Image via Kristian Jack
Game in a sentence
Under a cloud of political intrigue Canada takes care of business ahead of a gigantic clash in Honduras on Tuesday.
Observations
- Obviously this wasn’t a normal game. A question of fairness hung over the proceedings as I’m sure the Hondurans watched this fixture in despair. For Canada, the prematch defection-distractions could’ve been handled one of two ways. The opening moments indicated Stephen Hart’s men would attack, attack and attack some more. For the Cubans, well, what can you say. The 11 players remaining handled themselves well under strange circumstances. Reports indicate the five missing players have crossed the border into the United States. The news comes as twitter rumors speculate Fidel Castro is extremely ill – take that as you will.
- Employing a 4-3-3, Canada’s width was too much for Cuba. David Edgar and Ante Jazic moved up the wings with ease all night. An excellent overlap between Simeon Jackson and Jazic resulted in Tosaint Ricketts fifth goal for Canada in 17 games. The Canadians had a ridiculous amount of chances which they failed to capitalize on including at least six in the first half for Olivier Occean.
- A dominant half produced only one goal. There were moments when it seemed the Canadians took their feet off the accelerator. For me it was hard to overlook how difficult a game it was for Cuba. Kevin McKenna has a future in diplomacy if he wants it.
- 10 corners, over 20 clear chances and only one goal was the product of a lack of communication in the final third. Ricketts, Occean and Jackson struggled to get out of each others way. Credit should also go to Cuban keeper Odelin Molina, who was superb.
- Anyone else get feeling the Canadians felt bad for the Cubans? With a birth in the hexagonal round at stake this was not a time for sympathy. After a slow start in the second half Canada began to turn the screws. Any goodwill between the two sides disappeared after referee Javier Santos sent off Roberto Linares in what was a harsh decision in my books. Will Johnson’s goal in the 72nd minute was marred by Occean’s sending off – the text book definition of a make up call – after a dust up with Molina.
- Edgar connected on a great ball from Jazic to seal the game with a beauty of a goal six minutes later. The former Newcastle man’s side footed strike was the goal of the night and well deserved. Jazic and Edgar were terrific.
Stephen Hart “I thought the fullbacks were excellent tonight.” Completely agree.
— Jason deVos (@jasondevos) October 13, 2012
- When Atiba Hutchinson is the best player on the pitch good things happen for Canada. Fortunately for the Canadians Hutch’s class was apparent throughout.
- Canada heads to Honduras with a plus three goal differential. The Hondurans currently sit at plus two, they will play Panama later tonight. Waking the Red’s Duncan Fletcher has laid out the possible scenarios for Hex qualification. Check it out, it’s fantastic.
- Though patchy at times, Canada did what they needed to do. Hart made the proper adjustments to overcome a valiant Cuban squad. The Occean red card is the low light of this night as another attacking option will be missing on Tuesday.
- Let’s hope the missing members of the Cuban team are alright. I imagine it will be a strange trip home for the rest of the team.
Three Stars
1. David Edgar
2. Atiba Hutchinson
3. Ante Jazic
Well done as always.
A conversation that was sparked during the match: If you were watching Canada for the first time, were told that we have one – and only one – player who has been starting matches recently in the Premier League (or any truly elite European league, for that matter), and were made to guess which one, how many named would you go through before you arrived at Simeon Jackson? He didn’t necessarily have a poor match, but we need to see if there’s a way we can get more out of him.
This is a case of EPL-centric thinking. First of all, I think Simeon played quite well, but let’s face it, Norwich City is a small club in a big league. He is the kind of player is roughly as good as the service he gets. But let’s face it: Attiba Hutchison is on a much better team in a top league (would you bet against PSV Einhoven in a tie with the Canaries?) and Olivier Occean is making highlight reel plays in the Bundasliga, another top league. And don’t let us forget the many years of excellent football Jonathan deGuzman played in another “top” league in Spain before his pre-mature semi-retirement to the MLS.
We must have the least clinical offence in the world! Every single game we miss absolute sitters. For all the great chances we create we can’t continue to miss, it’s getting really frustrating to watch.
Jazic and Edgar faced no challenge at all. They both played well but this is the easiest kind of match for a wingback to play well in. Early on Canada piled on chance after chance by running at the Cubans; then Hart called off the dogs after the opening goal, and had them play absolutely everything out to the wings. The Cuban midfield did nothing to challenge possession wide and the game stalemated, with Canada throwing crosses in to guys playing 1-on-7 or 2-on-7. But well done to both to keep the ball moving and playing very high.
DeRo would have made a big difference here to the scoreline, most likely. I was disappointed by Jackson too, he did too little to try to win free kicks or make productive runs. Ricketts was pleasantly tidy in possession, which pleased and surprised me. Hutchinson returned to a good level of play.
I’m confused. I watched the game on a live stream, and although it was commentated by some tool in his basement, the feed itself was obviously from a sports channel since it had the score & time shown on screen. According to that, Canada’s 2nd goal was mysteriously disallowed after the fact, as though the ridiculous red card given to Occean could somehow cancel out a goal that was scored before the red card offense.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see how the game restarted (whether it was a kick-off from half, or a free kick from Cuba’s 6-yard box). However, the score remained 1-0 on the screen, and changed to 2-0 after David Edgar’s goal. I was mystified by the whole scenario and thought for sure that my amateur commentator must have gotten it wrong (like so many of his other comments). However, I looked at my live stream on FIFA and they were saying the same thing…that Canada’s goal was disallowed. Then, in the 80th minute my amateur commentator informs us that FIFA has ruled that the goal counted, and the score was updated to 3-0. At this time I checked with FIFA.com, and they were not saying the same thing, but rather going back to correct previous statements.
The confusing part is that nobody else seems to be reporting on this. However, I’ve noticed a significant trend on people reporting on games that they haven’t actually watched, so that’s not really proof of anything.
So either:
(A) My amateur commentator was clueless about what was going on, and FIFA.com is using him as their source of information, or
(B) The 2nd goal was disallowed, and the folks posting about this game didn’t actually watch it.
I suppose there’s a 3rd option and I’m just insane.
I pick (C) you slipped, hit your head and were hallucinating.
On Sportsnet there was no issue with what you said above.
Yeah, I’d have assumed that my clueless amateur commentator didn’t know what was going on, except that FIFA.com was reporting it exactly the same way.
FIFA’s match tracker usually makes mistakes like that. Especially in qualifying matches from the smaller confederations (re: not UEFA or CONMEBOL). They reported that it was disallowed before they corrected the scoreline a few minutes after Edgar scored the third. Whoever runs the tracker and fills in the bits of information doesn’t do a very accurate job.
So to sum up, the goal counted, the game was restarted off a kickoff from midfield, a red card after a goal would never result in a good goal being disallowed, and FIFA has a relatively shitty website with an equally poor match tracker.
I was at the game with twenty- eight of my closest friends and though I was staring right at it, I have no idea what Olivier could have done to provoke the straight red. Any ideas?
He didn’t do anything. The ref fucked up earlier, so he just wanted to level the game, with them having no subs and such. Total bullshit, but whatever, welcome to CONCACAF I suppose.
To be fair, he did push the goalie which started a bit of a melee. However the red does seem harsh, a yellow less so.
Actually, he barely touched the keeper, who was keeping the ball away from the Canadian players who simply wanted to get the ball back into play since Canada may have needed more goals. It was certainly nothing as severe as the flattening he took in retaliation which went unpunished. Even the goalkeeper manhandled his own player more harshly when he pulled him off Occean.
You can see the replay here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzIU5Q0m4xI. The incident is around 1:50.