I wish it was different, but there continues to be 24 hours in a day – blasted sun. Tuesday can’t come fast enough.
Honduras and Panama played to a 0-0 draw last night. With the result, Panama missed out on chance to clinch a place in the Hexagonal round. Here’s where we stand with one game left:
The Panamanians are all but through with a game against Cuba remaining – though the Cubans will have more than 11 players for that game, at least that’s the assumption. For Canada and Honduras – horrible cliche alert – there is everything to play for.
A draw sees the Canadians through to the final round of World Cup qualifying for the first time in eons. Of course, playing for a draw rarely works out for us. Three points in San Pedro Sula is obviously the desired result. Though the 3-0 last night was good – should’ve been more, to be frank – Olivier Occean’s red card makes Stephen Hart’s job that much harder ahead of the monumental clash on Tuesday.
Was that worthy of a straight red? I’m going to say no. Occean and Will Johnson tried to get the ball back as quickly as possible in order to score more and boost their goal differential. Odelín Molina was not havin’ that and a scuffle broke out. Javier Santos had just made a horrid call on Roberto Linares and felt the need to even things out. It’s CONCACAF – no one was shocked.
Occean’s red leaves a void at the forward position for Canada. With Dwayne De Rosario still on the mend this means Hart will have to make a call up. The choices:
Lucas Cavallini
At 19 years old, Cavallini has a long career ahead of him. The striker is one of two foreign players for Uruguayan club Juventud, and has a goal in just two appearances.
His goal against the United States in March of this year was a highlight for the program as Canada notched a huge 2-0 result in the Olympic qualifying tournament. Though the stakes were high in that game, Tuesday is a different matter. I wouldn’t mind seeing him called up, but starting should be out of the question.
Iain Hume
The natural choice to replace Occean in the starting lineup, Hume made a brief appearance last night. It was nice to see after the trials and tribulations the Brampton native underwent at club level. Plying his trade with the Doncaster Rovers, Hume will likely get the call on Tuesday night. Here’s hoping he seizes the day.
Now to turn it over to you guys. Cavallini, Hume or somebody completely off the radar. Who should get the call in Honduras?
Time to bring back Rob Friend
+1
Yes, it was worthy of a straight red for 2 reasons. FIFA considers retaliation the superior offense to instigation, for starters. Secondly, Occean broke the sacred covenant of football, which is you to not f*ck with the goalkeeper inside his penalty area. Add on the fact that this could be considered unsportsmanly given that keeper had just been scored on, and the question is not whether or not this is a red card, but how it could be anything but.
Take off your Canada goggles, and I’m sure you’ll see it the same way. *shrugs* Tough luck for Occean, but Rob Friend is just as good in the air as Occean is, if not better. We’ll get by.
I know it’s instinct to blame the referee for things like this, but as a referee, I must constantly remind players, fans and coaches alike that the referee does not DECIDE WHAT CONDUCT THE PLAYER TOOK, the referee simply applies the laws of the game based on the CONDUCT of the PLAYER.
That being said, who is at fault for every red card and infraction ever called?
The player is, as (s)he is responsible for their conduct on the field. Period.
The referee doesn’t make players do things that require discipline. He simply watches and hands out the discipline as prescribed by FIFA’s laws of the game.
I know there is an inner child in all of us who likes to blame mommy and daddy for having unfair rules and not loving us enough to make an exception to them for us, but what is the purpose in having rules if we are to have exceptions to them?
Occean f*cked up and he’s gotta pay for it. No sense lamenting it now, just accept it for what it is, and to quote the “Ting Tings”, next time, remember to “Keep your head!” (It’s so important, that they remind you in the song numerous times, just in case you forget, as Occean clearly did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r9vTXiocBc
Solid points, Ghett0. Retaliation never pays, but I’d argue Occean took the bigger ‘pop’ in the scuffle. He was at fault for getting involved.
Yo Desai, I know you have to be professional and compose your emotions but lets be real.
Dear “Ghett0″
You must be another one of those refs who doesn’t think when refereeing and then suffer abuse, and rightly so.
THIS IS WORLD CUP QUALIFYING, NOT SOME BACKYARD PICK UP GAME. WHAT THE FCK.
LIKE SERIOUSLY, ANY DECENT REFEREE WOULD’VE PULLED OCEAN ASIDE AND USED PROPER COMMUNICATION TO CONVEY HIS MESSAGE AS TO HOW HE BETTER NOT DO IT AGAIN. OR A YELLOW WOULD’VE SUFFICED.
