by Gian-Luca
Canada's painful 3-0 loss to Macedonia on Saturday was just the latest in a seemingly perpetual series of dud Canada matches in November. Since 2001, Canada has managed to lose to Malta 2-1, get blown out 5-1 by the Czech Republic, get white-washed 3-0 by Ireland, play poorly in a 1-0 win over measely Luxembourg, lose 1-0 to Hungary, lose 3-0 to a South African B team and last year lose 3-0 to Jamaica, all in the month of November. The only good result to happen in this month during this stretch would be a 1-0 win in Guatemala in 2004 for World Cup Qualifying - but the huge caveat there is that we were already eliminated at the time. So why is this such a poor month for us? Some might argue that we are simply no good, but all of these results have shown the Canadian team under-achieving by their own standards. I'd argue that yesterday's match was the poorest result we've had with Stephen Hart as a coach, and the performance reflected it. In some cases the answer is that we aren't bringing a strong line-up (that would be the case for the Jamaica match last year, a World Cup qualifying match where we were already long gone but Jamaica was still in it). In many cases the team is rusty as they usually haven't played together in several months prior to these friendlies. And in every single one of these matches, we have been playing on the road, which hasn't helped. (The last Canada home game in November would be the last Canada game at Varsity Stadium back in November 2000, another World Cup Qualifying match where we were already eliminated and which we drew Mexico 0-0 after hitting the woodwork three times and missing 2 empty nets - but it was at least a good performance). I suppose its a combination of all these factors and maybe something else that I can't put my finger on, but something has to give, and something better change. Yesterday's match just saw some sloppy Canadian play that can't be excused by any factor - the sequence of events leading to the Macedonia PK three minutes into injury time (just to make the result look even more embarassing) was frankly pitiful, with a woefully misjudged attempt at a header and a ridiculously rash challenge in the box, by two differing veteran players who shall not be named. The team looked to me like they were playing to get Stephen Hart removed as coach, interim or otherwise. Which I'm sure is not their intent, but that's how bad it looked. There are two saving graces from the match - one, the players and fans can't blame Dale Mitchell for this result (although some fans have tried) and its always good to get rid of an excuse, and two, Canada has a chance to redeem themselves on Wednesday against Poland. I should produce a caveat of my own and mention that I only saw bits of the match (I'd guess about every 5 seconds out of 10 thanks to a choppy internet stream which I am nevertheless still grateful for) from about the 25 minute-mark onward. But that was still enough to come up with an assessment that I haven't heard anyone who was actually at the match disagree with. The match itself was actually choppier than the internet feed, with fouls seemingly occuring every 15 seconds, most of which were committed against Canadian players. Macedonia must have done some pretty decent scouting on our team, as they seem to realize that Canada hasn't done anything on a set-piece or free kick since we last played Macedonia ten years ago and won the game on a corner kick, as they were pretty happy to foul Canada in and outside their own penalty box. Macedonia exacted revenge with the game winning goal on a corner kick scored against a defence that included Richard Hastings, the same player who took the corner that beat them 10 years ago. But even Macedonia couldn't have known that Canada would have blown two penalty kicks in the same half, so that was an unexpected bonus for them. It made me appreciate Der Cucumber Bomber, Ali Gerba again after a disappointing half-season with TFC, since even if he did nothing else in the game, this match probably would have ended 2-2 had he been there to blast home the penalties. And you just know he would have. Still, with so many player defections I don't want to rag too much on the Canadian team. They came out looking rusty and of course, they actually were, not having played since July, and some players (Friend and Hume especially) had an even longer absence. We'll leave this one on a positive note - despite Hume's PK miss, it was still great to see him in a Canada jersey again since we thought that might never happen again. Great to see you out there Iain - now go score two against Poland!