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Da Costa: YALLOP PICKS FORREST


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YALLOP PICKS FORREST: Former soccer teammates Frank Yallop and Craig Forrest are likely to be reunited again.

Yallop, who was recently appointed Canada's national men's World Cup soccer coach, is expected to shortly name Forrest as his assistant.

Both played for the national team for several years and were also teammates at Ipswich Town.

Forrest, who later played for West Ham and Chelsea and is considered Canada's greatest goalkeeper, retired in 2002 after being diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Since his retirement, Forrest has been with Sportsnet as its soccer analyst.

Yallop, meanwhile, has chosen 15 players for a training camp in Ft. Lauderdale starting Monday in preparation for an exhibition game against Barbados Jan. 18.

The squad is comprised mainly of North American players with the exceptions of Patrice Bernier, who is on a winter break from his Norwegian club Moss FK, and Chris Pozniak who is on trial in Norway.

CANUCK TO SERIE A? Midfielder Atiba Hutchinson, who captained Canada to the quarterfinals of the world youth championship in the United Arab Emirates last month, is being targeted by Italian Serie A club Udinese.

Hutchinson, who is with Swedish club Osters IF, will arrive in Italy this week for trials.

Gordon Strachan, manager of English club Southampton, has also expressed interest in the lanky midfielder.

LYNX LOSE CAPTAIN: The Toronto Lynx sold veteran goalie Theo Zagar - the team's captain since 1998 - to the Rochester Rhinos, the A-league club announced yesterday.

Zagar was in the option year of his contract and the Lynx decided to sell him rather than take the risk of not receiving any compensation if he walked away.

New Lynx head coach, Duncan Wilde said he was disappointed to lose Zagar, but said he has been approached by a number of top-flight goalkeepers from Europe who have expressed an interest in playing in Toronto.

GADHAFI SUSPENDED: Saadi Gadhafi, son of the Libyan leader and a player for Serie A's Perugia, was suspended for three months by the Italian soccer league yesterday for doping.

Gadhafi was temporarily suspended in November after testing positive for the steroid norandrosterone.

His suspension is retroactive to Nov. 6

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Which means Forrest will no longer do games for Sportsnet. Too bad, he was improving with every game. I wonder if he'll be able to continue on Soccer Central?

So who replaces him? I've always enjoyed Dick Howard, who joins Vic Rauter in the studio during major tournaments on TSN. I heard him do color commentary for A-League games this summer and he was pretty good.

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quote:Originally posted by Mimglow

Which means Forrest will no longer do games for Sportsnet. Too bad, he was improving with every game. I wonder if he'll be able to continue on Soccer Central?

I imagine he could continue. But if he is relocating to Vancouver, I can't imagine Sportsnet wanting to buy him a weekly plane ticket.

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Maybe we'll see a continuation of the recent trend of having assistant coaches end up playing for our national teams (Watson, Dasovic). Imagine Craig getting frustrated watching our current keepers letting in soft goals against weak opposition in preparatoryfriendlies, and deciding "what the hey, I'll have a go!" I can't see Frank objecting. And you know Craig is going to be tempted once he gets close to the action again, with WCQ just around the corner. Come on Craig, you know you want to do it.

You heard it here first, I am hereby predicting that Craig Forrest will make a comeback this year as an active national team player.

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quote:Originally posted by Mimglow

Which means Forrest will no longer do games for Sportsnet. Too bad, he was improving with every game. I wonder if he'll be able to continue on Soccer Central?

So who replaces him? I've always enjoyed Dick Howard, who joins Vic Rauter in the studio during major tournaments on TSN. I heard him do color commentary for A-League games this summer and he was pretty good.

What about Brian Budd? He's entertaining, knowledgable about the game and above all a big fan of CANADIAN soccer. He currently makes sporadic appearances (as far as I know, at least) on the Score's Sportsworld.

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quote:Originally posted by Metro

What about Brian Budd? He's entertaining, knowledgable about the game and above all a big fan of CANADIAN soccer. He currently makes sporadic appearances (as far as I know, at least) on the Score's Sportsworld.

Yeah, he's on there every Friday on Sportworld. Don't know if the chemistry would be good with Gerry Dobson, though. He seems a little too excitable for Gerry's style.

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quote:Originally posted by Metro

What about Brian Budd? He's entertaining, knowledgable about the game and above all a big fan of CANADIAN soccer. He currently makes sporadic appearances (as far as I know, at least) on the Score's Sportsworld.

I would not favour Brian Budd. My beef with Brian Budd is that he strikes me as too "England-centric". I have nothing against anyone who has a strong understanding of the English or Scottish game per se but I want to see someone who is first and foremost a fan or analyst of soccer regardless of where it is played. In this respect I had no problem with Forrest, Leggat, or even the Duze. You could tell that soccer was soccer and they had the same appreciation of a Canadian player who played in the Bundesliaas or the EPL.

But the few times that I have had the chance to listen to Brian Budd's analysis and commentary I got the sence that any topic, game, player or club that he touches on is given with a strong bias influenced from English soccer rather than just soccer. Any other clubs or leagues are given only token commentary. Kind of like something I heard from from the hosts of the International sports report ( on the Fan) about a year or two ago. In an interview with Holger they asked him for his views on several Canadian players. They went through a list of anywhere 8-12 Canadian players. All of them played in England in various levels ( even as low as the 3rd div). But they never asked for his thoughts on any other player who played in Europe, even player(s) in Bundesliga such as Stalteri. It was as if ( as I am sure)that they didn't even know they existed. I wished I could say to these guys: "Hello!!!! there. Soccer is played in other countries too. And very well I might add. If you going to cover canadian soccer you should be appreciate and understand that playing at Werder Bremen is as good and prestigous as Everton". Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the sence that Brain Budd is of the same ilk as these guys. I find this to be a trait to be somewhat irritating within some media types in Canada.

Do not interpret this as a condemnation on my part of English soccer. I don't have any problem with english game and understand fully why its given more exposure in Canada. But when we are covering the MNT lets forget about english soccer. That means staying away from these type of analysts who have a narrow focus or perspective on things. To reiterate, in this repect I did have a great appreciation of the Duze, Forrest and Leggat for showing that they are first and foremost soccer and canadian soccer analysts.

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I was surprised not to hear any banter between Gerry and Craig on this subject on Soccercentral.

Also, were this the case, would Craig not be at the camp for NA players in Florida? Gerry did mention there would be reports from the camp in a future installment.

I would like to think Norm confirmed this information prior to it going to print, but ..................

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quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Where was this article published? Is there a link? Because this is the only place I've seen it and, well, messageboards are not good sources. A link?

This was published in the Toronto Star (or on the website, at least). But keep in mind, this is da Costa talking, so the "Craig Forrest" part of the article could easily be a typo. ;)

I can no longer find the article on their website, however.

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Note from the Neil Davidson article (who is much more reliable than Da Costa):

Yallop dismissed a report that former Canadian goalkeeper Craig Forrest is in the running to be his assistant. The job will go to either Olympic coach Bruce Twamley, under-20 coach Dale Mitchell or former interim national team coach Colin Mitchell.

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Guest Georgio

Makes sense (Although Forest would probably be a great assistant). He's about as cozy with a majority of the recent core players as you can get - probably best for him to wait a bit when objectivity would also be in his favor.

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