by Gian-Luca
Canada comes into the 2009 Gold Cup on the heels of arguably the most disappointing World Cup Qualifying campaign ever. Canada has everything to play for in this tourney to restore some pride, optimism, hope and success to the Men’s National team program. They also come to this tourney after being screwed by CONCACAF officiating in the last one, so we have some unfinished business to take care of. There arguably should be no team with a greater motivation to do well in this tourney than Canada, and Patrice Bernier’s recent comment that the team is going to go into the Gold Cup with a vengeance is exactly what I want to hear.
Having said that, Canada comes into the Gold Cup as the Group A team with (arguably) the most depleted roster. Not counting Pat Onstad and Tomasz Radzinski who may or may not have already retired from national team duty at ages 41 and 35 respectively, the Canadian team is missing some key pieces to their line-up. Without Iain Hume, Rob Friend (both through injury) and Dwayne De Rosario the team is without much of its potential offensive firepower. Without Adrian Serioux we lose one of our top defenders in World Cup Qualifying last year, and without Lars Hirshfeld we lose our top keeper. Asmir Begovic declined the Gold Cup invitation and rumours out of Bosnia that he may choose to play for them instead of us now that FIFA has changed to rules (just in time to screw Canada yet again) to un-cap-tie him may have resulted in us losing our top keeper prospect, and not just for this tourney. Other notable names missing (without any reason having been provided officially by the CSA) are David Edgar (staying in the EPL having just signed with Burnley) and veteran Daniel Imhof.
All is not lost though. Far from it. While having enough reason to do well at this tournament by itself, the tourney can also be used as a chance to give some valuable international experience to some of Canada’s younger players who will play a role in the next Gold Cup, the next Confederations Cup (call me an optimist) and of course World Cup Qualifying which should start in 2012. And those younger players are no slouches. Will Johnson, Andrew Hainault and Dejan Jakovic are all regularly playing 90 minutes for their respective MLS teams. Simeon Jackson has come off a wonderful season in England where he literally brought Gillingham back up to League One. Marcel De Jong has quietly but effectively been playing in the Dutch top flight and Jamie Peters looks to be rounding back into form at Ipswich. In addition to this, much of the core of our top team – De Guzman, Hutchinson, Stalteri, Klukowski – are all here ready to mix in with our emerging players.
The biggest question mark and possible concern is in goal. Greg Sutton and Josh Wagenaar both had recently lost their starting jobs at their respective clubs, and Sutton ended up losing his job altogether (although as a peculiar result of the salary cap, his release was because money was needed to sign another defender rather than due to any deficiencies of his own). Both played in Canada’s recent 3-0 win over Guatemala, but by all reports neither were tested much. There is no clear number one to choose from, but perhaps this is a tourney where Wagenaar might be able to make a name for himself.
Outside of goal, the potential starting line-up is quite good, particularly if yesterday's pre-Gold Cup friendly against Guatemala is anything to go by. The starting back four was Mike Klukowski at left back, Dejan Jakovic and Kevin McKenna in the middle and Paul Stalteri at right back. Plenty of experience there with Jakovic a player that can play the ball out of the back with confidence. The only problem with this back four is that there isn’t any room for Andrew Hainault in it, but its nice to know that he’s waiting in the wings on the bench if one of these players goes down (and having played left back for Houston he’s shown some recent versatility). 2000 Gold Cup hero Richard Hastings and Adrian Cann are also in camp but may not see a lot of playing time unless injuries and suspensions happen back there.
Last year some fans were touting Canada’s midfield as being the best in CONCACAF. I’m not sure if that was ever true and nobody is saying that after our disastrous 2010 Qualifying Campaign. Nevertheless, two of the four players that made up that midfield, Julian De Guzman and Atiba Hutchinson, are back with the team for this tourney, with Julian De Guzman being the key player. It’s not often that a player on a team that only made it to the semi-final gets picked as the MVP for a tournament, but that’s exactly what happened in the 2007 Gold Cup. If he repeats his form from that tourney Canada could win this tournament.
De Guzman can’t do it alone. Atiba Hutchinson is coming off an excellent season in Denmark where he was voted as being the second best player in the entire league, and this tourney his chance to make a similar mark in CONCACAF. The absence of Dwayne De Rosario might not hurt us too much if Will Johnson is able to step up to take his place – in the long run that’s exactly what Johnson will need to do, so there’s no better time to start.
It will be interesting to see what coach Stephen Hart does with the formation. With only a handful of strikers in camp, lead by Canada’s Gerd Muller himself, Ali Gerba (with 13 goals the most of any player on the Canadian roster), it seems as though a 4-5-1 set up is what we’ll go with to start most games. In the Guatemala friendly it seems as though Hart went with Marcel De Jong and Jamie Peters on the flanks. De Jong brings a decent ability to cross the ball (which resulted in the first goal against Guatemala) while Peters brings an abundance of speed. There are options here however – Josh Simpson and Issey Nakajima-Farran can also play on the wings and bring plenty of speed. They both could feature up front in a 4-4-2 alongside Gerba or youngster Simeon Jackson.
There’s just enough space to mention Patrice Bernier and Kevin Harmse, who are both useful in being able to play a number of positions in midfield (and likely to see a lot of action there) and in the case of Harmse, cover at the back in the unlikely event that they will still need it with so many other defenders available. Chris Pozniak, Charles Gbeke and Kenny Stamatopolous comprise the “taxi squad” to be called in if any of the 20 man roster go down with injury.
Canada is in the group of death once again, but the last two times we were in a group of death for a tournament (World Cup Qualifying for 2006 and 2010) we finished in last place. This time we need to at least get out of the group at a bare minimum and hopefully go for a long run and win the tourney. We will have to watch out for CONCACAF officiating and the ever-present desire for a Mexico vs. U.S. Gold Cup final for the organizers of the tourney hoping to make yet another miserable buck. They key to getting past this is playing so well that not even the officiating can stop us. It won’t be easy, but if the players have the desire and the passion (and I believe they do), it is certainly achievable. And they are playing for a coach they like and on grass, so those excuses from World Cup Qualifying are gone.
We need a success now after so many disappointing failures at various levels. Win hard with a vengeance, boys!