Game in a sentence
- Despite playing with a man advantage for 86 minutes, Canada produce a dull performance against minnows in Tampa, securing three points through a fortunate penalty at the start of the second half.
Observations
- The game will be remembered for two major decisions by the referee so lets address them first, starting with the red card. Concacaf referees are often as useful as a chocolate fireguard but it has to be pointed out that tonight’s official Trevor Taylor got it absolutely right when he brought out the red card inside four minutes. Not many referees would have had the guts to send Jean-Luc Lambourde off for his reckless challenge on Will Johnson so early in the match but thankfully he did and fortunately the Canadian was able to continue.
- Four minutes into the second half, Taylor was in the spotlight again and this time he got it wrong. Dwayne De Rosario’s cross into the box was aimed at Ali Gerba who fell to the ground when he collided with centre-back Stephane Zubar. Taylor adjudged that Zubar fouled the Montreal striker when, in fact, he hardly touched him. De Rosario stepped up and scored his 16th international goal. Thankfully he didn’t break out the shake and bake celebration.
- It was the only positive thing the New York Red Bulls man did in the game. This was the kind of game that needed a superstar to step up and take over and De Rosario proved why he never has been that in his career. His distribution from corners and free-kicks was poor as was his passing that all too often brought a premature end to possession for Canada. He may well have done better in a central role but on the right for 57 minutes, until he was substituted, he was nowhere near the player his coaching staff expect him to be.
- It will be interesting to see if De Rosario is picked to start Tuesday’s game against Panama because after this display it is clear that more changes will be coming.
- Canada actually made four changes from the match against USA and all four of the players coming in made a difference. The most notable absentee was Atiba Hutchinson who missed out through injury. Julian De Guzman replaced him, returning to the team after missing the game in Detroit with a calf injury and played very well, taking advantage of the space to often start many of his team’s attacks.
- Marcel De Jong also missed out through injury and based on the way his replacement, Mike Klukowski, played he may not start another game at the Gold Cup. Klukowski connected really well down the left with his club team-mate Josh Simpson and put in a number of excellent crosses.
- Ali Gerba, who was preferred over Simeon Jackson, had a decent hour before the Norwich City striker replaced him but wasn’t clinical with the few chances he was provided with.
- The fourth and final change came in goal where Milan Borjan replaced Lars Hirschfeld and had an excellent match. Borjan, as you can imagine against 10-men for 86 minutes, wasn’t overly busy but produced two brilliant saves, either side of half-time, to deny Guadeloupe when it was still scoreless. Borjan also wasn’t shy to (rightfully) give his defenders the riot act after allowing a team to break them open playing 4-3-1-1, showing some much-needed leadership qualities in goal.
- All-in-all it was a night of very few positives for Canada’s coaching staff when thinking about the big picture, but narrowing the focus means it is three points inside of Group C of the Gold Cup as they head to Kansas City to play Panama on Tuesday. Stephen Hart and his staff have three days to find more creativity and pace in attack down the middle. Hopefully Hutchinson and De Guzman can play together for the first time in the Gold Cup, a tournament that the Canadians have yet to get out of first gear in.
Three Stars
- Julian De Guzman
- Milan Borjan
- Mike Klukowski
Kristian Jack
An ugly, ugly game where the points were gifted to us but…a win is a win and we badly needed the 3 points. For all of the times that Canada has been screwed over by CONCACAF refs, we finally had a series of bad calls go our way.
I hope the JDG that we saw tonight will be the one who returns to TFC!
KJ, I watched the game on a US-Spanish based channel, and am not sure if they showed the replays on the Canadian feed. BUT it was a penalty IMO. The guad player tugged at Gerba’s jersey, and gerba went down. So I feel that ‘technically’, it was te correct call, it’s just Gerba sold it pretty well.
Overall though, great summary KJ
I guess all Canada can hope now is that the third place table favors us.Panama are currently spanking USA and will probably give Canada a good run for their money.They may lack technique and creativity but they are hard to break down,energetic and push men forward with little caution.Canada will probably not take advantage of this recklessness because of poor central creativity and a lack of accurate delivery out wide while they may slip up when Panama come to play rugby in their 18 yard box.Thank the lord for Guadeloupe because we all know passing to the full back who in turn passes to the wide man who cant cross was getting us nowhere.
Agree with Steve that it was a foul, but the shirt tug started outside the area. It’s where the foul starts that the restart should be from, so the correct decision would have been a freekick for Canada.
Well i didn’t think this game was all negative.
But if you wanted a story from me in this game it’s Canada working the ball up well until the 18 yard box then lacking that last killer ball or a moment of quality from a star player to find an opportunity on goal.
I don’t think Dero delivered it, but neither did anyone else. Somebody has to be the X factor, or at the very least start imposing themselves on the game at times.
Then again, if Gerba made the most of his opportunities it easily could have been 3-0 and we wouldn’t have said anything. The guys in front need to do a better job putting the ball in the net.
i agree.
canada looked good passing the ball around(albeit against 10 men guadeloupe)
but were clueless as to how to score in the final third.
crosses were flying around left and right.
but to whom!?gerba is not good in the air and the defenders were tall.
canada just like the usa relied on blind inprecise hopefull crosses.
unbeleivable.
no cutting in, no one two’s, no creativity to get to the edge of the box to unleash a shot.
sometimes i wonder if anyboy was watching the champions league final ,
or did they all forget about it!
barcelona would never cross the ball blindly like that.
i wouldnt call guadeloupe a minnow, they have performed very well in the last 2 gold cups