The Lead
That’s right. And the Canadian Soccer Association agrees apparently, as they’re planning to play all third round home matches of Canada’s CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers in the city, in addition to the June 3rd friendly against America Senior. From the CBC:
Canadian men’s team head coach Stephen Hart was on hand at the event and said the decision to play in Toronto was heavily influenced by travel, training grounds proximity and grass field conditions at BMO.
“We felt when we looked at everything, the travel, crossing of time zones, we tended to look at the travel issues and then how comfortable we were with the facility,” said Hart.
The same voices will make the same complaints about how Toronto fails to support the national team as fervently as other parts of the country, in addition to arguing the national team shouldn’t belong to any one Canadian city. Except in the rest of the world, national teams do tend to play WCQs in a single capital or heavily-populated urban centre. There are notable exceptions to this rule, as in the very regionally-partisan Spain, and in the United States.
But Canada is geographically enormous, and travel costs for CMNT supporters are prohibitively high. There is also resentment over the fact BMO Field doubles as the home of a regional club—Toronto FC. Yes, federal funding for BMO was secured partly through its designation as Canada’s national soccer stadium, but it’s really the home of TFC. England’s Wembley stadium, while located in London, is a stand alone venue for the three lions.
The better comparison perhaps would be Russia’s Luzhniki Stadium, which houses Spartak Moscow and is the permanent home of the Russian national team. There are some caveats; Spartak shares the stadium with First Division club Torpedo Moscow. It was also the former home of CSKA Moscow as well. But generally it does double duty for club and country in a geographically enormous country.
But there is another issue at play here in Canada; the rest of the country dislikes Toronto. A lot. Few will admit it, but associating Toronto with anything “national” leaves a bad taste in the mouths of a great number of Canadians, even within Ontario. It’s hard, for example, to think there would be anywhere near the level of animosity to the CSA if they decided to host all three WCQs in geographically central Winnipeg.
Despite its “hell on earth” rep, roughly 16% of the country lives in the GTA. Yet the CSA has to play nice with the rest of the country on this…it’s getting a little tired.
Canada
Canada’s new kits. Pretty good, actually.
Gerry Dobson’s uncomfortably prescient joke.
Kara Lang on life after soccer.
England
John Terry won’t respond to “o captain, my captain” any more. Ferdinand doesn’t want it either.
United keeper Anders Lindegaard out for a month.
Tevez could play for Man City again (I TOLD YOU!)
Arsene Wenger, like a Wall Street banker, tells his team to just ignore those protesters outside.
Andre Villas-Boas given the “green light” to do whatever he wants at Chelsea. Also, his dressing room is a democracy.
Harry Redknapp “insulted” by claims he lied to a journalist.
*chuckles*
Italy
Inter’s Sneijder and Alvarez won’t play against Roma this weekend.
Inter midfielder Palombo says Milan didn’t want him.
Could Pep Guardiola go to Italy?
Novara’s slide continues.
Bits and bobs
Violent aftermath of Port Said massacre.
Grant Wahl on Steve Zakuani’s long road to recovery.
Lennart Johansson still exists. And FIFA’s ISL investigation makes it to the Swiss supreme court.
And that, give or take, is the story so far…
i heard roma inter is switched to sunday now, hope u guys are still broadcasting it
I hate what’s going on with Arsenal, but I love this young lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUEd1t_t1X8&feature=related
A 2:04 clip summarizing Arsenal’s “activity” on deadline day
so very funny. thanks Mate
While the rationale for Toronto as the home of the CMNT is understandable, if a bit grating, I fail to see why a team that purports to represent an entire nation can’t even be bothered to play friendlies out west for years at a time. I’m only 23, and I’ve already attended more Premier League games than men’s national team games, and I don’t necessarily see that changing. If the CSA continues to ignore fans outside the Toronto area, it’s entirely possible that fans like myself will start ignoring the men’s national team in return.
All French games are played at Saint Denis. All English games at Wembley. What’s the diff?
Two vastly smaller countries? It’s at least ten times easier to get to Wembley from Newcastle than it is to get to BMO from Vancouver.
Argentina’s home games are at Monumental most of the time. Pretty big country.
Both of those stadiums are within a few hours drive of any part of their country. There are major centers in Canada that never get to see a CMT game, and it is impossible for people living in those centers to make a game in TO.
What’s worse is that Toronto is a continual embarrassment to the rest of the country and we can expect to see a half-full stadium full of foreigners for all the CMT games.
Have to agree with Dan on the Argentina point. Cordoba, Salto, Mendoza, all major cities, and all more than a ‘few hours’ away from BA, especially when you consider the road network down there (personal experience). However, I still think the CMNT need to play elsewhere, but as others have pointed out the lack of grass is a major sticking point.
While I agree it’s not good to ignore the rest of the nation, there’s another piece to this that no one wants to drag up again, and that’s attendance.
In previous years Canada home games would be horribly attended by Canadians no matter where they are, and the away teams would end up with the majority crowds which is pathetic.
When they decided to put the games in Toronto for the earlier round there was a different attitude, the Voyageurs showed up en-mass, and they had a good turnout for the regulars. I think that alone helped make the decision to keep it at BMO, and as we play bigger teams and get closer to qualifying, we’re going to get more attention and hopefully sell out the games.
All that said, I think the Womens Concacaf tourney proves there’s a big enough base of general fans in Vancouver that they should definitely consider them for the post WC qualifying matches, as we’ll hopefully be warming up for the WC. Montreal will shortly be proving itself as having a large enough base to also request some love from the men.
Easily the biggest issue with Vancouver is GRASS…. get grass… get the national team… done…
seeing the women’s tournament on turf was gut wrenching…
Lots of grass out in BC. Just can’t really play soccer on it…
How can the CSA explain ignoring Montreal?
We’re still calling Quebec Canada?
stadium is not done
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t know the extent of [the injury] until I was on my way home from the stadium” – Complete and utter nonsense, the sound of two of Zakuani’s leg bones breaking was like a gunshot. Mullan is trying some serious revisionist history with quotes like that, especially on a play where he was pissed off and looking for a foul seconds beforehand before taking Zakuani out with a malicious ‘tackle’ half way up his shin.
The new soccer kits look OK, but I think I liked the old ones better…were they ever even available to buy, I don’t remember seeing them?
Also, shirt tucked into shorts, or shirt untucked, over shorts: which looks better? I prefer untucked. Discuss among yourselves…
They had to update the old ones. Looked silly when Man U changed theirs and we were still using the stolen design…
As a football fan out west, it would be nice to see some games played out here by our national team. But I do understand the reasoning and it is logical to play the games in T.O.
I do however have a problem with the photos of our new kits. Are those really the best photos the media can push out to promote the uniforms, the article and the teams??? I can barely tell what they look like. Bad lighting maybe..
when the walking swizzle stick on Sportsnet said that there was no other option because West Coast is too far and Toronto was the furthest east coast option someone at our table said “what about Montreal?” to which someone else answered, “Its not in Canada.”
Which seems about right.
let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that the guy from Chibougamoo has anything in common with the one from Red Deer.
the czechs and slovaks figured it out nicely on their own but we still pretend. like the couple who are still together for the kids but are now sleeping in different beds and cant find the courage to leave.