more class...by whos standards... if Mexico was royally cheated by Pendergast (which has probably happened, because he is the only hack i saw last night) youd be pi ssing and sh 1tting your pants in anger... Canada has a lot of work to do on the field, but im not sure Costa Rica exudes class all the time...
For all this alleged greater technique, they created one chance to score the entire game, off a free kick in the 2nd half. Their goal doesn't count as a chance created in my book since it was a total gift from Prendergast. For US fans reading this, I think you guys should be able to handle this Costa Rican squad pretty easily assuming that you guys have your act together by the third game (didn't see your match against Cuba, but its sounds like most of you aren't all that happy with your team's performance). I'm also afraid that you'll be able to handle us pretty easily tomorrow, especially with at least one, if not both starting central defenders (of what was already a B squad to begin with) out, but I hope I'm wrong!
No your probaly right how does canada lose this game by one goal pretty boring game stoped watching after the CR goal and your right it shouldn't have been a penalty. But hopefully we'll put 5 past you guys tomorrow you guys screwed it for you selves, the plan was to win or tie CR lose against the US and beat Cuba but I think that even against Cuba you guys will lose see in two years canada
Maybe Costa Rica was the better team, but they didn't bring that to the field. Canada owned the second half - CR had a couple good chances on the break and Canada dodged a bullet with the ball off the cross bar, but that CR team was not good. Canada played very well in the back. I don't recall a Canadian team with that much poise on the ball from their backs. Somehow, it seemed, when Canada crossed the midfield line, they entered a time warp and suddenly thought they were in a pre-Yallop team with a giant Hearts defender as target forward and all they could do was loft crosses to the middle of the field. Also, there was nothing going on the right side (understandably, but still) and they tried to jam it down the left relentlessly and DeRose was not up to winning the game by himself. Brennan is kind of a Frankie Heydude middie - running and running, looking very active, but not really adding a lot to the equation. Hume was ok. Serieux looked decent, but there were enough chances squandered that Canada should have left with something, even with the crap handball call.
So really, what's Canada's problem. They have decent players They have a decent coach They have decent fans Is the Canadian FA just a complete bunch of fools and can't get it together? This is one of the greatest mysteries of world soccer to me. I'm not saying Canada should be one of the top 20 teams in the world. But they should be 3rd in this region. Every hex I wait for them to do something. Anything. After the gold cup they won (Am I the only one who remembers that?) I thought they were finally on their way. The momentum stalled, though. Seriously, what's up?
I thought both sides were playing pretty dirty, but it seemed to work to Canada's advantage for most of the game. It didn't matter how many cards he pulled out, the ref had no control (apart from giving CR the PK).
The thing about Canada is .... how many teams ranked in the 80s and 90s can field a team with multiple first division European players, some in high quality leagues, a couple on very good teams in those leagues? Granted that isn't the team that is actually here, but still ....
In a nutshell, under-funding of our football association along with the odd bit of incompetency on their part often means poor preparation for our teams, which is exacerbated by always having players who aren't that familiar with each other due to being scattered across different clubs across the world & a lack of games together for the nats, combined with getting the shaft from Concacaf officiating on a consistent basis (T&T we are not in this regard) - add it altogether along with some questionable coaching decisions re: player selection (we rarely seem to have our best together when we do play) and you have great recipe for underachieving, which we frankly have been doing for the past 3 years. We should indeed be in contention for the #3 spot in the region with the talent we can conceivably put on the field, but haven't been lately. The current team is no exception to all this (its far from our best squad), though with 6 Montreal Impact players & 2 Millwall players we have an un-usual number of club teammates on the team this time round.