Upon reading the news that the Nutrilite Canadian Championship (really, the Voyageurs Cup for gawd’s sake) would now be called the Amway Canadian Championship, I thought about the soulless nature of corporate sponsorship. As long as money is changing hands, why make a fuss about a company known long ago as The American Way Association taking over from a sugar drink company?
But then I thought of the rich symbolism here. After all, the Cup is indeed Canada’s link to the CONCACAF Champions League group stages, which is the route to the rest of the Americas. It’s a stretch, but I’ll take it.
In any case, the full schedule was released last week. Here it is…
Given the calibre of the teams involved, the Voyageurs Cup final between Toronto and Vancouver was played to a perfect script.
The stadium was half-full. Both teams played error-prone soccer, with Whitecaps goalkeeper Joe Cannon nearly making himself famous with catastrophic attempts to play the ball. Referee Dave Gantar didn’t award a goal to Toronto after Jay DeMerit almost cleared a ball off the line, then in the second half awarded a dubious penalty to Joao Plata despite Plata obviously hand-balling mere seconds earlier.
It all evened up: Toronto got a goal they shouldn’t have and didn’t get a goal that should have counted. The game as a whole wound up with a fair result, as Toronto smacked Vancouver around the ring like Joe Frazier and cruised to a 2-1 win.
Fans of the expansion Whitecaps have increasingly few points of pride to hang their hat on. They’re not as competitive as expansion brothers Portland, they no longer have a great defense, their eccentric French forward isn’t even getting sent off as often. For most of the season fans could console themselves with the thought at least we’re better than Toronto. Being better than Toronto at anything can make up for a lot.
Nope. Not anymore. Toronto FC only got a one-goal win but they couldn’t have killed the Whitecaps any better if they’d used artillery.
For Vancouver, the game would have been a comedy of errors except it wasn’t the least bit funny. There were minor absurdities, like Blake Wagner replacing Jay DeMerit and handing the captain’s armband to Alain Rochat instead of vice-captain Terry Dunfield for some unknowable reason. There were real outbreaks of insanity like bringing Blake Wagner on at all when Vancouver needed a goal more than they needed oxygen. Joe Cannon made some fantastic first half reflex saves but every time he came out to handle a ball you could almost hear “Yakety Sax” in the background.
The theme was incompetence. Toronto spent most of the last sixty minutes gaily playing long balls to Joao Plata, which is impressive because Plata is nineteen years old and a hobbit. Yet he had no problem picking cherries from a largely idle Toronto defense and beating the veteran Whitecaps defenders time after time. In the absense of Davide Chiumiento Vancouver coach Tom Soehn tried Terry Dunfield as an attacking midfielder, which was briefly entertaining then just depressing. Realizing the futility of that strategy, Soehn moved rookie Jeb Brovsky into the attacking midfield. That was worse.
If you exclude Camilo’s highlight-reel free kick the Whitecaps generated one properly good scoring chance: Camilo crossed a ball into Eric Hassli near the corner of the box. Hassli was completely unmarked: the one time the patchwork Toronto FC defense showed any sign of weakness. He could have settled the ball, made a soufflé, tuck-pointed his chimney, and written a blog post ten times more eloquent than this one before a defender got to him. Instead he tried to score on the first touch and did not.
Hassli was one of the few Whitecaps to give a consistent effort. In the second half, when the team needed him most, he was charging between touchlines; he was arguably Vancouver’s most all-round effective defensive player. Maybe that, plus forty-five ill-advised minutes on Wednesday, meant he was too tired to deal with the single chance he got late.
If Hassli wasn’t going to get more than one scoring chance in ninety minutes then one of the other Whitecaps had to step up. Jeb Brovsky isn’t going to score if you give him an empty net and a ten-second head start, Shea Salinas was Shea Salinas, and Camilo struggled to get results against the physical Toronto defenders. I think Russell Teibert is fantastic but, with the Toronto players laying off him late in the game, he settled for trying to whip crosses into the box like BBs instead of stepping up and going for it himself. I know young Teibert can score cracking goals: I’ve seen him do it. It’s a question of mentality, of a prodigy realizing that he doesn’t always have to defer to his elders.
