Yes that was a good game. Im really excited to see Halifax vs Cavalry at 8 tonight. Ottawa plays great football but needs to keep it up for 90 minutes. Knowing that many of their internationals couldn't make it due to COVID, this team could become a force in CPL faster than anticipated. There's been a lot of miss from CPL teams on their international signings but Madrid contacs and expertise puts them in a better position to get the right pieces to join Cavalry and Forge in the upper tier of the league.
Robert, I watch with great interest, for the league is authentic, and, when I'm not feeling the passion and even contempt that goes with experiencing rivalry, I pull for Canadian national teams. I've always kept on eye on Canadian basketball and baseball. I wish that league nothing but growth and success, and enjoyment for the fans.
By the way, I thought it cool that the announcer, at one point, referred to Edmonton as "The Eddies."
Alphonso Davies becomes the 1st Canadian International to win the UEFA Champions League with Bayern Munich!!!! He will get the chance to go for triple crown at the FIFA Club World Cup. This is huge for Canadian football and let it be known that he was made in Edmonton thanks to a "play for free" program! 6 years ago Alphonse was on the U14 Alberta boys squad, today he is one of the top left backs in the world and is playing in the Champions league final ! Dream big, be humble and work hard! @AlbertaSoccer @CanadaSoccerEN pic.twitter.com/lBBAsB2Yzv— Sergio Teixeira (@sergiotexx) August 23, 2020
Maybe one day he can come play for Chelsea. Imagine Davies and Pulisic attacking that left flank, insane.
Davies playing for my favorite Euro club would be a dream! To think that Barcelona, Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain passed on him because he was Canadian. Breaking the those stereotypes will help pave the way for more Canadians thanks to Davies and David
Congrats to Davies and you Canucks. Wolverine and Deadpool are proud. i'm curious, did Vancouver ever get any of those bonuses or whatever from Davies' transfer. It's clear now he was a steal.
Yes, they got up to $22M depending on his performance which is safe to say...Vancouver got the maximum. Bittersweet as the club tried to hold his transfer to Bayern hostage to force him to give up his share of the money. Bayern paid Davies...very class! Small consolation, since the Vancouver Whitecaps are sanctioned by the CSA, they had to pay solidarity payments to his Edmonton clubs. Davies with the trophy The first-ever Canadian international to win the Champions League 👏Hoist that trophy, @AlphonsoDavies! 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/IyOD3ZVCsC— DAZN Canada (@DAZN_CA) August 23, 2020
In other news Jonathan David made his debut with Lille in a 1-1 draw against Rennes. Huge expectations for David in France. Lille will be part of Europa League. LB Sam Adekugbe left the game early in a win for his Norway club Valerenga due to injury. I'm transitioning to talk about Ritchie Laryea at TFC who proved that he was just as good as a LB than as a RB for TFC. This could convince Herdman to use Davies higher on the pitch. 21 years old Zachary Brault-Guillard, a product of Lyon would be perfect at RB with his more defensive minded game. 20 years old Dominic Yankov, born in Toronto, played 30 minutes in a 3-1 win for his club Ludogorets Razgrad (Milan Borjan previous club) in Champions League qualification. The young midfielder has represented Bulgaria at youth level but he's eligible for Canada. CPL Island Games TFC 20 years old CB Julian Dunn is making a name for himself. He helped turned around Valour's defense (last year worse) with Haitian International Jean-Baptiste. He should be playing MLS minutes as Valour coach said all week. Mohamed Farsi is the other newcomer in CPL impressing with his game at RB for Cavalry. Look at the patience here from Mohamed Farsi leading to his perfect cross. 🧠 pic.twitter.com/XYCtCJN32b— 𝙾𝙱𝙴𝙻𝙸𝚂𝚀 (@WeAreObelisq) August 21, 2020
But he was one of the worst-performing players on the field today. His best play was the yellow card for rugby-tackling Kehrer after getting beat and letting Kehrer in alone on goal.
€1M for winning Champions League https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.es...ins-champions-league-with-bayern?platform=amp
Also, only the 6th CONCACAF player to win (Dwight Yorke, Rafael Marquez (2), Jonathan dos Santos, Jovan Kirovski, and Keylor Navas).
I'm going to wager a guess a few of those are "UEFA Champions League winners" only in the most narrow sense of the term.
Only 2 of them Dos Santos and Kirovski. Navas, Marquez, Yorke and Davies were all important to their sides.
