the fifth. Far better, in other words, than MLS is in soccer let alone NASL, USL1, PDL, or CSL. The Canadian soccer players who play in Europe would represent Canada better with no joint practice time than would a team composed of North American-based players who get to play together regularly. Their overall skill level is just so much higher.
I'll latch onto this hockey analogy since you made it (normally I find it very taboo to bring hockey into a soccer/football forum - although for us Canadians, that's probably the best frame of reference when comparing our MNT). If you look at the German and Czech rosters for that tourny, two teams that did really well (the latter won the whole kit-and- kaboodle) you'll see that they are largely Euro-based. Germany: http://www.iihf.com/channels10/iihf-world-championship-wc10/teams/ger.html Czech: http://www.iihf.com/channels10/iihf-world-championship-wc10/teams/cze.html Is it fair then to assume that MNTs play better with domestic-based rosters than foreign-based rosters? If this is so, then perhaps you'll agree that Canada's MNT should try to involve more players here at home. Honestly. It can't hurt can it? Just one year. I'd like to see how we make do. I'm thinking that domestic rosters will be used for the upcoming friendlies v. Peru and ? and perhaps we can see then.
I know it's been done before but...23 Canadians playing in North America that could make a decent team: GO.