As a whole the players haven’t quit. Jay DeMerit was full of fire when he was substituted off after Yourassowsky’s goal, Joe Cannon forced himself to watch the award presentation like A Clockwork Orange, and players like Dunfield, Koffie, and Boxall let their determination do the talking. Yet it was a staggeringly dispiriting loss to supporter and player alike. Momentum is overrated as a factor in sports, but for whatever it’s worth obviously the Whitecaps don’t have any.
It’s an old cliche, but like many old cliches it happens to be true: Canadians love talking about the weather.
A relative of mine who served in Afghanistan once told me the best way to tell if there were Canadians in the vicinity is if you overhear people discussing humidity percentages and annual rainfall accumulations. Even so, as anyone who struggled through all the stoppages of play due to lightning last night during the ultimately abandoned second leg of the Nutrilite Championship final at BMO Field can testify, there’s a good reason why we can’t get enough of meteorology chat in this country. Canadian weather is about unpredictable as the MLS table.
Toronto’s former mayor Mel Lastman, for example, famously called in the army once to shovel snow out of the downtown core. This was in the same city that suffered significant damage after a tornado touched down in 2009. And that’s just Hogtown. Montreal experiences an annual temperature range of fifty degrees Celsius. The western provinces endure wildfires and floods often in the same season. I won’t even begin parsing Atlantic Canada’s odd weather patterns.
The weather dictates our moods, our clothing, our travel plans and, unfortunately, our sports, especially football. Soccer is first and foremost an outdoor sport, and as such doesn’t enjoy hockey’s immunity from the elements. There’s a certain pride among hardcore Toronto FC fans that, each season, they endure near-freezing temperatures, high winds and torrential rain to watch their substandard MLS club play. While cup final interruptions like last night’s are thankfully rare, weather problems are without precedent in Canadian soccer history. The season opener for NASL’s newly christened Toronto Blizzard for example was literally played in a blizzard. This is perhaps why many Canadians in particular were bemused by the British panic over some cold temperatures and a few inches of snow this past winter.
Still, it’s heartbreaking to see a final interrupted due to inclement weather, more so considering a Voyageur’s Cup replay would wipe out Vancouver’s second leg 1-0 lead. As most climatologists agree that anthropological climate change will bring more weather extremes, including increased precipitation, is there cause for concern for Canadian soccer’s future?
Maybe, but anyone seething at the events last night might take heart and remember the old Canuck battle cry, “Canadian weather, eh?” The intrusion of the elements is a healthy reminder that it’s just a game, that shit happens, that you can’t always account for everything. The weather is the last link between the amateur game played for fun and the professional top flight. Canada is pretty much already restricted to a summer soccer season anyway, unless MLS wants to pony up them money build heated stadium enclosures in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. And even that doesn’t seem to offer any amount of guarantee matches will be playable.
This will be cold comfort to Whitecaps supporters, but it’s been pointed out already that both team personnel were aware of the rules in case of abandoned matches. You shouldn’t put the players at physical risk for a scoreline. And maybe, considering the timing of the second leg now—July 2nd, on Canada Day weekend—we should remind ourselves that deep down, we consider whingeing about the weather a Canadian past-time. Now millions of Vancouverites, long used to griping about falling water, will at least to have yet another reason to kill some time, remark on the unpredictable weather and curse the skies, and Toronto too.
Tonight, 2.3 million Vancouverites will be glued to their sets for the second leg of the Nutrilite Championship final between Toronto FC and the Whitecaps. Bars will be packed, suds will be flowing, family commitments will be put aside and work will be skipped.
