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Canada - Spain Thread


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quote:Originally posted by George

Just a side note: I thought the referring was excellent. Matando’s card and the Lemaire incident were strange, but the referee, to his credit, did an incredibly good job. A poorer ref. would have given Spain a PK for Karim’s foul in the 1st half. I also wonder how many referees would have the guts to send Vitolo off?

George, I compeletely disagree with you there. I know I won't be popular for saying this, but it must be said: Karim deserved to be sent off for his foul, and it was a penalty. You can debate that he got a touch on the ball, but it was the slightest of touchest and he hauled down the attacker in the box. Switch Karim for Riesgo and we would have all been lamenting poor refereeing costing us the match.

Also, the sending off of Vitolo was awful. That was a foul, but certainly not a card. Where was the dangerous play in the push? Where was the scoring opportunity that was thwarted? Answer is, neither were present. I felt awful for Vitolo, and the sad thing is he will miss his team's semi-final match. A shame really.

The one area the referee was strong in was asserting himself...he was in control of the match.

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Damn, am I proud of our lads (again). What a great effort, what a brilliant finish by Hume. Had we banged in the rebound off of Hume's stellar free kick, we could very well be through to the semis.

I was impressed with the pluck and hardwork and fighting spirit, but was also impressed with some of the good technical and skill-specific improvements this team has made. Can't help but think that Hutch would have created more for us playing in the mid, but I respect Mitchell's decision to shore up the defense.

Very pleased with all of the lads, but see massive upsides to Matondo and Arango and Simpson. These 3, playing in better environs, could become very good players. Matondo, with more polish and experience, could be the most deadly of the 3. Hume is a class act and I can't wait to see him with a better club. Hutch has poise to burn.

Kudos to Mitchell and the lads. Great tournament. Hold your heads high/

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quote:Originally posted by Joe05

Ed...check back a few posts...you may be missing out on the joke

I was responding to this by George. I think I got my nouns, proper and otherwise, correct.

"I just want to congratulate “Paul Mitchell” for a job well done. I am not sure if anyone else noticed that the guy from Eurosport was getting Dave’s name wrong during the first few minutes of the game. I am certain that the announcer will never make that mistake again!

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Just finished watching the game on the left coast here about a half hour ago, wow, couldn't be more proud of those guys. Certainly heartbreaking, who would have imagined before this tourney we'd be here though, unbelievable. I like to see the players distraught and shedding some tears at the end of the game, it shows you how far this group of kids has come. In the past, maybe some Canadian teams would have lost 2 or 3 - nil to Spain and just been happy to be there, this team wanted the win and believed they could do it, and they certainly took Spain to the limits, making themselves and us the fans all the more heartbroken at the end. It's gonna be fun to watch and keep track of these guys over the next decade as I'm sure at least a handful of them will move on to quality clubs in Europe, and provide a very good core for the future on our Men's National Team

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quote:Originally posted by Joe05

Helm seemed to be impressed with Hume's skills, as well as Motando's (apart from the finishing)

Helm was great.Too bad we missed 10 or 15 min. of his call of the game.He put things into perspective when he mentioned that the game was being played between players from teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona and players from teams like the University of Portland.Also good to hear him mention the Vancouver Whitecaps with familiarity.

It really is amazing how we get the results we do as we also did in Malaysia in 97 when we made it to the 2nd round.I'm glad Helm talked about how difficult it is for the Canadians to get together for preperation considering how we're always spread out all over the world.He even mentioned our Olympic team progress.

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A few bright spots about our team's performance:

- We didn't allow more than 2 goals in any game.

- We scored in all but one of our 5 matches

- We scored against the two stingiest defensive teams in the tournament (Simpson's goal against Burkina Faso was the first in the tournament, and Hume's against Spain was the first since Spain's opening match).

- From the sounds of it (and the few clips I've seen) we scored some really classy goals with a lot of skill on display.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of these players (hopefully Hume and Hutchinson) make major contributions in our World Cup qualifying efforts.

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Good observations there Jonovision. Also, from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, Simpson's goal against Burkina Faso made the "Play of the Day" for the Technical Study Group. I wouldn't be surprised to see Hume's goal picked as the best from today. So not only did we get good results, we played some football that people like to watch.

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quote:Originally posted by Mimglow

George, I compeletely disagree with you there. I know I won't be popular for saying this, but it must be said: Karim deserved to be sent off for his foul, and it was a penalty. You can debate that he got a touch on the ball, but it was the slightest of touchest and he hauled down the attacker in the box. Switch Karim for Riesgo and we would have all been lamenting poor refereeing costing us the match.

Also, the sending off of Vitolo was awful. That was a foul, but certainly not a card. Where was the dangerous play in the push? Where was the scoring opportunity that was thwarted? Answer is, neither were present. I felt awful for Vitolo, and the sad thing is he will miss his team's semi-final match. A shame really.

The one area the referee was strong in was asserting himself...he was in control of the match.

You are right! you are not popular with me at least. Karim alleged foul was not a foul, no card was necessary and no free kick either. The sending off of Vitolo may have nothing to do with his last foul, you don't know whether the referee had talked to him before. Maybe his second card was for persistently infringing the Laws of the Game. Unless we can read the referee's report and the reasons given for the cards it is difficult to know. There is a lot that goes on between players and referee during a game that when we are merely spectators it makes it hard to appreciate some calls.

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The fact that the Ref got the location of the alleged Karim "foul" clearly wrong does not inspire confidence in whether he got the call (foul or non-foul) right. A non-foul in the box was somehow transformed into a foul outside the box.

I also thought the 2nd yellow to the Spanish defender was too harsh, but then Matondo's yellow was ridiculous as well. Not that it matters one iota, but the Ref was definitely crap.

In any event, that's enough from me about the officiating. The boys did us proud & they all deserve praise for their efforts & passion. And I agree with Ed, the clips you can show to people of Canada's goals & chances in this tourney make a great advertisement for Canadian soccer.

Now let's hope we can get Iain released for Olympic team duty in February, along with Julian & Kluka. I thought this U20 team was missing a midfielder with the potential to control the game offensively, the way Julian, Tam & Klukowski potentially could, & could get the ball to Hume's feet on a more consistent basis. Fortunately we shouldn't have that problem with the Olympic team if all of our best players are there, and based on what we've seen, Hume should be able to give us those killer strikes that we need to take us to Athens.

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I think the Ref asserted himself well. There were no dirty tackles the whole game. Pretty much all the cards were borderline calls. But the most important thing was his consistency. He called the game really tight, but he did it for both teams and he did it from start to finish

Bottom line the end result of the game was decided solely by the players on the field. Not by the officiating!

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I saw the Karim tackle just before I left home (actually, the last thing I saw was the first Spanish goal...not a good way to go) and I have to say: I did think that it was a foul, at any rate. Maybe not a yellow, but certainly a foul and, therefore, a penalty. The refereeing was strict but at least it was strict both ways. That's the most important thing.

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I believe that the ref was harsh on some fouls and cards he gave out but for good reasons. It's good to see younger players receive discipline so that games like these don't turn out to be very scrappy. The overall foul total was overwhelming but it's good to let the players know they aren't going to get away with fouls and noncalls.

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