Welcome to another edition of Long Balls: Canadians Abroad. It’s a service for those without time to wade through multi-page forum threads to keep tabs on Canadian footballers. We won’t list all of the Canadians abroad, just the weekly performances we feel are most relevant to our readers. Or in the case of Isidro Sanchez, relevant to no one.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
So let’s see… American politics mired in deadlock, China conducting a census and Tomasz Radzinski slamming in goal after goal in Belgium. Is this November 2000 or November 2010?
(Yep, there’s a reason this site is free.)
I highly doubt Radz will top the 23 goals in 31 appearances he managed for Anderlecht in 2000~01 this season, but he scored again this weekend to bring his tally to four goals in 11 appearances and three goals in his last three games. Whether or not he should get the Canada call again was last week’s debate, but it will be harder to ignore him if he keeps up this pace through to February when Canada plays Greece, in Greece.
On a somber note, 21-year-old striker Marcus Haber suffered a season-ending injury with St. Johnstone. That is the absolute ****tiest of luck and we all hope that with time on his side he makes a full recovery.
Championship
Striker Iain Hume scores for Preston North End in the 2nd minute and plays the full 90 in a 1-1 draw against Bristol City on Saturday. On Tuesday, he was ineligible to play against the club he’s on loan from, Barnsley.
On Saturday, Simeon Jackson and David Edgar faced off as Norwich City met Burnley. Edgar didn’t play and Jackson was subbed off in the 67th minute. On Tuesday, Jackson came on in the 65th minute in a 1-1 draw with Millwall while Edgar rode the pine again versus Doncaster.
Germany
Defender Adam Straith gets back into playing action, going 90 minutes for Energie Cottbus at centreback in 2.Bundesliga.
Turkey
We haven’t seen defender Mike Klukowski with Canada since May, but he has 10 appearances and 900 minutes logged with Ankaragucu in the Turkish Super Lig this season. He put in another full game over the weekend in a big 4-2 victory over Fenerbahce.
Spain
Jonathan de Guzman played 78 minutes for Mallorca in a 3-2 loss to Zaragoza, who scored in the 84th and 94th minute. Also of note on this front… Jono deGuz was again left out of the most recent Dutch squad.
Despite my optimism over the past few weeks on the possibility of junior deGuz eventually playing for Canada, a spell of rational thinking now has me leaning otherwise. If Jonathan de Guzman really has his heart set on representing the Netherlands, at 23 years of age he has little to lose by simply waiting it out for the next few years while continuing to file good performances from Spain. Hell, with a run of Dutch injuries he might even find himself playing in the 2012 Euros. The one positive to take from this is that if he does choose to represent Canada, it would have to be because he genuinely wants to.
Mexico
In his first start for Puebla since July, Isidro Sánchez storms back into the collective consciousness of Canada supporters with a spectacular brace against 2nd-place Monterrey to single-handily give Puebla a 2-0 vic… Oh who the **** am I kidding?
-Grant