If Vancouver wins, expect tens of thousands of people to converge on Robson and Granville all clad in Whitecaps jerseys, both from the current era and from the old NASL days. Grown men will weep openly, and Prime Minister Harper will call to give his congratulations to the winning side.
Or not.
The reality will be slightly more humble if the ‘Caps pull it off tonight. Hyping up another final immediately following the Canucks’ Western Conference win and first Stanley Cup berth in 17 years is a difficult task for any club, especially when it’s away from home and earlier in the day. But this is the story of soccer in Canada; taking small steps, away from the media spotlight, and telling its own story in front of its faithful fans.
Even so, tonight will produce a little bit of soccer history. Two top flight professional Canadian clubs will vie for an important piece of soccer silverware, something we haven’t seen in decades. Despite the fact football has yet to capture the hearts and minds of Canadians like it’s ice-surface sister sport, it’s growing among a younger demographic group like never before. While soccer may not ever achieve hockey’s mythical status within Canadian cultural identity, it still has a major role to play as evidenced in the growing professional side of the sport.
The goal now is to build support for the Canadian national men’s team on the back of the resurgent Canadian professional game. That’s the mandate of the “support local soccer” initiative, which recently produced a short video promoting the national team ahead of Canada’s friendly against Ecuador at BMO Field on June 1st.
As I wrote yesterday, the real heart and soul of soccer in this country still centers on the international game, culminating with the World Cup. It’s a tournament however for which Canada has only qualified once, in 1986. Meanwhile, domestic Canada friendlies are all to often market by boisterous support for the away side courtesy of passionate expats, with only small packets of fans clad in white and red. While any believe home support for the Canadian national team is a “chicken and egg” issue—i.e. once Canada starts winning, the crowds will come—history hasn’t always came through on this promise. At some point, Canadian fans of the game have to step up. While a winning record is always the best place to build interest, solid, committed fan support can provide the foundation for media attention, added pressure for results, and real change.
If you have any doubts, watch the final tonight, a match made possible by the committed grassroots support for the domestic professional game. The Voyageurs’ name’s on the trophy. If we could do this for the professional game in Canada, image what we could do for the CMNT.
After another ninety minutes of terror, panic, and ultimate disappointment, the Vancouver Whitecaps have at last reached karmic rock bottom. Spending the game with near-total control before a surprisingly strong crowd which was foregoing the hockey in favour of a chance for a historic victory in a Cup final… and getting away with nothing. Or a 1-1 draw, which isn’t much better than nothing heading into BMO Field next Wednesday. The Whitecaps haven’t won away from Vancouver against MLS opposition since the pre-season; what chance to they have to win outright in Toronto? If one ball into the post goes in or one missed penalty is called, the tournament is entirely different.
This is one of those times when being a fan and being a journalist collides and it’s impossible to be both. As a journalist, I find I must provide a review of the game; one that will hopefully be informative and funny even to people who didn’t watch those ninety minutes. And as a fan I find I want to crawl under the covers and never, ever think about that nightmare again, a horrific show of utter domination, missed chances, and ultimately near-complete failure. In the stands at the time, even before Toronto captain Maicon Santos bagged the equalizer, there was hardly a soul who thought the Whitecaps would escape with a win. When was the last time you read a match review that went “the team had a load of good chances that went wanting, couldn’t convert on numerous opportunities, were victimized by poor officiating… and won anyway?” Soccer can have a very tidy narrative sometimes. That game could have come out of a ’90s sports movie, with the Whitecaps cast as the bad guys.
There’s still a lot of hope in Vancouver, of course; still some joy in Mudville. It’s hard not to have a little hope when the Whitecaps played Toronto into the ground like that. The first half was boring, but it wasn’t even: most of the action was in the north end with the Whitecaps comfortably owning the ball, although that’s not to say Toronto showed absolutely no spirit. Injuries to Jacob Peterson and Tony Tchani hurt Toronto, no doubt, and as the game wore on the Whitecaps attacked harder and harder. By the final forty-five the ball was almost entirely in Toronto’s third. Eric Hassli got a monkey off his back by scoring a lovely finish from the top of the box and Toronto only had one real scoring chance. Of course, sometimes that’s all you need.
