Canada's match today against Argentina sadly went as predicted. Argentina's World Cup team against a largely second string Canada squad in Buenos Aires was always going to be about how few goals Canada would concede. Canadian fans can rest easy that had Canada's first string squad played, the scoreline would likely only have been 4-0. The picture accompanying this blog entry was really the turning point in the game.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
What has become frustrating, even if it was predictable in this match, is that Canada has nearly gone a full year without scoring. If they do not score against Venezuela on Saturday, their next possibile opportunity to get one will be September 4th in Toronto against Peru - more than a year after their last goal (which to date, was Marcel De Jong's first half strike against Costa Rica last July in the first round of the Gold Cup). Der Cucumber Bomber is unfortunately not with the Canadian team for this South America, and De Rosario has headed back to TFC, so someone else will have to pick up the slack. While Canada's opponent is a much less tricky opponent than Argentina, Canada will also be featuring a much weaker side than the already-weakened line-up that got beat by Argentina.
The positives to take out of this match is that Canada, despite only a couple of training sessions, looked fairly organized defensively. Almost all the goals came off silly giveaways (as opposed to players simply being out of position), which is what they'll obviously need to work on going forward. Plus it's always good to give some players their first cap - Adam Straith looked confident at the back in the short time he was on the field and apparently Pedro Pacheco got his first cap for Canada - not that the Argentinian broadcasters let us know about this mind you, as they seemed more interested in showing us pictures of Messi doing nothing on the bench or Maradona berating the Referee even with a comfortable lead. Credit to Pat Onstad and Daniel Imhof in particular for coming out of international retirement to play this game, and to veteran Richard Hastings, who if he is not fit for Saturday, may have played his last game for Canada. No offense, but this blogger certainly hopes so because we need to explore better options for the 2014 World Cup qualifying cycle, options that will still be around by the time qualifying starts.
One hopes the boys enjoyed themselves, but let's throw caution to the wind against Venezuela, even with a largely third string line-up, and get some frigging goals. Attack! Attack! Attack!
- Gian Luca