Nine Stripes Podcast: Talking with PFCOntario

Once again I’m not assessing who is more Canadian, or Canadian enough, outside of the footballing context. In your example, both are equally Canadian (again, I was never debating this), but when you look through the footballing lens, the former is a product of Canadian soccer while the latter is a product of another country’s system. That is a massive difference whether you care about it or not.  I don’t even see why it is even controversial to want to field a team that closely represents grassroots soccer development in the country as much as possible. It’s more special watching Davies score in the World Cup knowing he grew up playing in Edmonton and Vancouver and beat the odds to become a regular for Bayern. Less so if he had have lived his entire life playing in Munich as the son of one Canadian parent. Yes a handful of foreign raised players is not the end of the world, but I shudder at the thought of our program becoming like our neighbours to the south where fans go on about “recruiting” and the manager names starting 11s where half the players grew up playing soccer abroad. There is club soccer for that imo.

Conceding 6 goals at home:  ouch!

I think it needs to be tightened up and simplified. No stong thoughts about how they do it, but whatever they choose they should try and stick to it. The rules seem to be ever-changing and incresingly convoluted. 

Pacific probably disappointed conceding 3 to an expansion team but scoring 6 goals continues to show how much firepower they have. Next two games are against Forge and York so it'll be interesting to see who's sitting at the top of the table two weeks from now.

3438 is the announced number for VFC vs Pacific: https://www.fotmob.com/match/4113192/matchfacts/vancouver-fc-vs-pacific-fc

I naturally agree, and would also add that Gio Reyna has major X factor potential. I am still waiting for him to play the 10 for the USA. He was named as a midfielder, so that's encouraging from a USMNT perspective. 

He had plenty of game time last year and looked about the same as he does now. He was comfortably outplayed by Cody Cropper, who is now at USL Championship bottom feeders Orange County SC.    He gained a bunch of weight, played a few 10-15 minute cameos for WFC2 early in the season, and hasn’t been seen since afaik. 

This may not be the appropriate thread, but what do folks think about FIFA revising their rules about dual nationals?  It feels like every professional player has a choice of representing more than country.

He isn't right.