How many times did somebody shout “I can’t believe that didn’t go in!” in that game? Camilo airballing a wide-open header, striking shots into the post, earning a penalty that wasn’t called. Eric Hassli hitting another post. Davide Chiumiento crushing a shot from a perfect position over the crossbar. Alain Rochat, in the dying seconds, heading a glorious opportunity into the side netting that half the crowd briefly thought had gone in. I could keep going; those are merely the most obvious moments tattooed onto my mind.
“If the Whitecaps play like that in Toronto,” the optimistic argument goes, “we’ll win the Cup!” But the Whitecaps played like that in Vancouver and look what it got them. I have ranted about bad luck for almost twenty-four hours how, but the truth is that finishing is a skill like any other. Should we really be surprised that Camilo’s shooting was so erratic when, well, Camilo’s shooting has been erratic most of the season? Or that Davide Chiumiento, who will never be confused with a sniper, couldn’t snipe himself a goal? 17-year-old Omar Salgado, playing in his first professional season, made a bad decision on a clean break, perhaps because he’s a 17-year-old playing in his first professional season. Many of those misses were predictable if you knew the players taking the chances. There was bad luck in there, to be sure, but it’s not like “North American referees stink” is news either.
That’s why I can’t hold out the same level of hope. If Eric Hassli trains well enough to eradicate his lingering fitness concerns and Camilo gets on the good side of “erratic”, we have a chance. But if neither of those things happen, then we’re left with a Whitecaps attack which just showed its weaknesses to the whole country on national TV. How will it all improve in just seven days?
Today we have two cup finals (well, one cup final and one first leg of a cup final) featuring two domestic rivals. After that pretty much any comparison between the Europa League final and the Voyageurs Cup ceases to make any analytical sense.
The first, an all-Portuguese match-up between Braga and Porto this afternoon at Dublin, is a major step up at club level for a nation which normally makes its name in international football. Portugal has long produced world-class players and world-class managers, but their success in Europe at the club level has been inconsistent at best, with Porto picking up a few major European wins here and there since the Benfica heyday back in the sixties.
There are several encouraging signs tonight’s final, unlike recent Portuguese club victories, is no aberration. The mere presence of Braga in Ireland today, who only last year achieved their best ever Primeira Liga finish with second spot, is evidence the playing field may be leveling out from the “Big Three,” Porto, Sporting Lisbon and Benfica. Moreover, star 33-year old Porto manager and Mourinho protege Andre Villas-Boas has already signaled his commitment to his club for next year, making mincemeat of countless rumours in English broadsheets over the past few months linking him with Chelsea FC or indeed any Premier League side. That a young, talented manager would want to remain in Portugal when half of Europe is baying for new managerial blood should excite fans of the Primeira Liga and make the other big European leagues others take notice.
Meanwhile, back in Canada, the Europa League is an excuse to party. While the sizeable Portuguese expat community spread out across this country often delights every couple of years when the national team plays in the Euros or the World Cup, the passion for football runs deepest at the club level, with Sporting, Porto and Benfica forming the locus of community groups in cities like Montreal and Toronto. You won’t see many Braga shirts out on the streets of Dundas West or St. Laurent Boulevard, but the bars with their long-suffering club fans will be bustling at Portuguese pro football takes centre stage.
Many of those younger fans of Portuguese football will also be watching the first leg of the Voyageurs Cup final tonight between Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps. While claims that the two Canadian Major League Soccer clubs will try to “salvage” their season with a cup win and CONCACAF Champions League qualification are overblown, there is a good chance this two-game final may represent the only silverware for either team this year. And while the Voyageurs Cup may not be the most glamourous of competitions, the fact that an all Canadian professional soccer competition exists at all is still worth celebrating. Plus each side has the built in rationale for a loss—the need to focus more on making the MLS playoffs.