Kirovski, by the way, did play and scored in the group stage for Dortmund in 1997/8. He was on the bench for the semifinal against Man United, but wasn't in the 18 for the final. Only USMNTer to win it. That season he was legitimately a member of the Dortmund squad. I know people try to diminish his contribution, but the man rightfully was awarded a winner's medal. I believe the only other player that's been a runner-up in the Champions League was Chicharito. [Other than the list of winners. Navas of course has been a runner-up]. Its surprising that Hugo Sanchez never made the final. Hugo was/is the first CONCACAF player to win a European trophy, when he won the UEFA Cup with Barcelona in 1986. Julio Dely Valdez of Panama was/is the only CONCACAF player to win the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, which he did with PSG in 1995/96 By the way, Sanchez is comfortably the top CONCACAF scorer in UEFA competition (Champions League plue Europa League and precursors). 2nd place is Dely Valdez. 3rd is Chicharito. 4th is a Canadian. Thomas Radzinski. Then comes Dwight Yorke. The top scoring American is of course Clint Dempsey, followed by DeMarcus Beasley. The top scoring Costa Rican is Bryan Ruiz, and the top scoring Jamaica is already Leon Bailey. The record for most appearances in UEFA Club competition is of course Atiba Hutchinson. He holds that record by a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide margin. Like really wide. Double 2nd place, which is Rafa Marquez.
Going back to what has been wrong with Canada for years is shown in the tweet below. There used to be this policy where good young players that were identified were pressured to join an MLS club in Canada. With the effectiveness of those academies at developing talents being debatable and their superiority seriously debunked, we have potentially wasted a lot of talent over the years. Jonathan David's agent didn't want him to sign with MLS due to the league being perceived as "trapping young talents". In the Canadian context, those talents would wither away on the bench or in USL with the rule allowing Americans being domestic on Canadian clubs adding even more barriers to obtaining valuable minutes for their development. The agent adds that the league is not a good environment for young players with great potential and that MLS is more for the 23-25 years old with no European ambition. He also adds that minutes in Belgium, Netherlands and Germany raises your value much faster than in MLS. 1298243797193822208 is not a valid tweet id CPL changes the landscape because young players will have a viable alternative to get lots of minutes (1000 minutes - U21 rule) in a league can sell to European leagues (Borges to Belgium and Estevez to Eredivisie) and also gets you called up to the national team (Verhoeven, Didic, Zator, Borges, Carducci) Amer Didic, (who scored a goal for Canada), refused a Vancouver Whitecaps contract to stay in CPL with Edmonton due to lack of minutes at Vancouver. Looking at the Whitecaps right now, maybe they could have needed him.
good question i'm having is whether MLS has been any form of beneficial for Canadian players/NT as it has for many nations in the Caribbean and Central America?
You mean like Alphonso Davies? I mean, we just had two players in the Champions League semifinal. Both came thru MLS contracts. [Davies and Tyler Adams.] Folks can make the data about young players and MLS fit whatever their agenda is. Those comments are from Jonathan David's agent. You know, the guy whose livelihood is cashing in on the transfer moves of players like Jonathan David in Europe. Folks like this say MLS holds young players back, and then you can provide 25 examples of them not holding youngsters back. They just stammer and stutter and come up with another pile of BS. What about Joseph Scally, who was sold from NYCFC to Gladbach before he'd ever played a game for them? What about Chris Richards, who was sold by FCD to Bayern before he'd ever played a game for them? I can go on and on..........but ultimately people don't care about the data. Why hasn't MLS worked for more Canadian youngsters? Because most of those Canadian youngsters were trash. I'm sorry. We've had them at FCD. Adinojah Reid? Not remotely good enough to play for the club. So he headed to Europe, where last year he played 4 times for Le Havre's reserves. Hooray!? You do actually have to possess talent to make it MLS.
The Whitecaps have 14 Canadians on their 30 man roster, 10 of which are Home-Grown/Generation Adidas and another home-grown Canadian out on loan to Ottawa. Compare that to NYC who have 10 Americans in their roster only 4 of whom are Home-Grown. And they've done pretty well with Reyna, Scally and Sands.
I would say that MLS has been more effective to Central American NT than Canada and I can always prove my point with one word --> Results. They compete for International minutes in MLS and now for domestic minutes with green cards (bad for young Americans) but they have all the minutes they want at home in their own league preparing them for MLS. Canadians have to compete for International minutes in MLS but also for minutes right at home against Americans on their own soil without having a league giving them lots of minutes to prepare them for higher level. That's why there was no way around it but to launch CPL as a corrective measure because the benefits that came with MLS also brought some drawbacks here. That is the system that Jonathan David wanted no part off and even Davies learned that the hard way when Vancouver try to hold his Bayern transfer hostage for more money.