WHAT DID HE OCEAN INSTIGATE??? WORLD WAR THREE?!?!?!
LIKE ANY PLAYER ON THE PLANET, HE WAS TRYING TO GET THE BALL FROM THAT MUPPET OF A GOAL KEEPER.
YOU’RE SO BLIND MAN. IF THE REFEREE KEPT A COOL HEAD, NO ONE WOULD’VE GOTTEN SENT OF IN THIS GAME.
AND YET YOU’RE BLAMING THE PLAYERS CONDUCT?!?!?!
WHAT THE FCK WERE YOU WATCHING MAN??? THIS REFEREE SUCKED SOOOOOOOOOO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.
EVERY. SINGLE. JOURNALIST. EXPERT. FAN. CANADIAN. AGREES THAT BOTH DECISIONS WERE FCKED UP.
AND YET YOU COME IN HERE DEFENDING THIS STUPID REFEREE AND BLAMING CANADIANS FOR “POINTING THE FIGURE AT REFEREES/THE RULES INSTEAD OF THE PLAYERS CONDUCT”.
PLAYERS CONDUCT??? REALLY? SO A SLIGHT PUSH, AND GETTING BATTERED BACK IN TRYING TO HELP YOUR COUNTRY REACH THE BIGGEST COMPETITION THIS WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN WARRANTS A RED FCKING CARD????
You must be one hell of a referee. =)
Well I wasn’t going to be convinced by your argument, being entirely fact-free, but the all-caps convinced me.
Nonsense. Ocean reaches for the ball, gets hit, reaches up to defend himself and gets knocked down. He didn’t deserve a yellow, let alone a red. A word of caution to calm things…? Maybe, at the most. Preferably delivered simultaneously to him and the keeper.
As for striker options, Jackson and Rickets up front with Hutchison playing a more advanced role in the hole behind works for me. Perhaps bringing Hume in part way through the proceedings.
The ball was long gone by the time Occean strides in to take a pop at Molina. There is no “defending himself” here, Occean just thought it would be a good idea to start some shoving.
At the level I have reffed at, it’s a straight red. Here, I’d have hoped the referee could take a slightly more patient view of things, although it’s certainly a yellow.
Wow…another dumb referee.
This country seems to be full of them. Ocean did what any normal player would’ve done. What level have you reffed at? World cup qualifying games??? HUH???
Or U-12 boys in your local neighbourhood???
There’s NO WAY IT WAS A STRAIGHT RED. Why do refs try to protect other refs mistakes???
Thanks to that guy, Canada is now in this debacle regarding our most important game in the 21st century.
Any chance of going more narrow and playing someone like Jackson up top?
I thought Canada needed to use the width more last night in their buildup. They only seemed work it wide when they were below the 18. There were opportunities on the counters if they worked it wider rather than running at the fairly narrow back line.
Against teams like Honduras who can actually pass the ball around and play football, you need good, technical footballers to compete in this game.
Rob Friend? No. You’re just asking them to push their whole team into your box. What’s Friend gonna do 30-50 yards out with the ball? Absolutely nothing.
Ian Hume? Maybe, but he doesn’t fit the footballer profile.
LUCAS CAVALLINI- MUST PLAY IN THIS GAME. HE CAN RECEIVE THE BALL IN THE AIR, ON THE GROUND. HE’S STRONG, HE CAN TURN AND BEAT DEFENDERS. HE CAN HOLD THE BALL UP. HE’S GOT EXTREMELY HIGH WORK RATE, STAMINA. AND HE’S DANGEROUS WHEN HE’S GOT THE BALL, UNLIKE THE OTHER TWO.
We need footballers…not big athletes.
You are absolutley correct. I’ve played against Lucas many times before and he is a great option up front. This is what we need more of, YOUTH. Look at some of the best teams in the world, a lot of their starters are YOUNG. We need to develop our players, if we go to the world cup with this team what are we going to do? Do we really want to go to the world cup just to say ” Canada is in the World Cup!!”? So that after we get embarassed by world class teams the footbal world can mock Canada even more?
What about Massimo Mirabelli? Another great option in attack. These are the players we need, players with fresh young instinct. The drive to take any opportunity they get.
Comon man. I want to be proud of my team. I want to have a team that I can truly believe has a chance to go far! CSA is so messed up, the amount of quality footballers that slip through them is ridiculous. “Drogba” got it right on the money, we need FOOTBALLERS, not athletes.