One nation looking to catch-up with the European domestic league giants, the other simply glad to have some form of the professional game at all. Two matches worth skipping work/staying up for. Enjoy.
The Vancouver Whitecaps and the Montreal Impact have a strange rivalry.
They play each other a lot. You might not realize how many do-or-die games the two sides have had in the past half-decade unless you crunch the numbers: two USL-1 league finals, four years of critical Voyageurs Cup matches, every one of which was of the utmost importance to both teams, plus a bevy of league games in the USL-1 and USSF D2 which, because of the rivalry between the two as well as their usual standing near the top of the league, were each desperately important. Moreover, they tend to play great games: two teams almost always at the top of Canadian soccer with plenty of history between fans, players, and coaches makes for great soccer.
Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder. Well, Whitecaps and Impact fans haven’t had much time to grow fond at all.
Yet there is also a certain grudging mutual respect. After the most recent extra-time legend of a game on Wednesday, Marc dos Santos mumbled about how his team deserved to win, lamented the chances his team missed, and then said that he was cheering for Vancouver to beat Toronto in the Voyageurs Cup final series. If the positions had been reversed, if it had been Teitur Thordarson with his head in his hands thinking about what might have been, I have no doubt he would have said the same thing.
These two teams are only secondary rivals. The derby between Toronto and Montreal is a rivalry older than this country, and Impact fans reserve a lot of hatred for the Rochester Rhinos. In Vancouver, no fan needs to be introduced to the famous Cascadia Cup against Seattle and Portland, next to which games against Montreal are almost a distraction. That doesn’t mean that Impact and Whitecaps fans don’t love to hate each other, because they do, but it does mean that even after a pitched battle where both teams could say they earned a result, they can shake hands afterwards and genuinely hope the best team wins.
Of course, that doesn’t extend to the field, where players will clash and play dirty with joyous abandon. Vancouver designated player Eric Hassli wound up leaving the game at half time with both a badly cleated knee and what Teitur Thordarson thought was a possible concussion. Montreal goalkeeper Bill Gaudette, a very unpopular man in Vancouver even when he was with the Puerto Rico Islanders, spent most of his two hours charging around his goalmouth trying to bowl Whitecaps over. Players like Terry Dunfield and Nevio Pizzolitto went in with shoulders high and heads down. What a pity Adam Braz retired and Kevin Harmse stayed on the bench; this could have been their sort of game.
There was a lot of clumsiness from both teams and not much skill. The first half, to tell the truth, was a yawner as the ball bounced around midfield without promising much. But as the game wore on, each team began to generate more and more chances. Whatever you think of Dave Gantar’s call against Alain Rochat which allowed Ali Gerba to score from the spot, Montreal was certainly threatening to get an equalizer the whole half. Then again, the Whitecaps were also coming close to getting an insurance marker, with their best chance being snuffed out when Gaudette ran down and tripped Dunfield on a play that would look remarkably familiar to those who watched the Columbus – Vancouver game.
Ninety minutes elapsed, and as the public address announcer at Empire Field tried to talk fans into sticking around for extra time, the two teams went right back to duking it out. It was never picture-perfect but it was almost agonizingly exciting to watch. Chance for Vancouver, chance for Montreal, again and again, back and forth, and then at last Mouloud Akloul, he who spent a year rehabbing a broken ankle from the last time he scored a goal for the Whitecaps, slid into a rebound from a Rochat free kick. Empire Field caught fire (thanks to a flare set off in the south stands by a lone ruffian this was very nearly literal). And, despite the frenzied flurry of football from Montreal to try and get a winner, that was that.
Before every game against the Montreal Impact, I say that I’m sick of watching the Whitecaps play them. After every game, I’m always glad they did. Somehow Montreal and Vancouver bring out the best in each other no matter what league they’re in. That’s what makes this rivalry so wonderful.
