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1996 Olympic qualifying


Jason

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I was looking around the the CSA's site, and I started looking through the archives. I saw Canada's lineups for the home-and-home battle against Australia to see who would qualify for Atlanta '96. Those players were U23 at the time, so 7 years later, those guys should be at the top of their game and the core group of our senior side. At least that's the theory. Here are the players that were in that series:

Paul Shepherd, Richard Hikida, Richard Sumner, Nevio Pizzolito, Jason DeVos, Chris Franks, Davide Xausa, Scott Macey, Oliver Heald, Linus Rhode, Martin Nash, Tony Capasso, Niall Thompson, Carmen D'Onofrio, Troy Wood

That was the best group we had at that age range, and they almost made it to the Olympics. Out of that bunch, only ONE player, DeVos, is a sure selection to the MNT (when healthy). Xausa and Nash are fringe guys who have helped the program on ocassion. Pizzolito and Thompson have played a few "A" games, but that's it.

This helps explain why our player pool is so small. I'm not sure if it's lack of opportunity or what, but these players should be the core of this WCQ run. Most of them haven't played competitive soccer in years.

Jason

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Didn't Capasso go to Ireland for a year or two and then disappear? Or am I thinking of someone else? Did Richard Hikida (who was our captain and sweeper if I remember correctly) ever play again for anyone? Wasn't he a UBC guy?

It should be noted we played those qualifiers at home and I think it was the fall in Edmonton. Still we managed to contain Paulo Wanchope and some other pretty good players to earn a playoff with Australia.

cheers,

matthew

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I prefer to come at this issue from a slightly different perspective. What is the quality of our player selection? Were the best players (U-23) chosen for that team or were they chosen for reasons of coach familiarity or regional politics?

Remember this is the same CSA that decided Owen Hargreaves wasn't good enough to stay in our selection pool when he was a teenager.

We don't have to look back very far (Finland last week) to question why certain player selections are made. It is kind of like the NHL or NBA or NFL draft. Once you get past he top 3 or 4 guys it becomes a crap shoot. Lots of #5 picks are never heard of again and lots of #350 picks have great careers.

Most of us are familiar with players who have never been on even a provincial team that manage to catch on with a team in Europe or Great Britain.

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Shepherd and D'Onofrio played for the Drillers indoor team. Nash played for a season then left before coming back for the aborted 2000-01 season.

The thing I remember about that tourney was how the Jamacian keeper seemed to hit the PR box over the stadium with the ball.

The Australia game was something. Especially since I found out that Australia almost lost their chance for the playoff. They had a win against the Solomon Islands stripped for using an ineligible player. Then they lost the last match to New Zealand, only to qualify thanks to a better GD.

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I agree with the assesment. It seems that the age group between the Pesch years and the DeRossario/Stalteri group (U-20 97 Malaysia group that also included Hastings, Clark, Arristodemo, Franks, Brennan, Reda) was very lean. De Vos (and Jazic) are really the only players to emerge from that group.

But also, the same is true for the group between 97 Malaysia side and the 01 Argentina side of De Guzman, Nsaliwa et al. The only player to emerge from that age group is McKenna and he didn't even play in qualifying....others are Bernier, Sulentic, Valente, Tyler Hughes, Kevin Cameron, Sean Fraser, De Serpa and the most talented of the bunch Brad Parker (who has disappeared).

I think if we are to be competitive we need to develop 4 to 5 strong players every U-20 side in order to give us the depth going forward...

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