Fix our team CSA, cause if we qualify it’s just gonna be fool’s gold. The world will LAUGH at our current team.
Developing players takes years…an overnight fix by the CSA? Your kidding right?
New Zealand keep getting their stupid Oceania region qualifier to the World Cup…I wouldn’t mind ours…couldn’t careless of we lose at the WC…need to start somewhere…
If you want development…SAAC and the other academies are doing that now…look at the 2001 to 1996 kids…they’re coming…but not overnight…
Of course it’s not an overnight thing. But the 90/91/92/93 generations are already well developed and yet they have no players on the national team from that group, or very few at times. I know for a fact that if need be, Hart could field a full team of quality U25′s (I’m not saying he should do this but it’s just to show that there are TONS of quality players, so there should already be more than a few in our national team)
The fact that Lucas didnt even make the squad?? Shows how backwards our system is.
and if the coaching staff just wants to qualify for the sake of qualifying, thats just ridiculous. As you said, we need to start somewhere, so why not start where it matters. At home. Build a team that can actually challenge for something.
I’m not bashing on the group of players currently cause its not up to them, they just get the call and they give everything they can for the shirt. So I still am wishing for the best and hope they do well. Its the CSA that needs change their way of thinking when it comes to judging players.
I’m not saying field a team full of youngsters but we shouldnt take an older player just because he’s done this, that or whatever in Canada, versus a kid who’s playing in a real footballing nation and is probably already way more technically skilled due to where he’s playing as well as getting used to the level of skill these countries play at.
As for the “experience” that people will say these older players have. We dont need experience. We need to learn how to play football. We’re not playing in top notch games that has soooo much pressure that we need these experienced players to show the way. No. Our game against Honduras is as intense as it gets for us. I think most would be able to handle that.
Hopefully things change, would love to finally see our team have some quality and play great football!!!
I totally agree. You also have to think that he is used to the “Central/South American“ way of playing football. Hopefully Hart agrees
Massimo Mirabelli, he has a few caps and goals with U20, he’s home visiting his parents on a break from his club in Finland, call him up.
Hart will move TS or SJ up top. Marcel De Jong on the left and play most of the same 11 as started on Friday. Almost the same lineup that played most of the Panama Honduras game (Ricketts replaced De RO early on remember).
The big difference between the two games is that Johnson will start in place of Bernier. His tenacity and work-rate were sorely missed on that night.
Whatever happened to Rob Friend? He was pretty good…
I’m not sure what Robbie was “pretty good” at in a Canada shirt, unless it was making me scream in anguish…
Youngster. Has the confidence in front of goal. Phoney baloney stuff at higher levels but when your finishing is THAT bad, can’t get much worse. Plus fit to last 90 minutes, and can hold the ball up.
I’ve also heard people ask about Haber and Edwini-Bonsu but I think if they are going to bring in a player it should be Cavallini. Haber I’m not too convinced of, and I like Edwini-Bonsu a lot and would have liked to see him called up in the first place probably rather than Hume, but I think in these circumstances Cavallini would make the most sense, since he’s playing in Uruguay and won’t have to cross multiple time zones to play in Honduras. He’s a promising player too from the little we’ve been able to see of him so far.
Hume is a lower English league forward whose best role is as a late game sub. He’s just a run around/hustle guy who plays with his head down, lacks postional sense, has an inconsistent first touch and poor passing/decisionmaking skills. I admire his recovery from serious injury and comeback story but like Dunfield, he really shouldn’t be in the squad. I don’t think he’ll be striking any fear into Figueroa and the rest of the Honduran defence. It just shows how little depth we have at the forward position
Well regardless they need someone, because if you play two forwards (as I would hope we do) with Ricketts and Jackson up front, you need another in case someone goes down injured when you’re behind.
I don’t see the sense in starting Hume with Jackson and Ricketts; now you’ve got three guys running into each other’s way. All three are guys whose primary skill is making runs at speed.
I figured it out y’all.
I’ve resolved the striker issue.
Canada shall play NONE.
Based on empirical evidence regarding that pathetic performance in Panama, we MUST PLAY A BACK 5 WITH TWO-THREE DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDERS AND THE REST PROTECTING THE FLANKS AND OTHER PASSING LANES.
Fck it. We’re gonna part the biggest bus Concacaf has ever seen. There’s no one good enough in this group to break this sht down. And when they push up so much, Jackson or someone will hit ‘em on the counter. GAME OVA’!!!!!!!!1