For forty-five minutes, it all looked so familiar. And not in a good way.
The Vancouver Whitecaps were taking on the Montreal Impact in the hostile confines of Stade Saputo. Thanks to a certain hockey game in Boston at the same time, those confines were somewhat less hostile than usual. But any fan who skips a Montreal Canadiens Game 7 to cheer on the Impact is a die-hard indeed, and the Montreal Ultras have justly earned a reputation as one of North America’s most intense, dedicated supporters’ groups. It was a far cry from playing in the likes of Houston, and it was a little too familiar to those hoping for a Vancouver victory.
Then the game kicked off. From the beginning, Vancouver had an element of control. Their central midfield, bolstered by a healthy Terry Dunfield and surprise starter Mouloud Akl0ul, ensured the Whitecaps controlled the centre of the park in a way they completely failed to against Chivas USA two weeks ago. Big Ali Gerba, renowned Canadian international, struggled for both space and service as the Whitecaps closed down on him hard (leading to the most comical moment of the match: dimunitive Davide Chiumiento attempting to shoulder-charge Gerba and essentially bouncing off, falling to the turf as Ali tried to figure out what had just happened).
Yet, for all their control, the Whitecaps struggled to put the Impact away. That, too, was very familiar. The Impact showed some fight, particularly in goal and along their back line, and put the Whitecaps on their back heels just often enough for it to be worrying. The best chance of the half, by far, was actually a long-distance shot from offensively limited former Whitecaps left back Zurab Tsiskaridze. It seemed like the sort of game that the Whitecaps more-or-less controlled from start to finish and then lost. Typical Whitecaps soccer.
Not so. There were no dramatic substitutions in the second half, no major tactical changes. The team just seemed to have had enough. They put the hammer down, and from then on the result was never in doubt. Terry Dunfield’s heading in a Russell Teibert cross was simply the inevitable occurring.
For the first time since the Sporting Kansas City game, Vancouver played a comprehensive team game. It wasn’t perfect; Davide Chiumiento might as well have had a nap and Eric Hassli was far too tentative, as if his own reputation has made him afraid of breaking one of Montreal’s defenders in half and earning a six thousand-game suspension. But there was no position and no area of the field where you can say the Whitecaps were weak. The goalkeeping was effortless, the defense solid, the midfield controlled the ball, and the forwards at least created space and got chances. It was the sort of game Whitecaps games have been crying out for for weeks, despite the lower calibre of the opponent.
So the Whitecaps take a 1-0 lead back to Empire Field, a venue where even Major League Soccer teams struggle to beat them. Apart from Atiba Harris’s knee surgery, the team actually seems to be getting healthier: they emerged without a serious injury, Mouloud Akloul played a fine ninety minutes, and Shea Salinas looked credible in his season debut. The Impact have been struggling to get results against anybody so far this year: this defeat runs their record in all competitions to two losses and two draws. It’s hard to believe that Montreal can come back and get a win in Vancouver.
But these are the Montreal Impact. There is enough skill on that team to stock two pretty good NASL teams, and plenty of experienced players who know a thing about beating both the Whitecaps and allegedly-superior Major League Soccer teams. The players clearly aren’t used to each other yet, and there are dark rumours of divisions between old players and new in the Stade Saputo dressing room. But if Montreal does put it all together, there’s no reason to believe they couldn’t snatch a win. The Whitecaps must be wary of complacence and doubly wary of Montreal’s intensely talented, veteran-laden lineup. Better teams than the Whitecaps have been scuttled because they underestimated a lower-division opponent.
The Whitecaps got a key victory, a crucial goal scored by a Canadian and set up by a Canadian that has them in a great position for the Canadian championship. It’s a good situation. But if they can keep it up against the Columbus Crew, that will give us hope for more than just a finals appearance.
The Canadian Soccer Association announced today that Impact Montréal forward Roberto Brown will serve a two-game suspension in the 2010 Nutrilite Canadian Championship. The suspension and a $1,500 fine was imposed for his conduct in the 28 April 2010 match between the Impact and Toronto FC.
Brown’s suspension is pursuant to Articles 47(i), 48(1)(d) and 48(2) in the FIFA Disciplinary Code. Brown was shown a red card for violent conduct in the 35th minute of the 28 April match. Brown will miss the 5 May match against Whitecaps FC in Vancouver and the 12 May match against Toronto FC in Montreal.
With the popularity of Prozone, Actim Stats, The Guardian’s Chalkboards, Soccernomics and Opta Joe’s Twitter account, it seems to me, anecdotally at least, like the public’s desire is growing for statistical data that accurately measures the performances of individual players.
With that thought in mind, I give you the Castrol Index, which bills itself as a definitive system for rating the world’s best players.
So does this ranking system pass the “smell test”?
Let’s look at the latest offering from January 11th. Cristiano Ronaldo as the number one player in Europe makes sense. Thierry Henry seems high to me at two, but the player tied with him, Leo Messi, isn’t going to cause too many arguments. Now, I rate Gerard Pique very, very highly, but fourth in Europe high? Not sure about that. Although I like that ranking a heckuva lot better than I like Ivica Olic at 20, which will cast some serious doubts on the system’s methods.
Here’s the top three players in each league the Castrol Index tracks:
England – Fernando Torres, Andrey Arshavin, Edwin Van Der Sar
Italy – Samuel Eto’o, Lucio, Vincenzo Iaquinta
France – Yoann Gourcouff, Cedric Carrasso, Marc Planus
Germany – Daniel Van Buyten, Edin Dzeko, Mario Gomez
I’m all for the statistical revolution in soccer, but I feel we’ll never be able to measure players as accurately as we can in baseball due to the fluidity of the sport. As an example, how can we measure a player who makes an intelligent run off the ball to open up space for a teammate in possession? Still, there is plenty of room for hard data to creep into the mainstream’s evaluation of professional players.
Nate Silver’s Soccer Power Index
Sticking with the ranking theme, Nate Silver, the American statistician who worked for Baseball Prospectus and developed the PECOTA player forecasting system, has created the Soccer Power Index, a ranking designed to provide the best possible objective representation of an international team’s current overall skill level.
“If you had to bet your life on a soccer match, you would use SPI and not FIFA,” Silver told the Wall Street Journal. Although he did admit there is some fuzziness in the system due to a lack of statistics.
“In soccer, unless someone’s scoring, gets a red card, or is substituted, there’s often no record for it,” Silver said. “It’s good for what it is, but it’s intrinsically limited by the lack of numbers in soccer.”
Brazil is currently number one in the SPI. Canada sits 64th, seven spots lower than their position in FIFA’s rankings.
Sam says he’ll be running the blog alongside other writers from across the country, with a goal of bringing us the most up to date news, information and opinions on the tournament. Instant bookmark.
Arjen Robben Underpants Update
Last week we linked you up to the story of the German football federation’s displeasure with the grey long johns Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben had been wearing underneath his shorts. Bayern sporting director Christian Nerlinger said the underpants – which admittedly did make Robben look like some hacker at a YMCA pickup game – would either have to be dyed, or the Dutch star would have to find another pair since the powers-that-be wanted them to be red.
Well, the ex-Chelsea and Real Madrid star broke down and conformed to the governing body’s policy, switching from baggy grey to skin tight red Saturday at Wolfsburg. It didn’t seem to affect Robben’s form, as he scored just two minutes into the game.
The contract with Canada Dry ginger ale to sponsor PSG’s shirts, according to Toffs, was negotiated by Bernard Brochand, a young publicist who later became the president of the PSG Association and is currently mayor of Cannes.
It’s not a bad little top, and affordable at 28 bucks American.
