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Who is your Starting 11? (Part 1)


drewsome

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Our feelings about Craig and Lars are very different; I'd be very uncomortable talking about them in the same sentence the way you have.

By the time Craig was a back-up, he already had a decade of starting in the England's top division. Lars is a fine young keeper, but he ain't Craig Forrest either at club or country level (hopefully, yet.)

http://www.sporting-heroes.net/football-heroes/displayhero_club.asp?HeroID=741

I'm not sure that this link is quite so complimentary though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/low/funny_old_game/2360891.stm

Blair

quote:Originally posted by David C.

Craig Forrest wasn't starting in the EPL and people thought he was God. Why is Lars any different?

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Hey Grasshopper,

I agree 100% with your comments about Craig and Lars.

My posting wasn't intended to say Lars is as good or experienced as Graig but to offer "food for thought" in response to the comments complaining abour Lars' lack of first team play. I think that his EPL environment makes up for that. That's all.

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Gotcha DC. To me Lars is still a guy who is finding his feet, while Craig feet were already firm by the time he was backing up Hislop and James. I would far rather see Lars starting in Div One than playing EPL reserve matches and sometimes riding the bench at White Hart Lane. I would prefer that our keeper feel the pressure of first team soccer regardless of the league that he plays in. In all honesty, I would love to see Sutton be given a shot and Kenny, too. I feel that keeper is our most up for grabs position and that it really isn't anybody's spot to lose, more so that it's somebody's to win between now and the Belize series.

Currently, I would rank them in this order:

Onstad (although visions of the two games versus T&T in WCQ haunt me, and that's why I won't say that it should be his job to lose)

Lars

Kenny

Sutton...(actually, to me Sutton could be the best because the Lynx never, ever score against him, or so it seems. I'd like to see him move back up to MLS...don't know if that's in the cards currently though.)

Blair

quote:Originally posted by David C.

Hey Grasshopper,

I agree 100% with your comments about Craig and Lars.

My posting wasn't intended to say Lars is as good or experienced as Graig but to offer "food for thought" in response to the comments complaining abour Lars' lack of first team play. I think that his EPL environment makes up for that. That's all.

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re: Onstadt (for Daniel) vs. T&T

Wasn't the WCQ game against Trinidad played in the year that Pat spent riding the pine (and fighting an injury) in Scotland? If so, that might explain why this was a poorer performance than his usual.

Can anyone confirm this? I'm not sure.

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I'm impressed with Hirschfeld's overall talent: good shot stopper, safe hands, confident aura.

My God, watching Neil Sullivan fumbling around recently with Chelsea makes me wonder why Lars was the number three on the Spurs' depth chart last year!

He's my starter for the nats; I just wish that other league sides could see what a capable keeper he is and give him a chance. He's not going to progress as he should while being the Spurs #3.

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I'm not basing my lack of trust in Onstad on one game. Just a series of one games. I think his positioning and his ability to read the game are ahead of Hirschfeld's, but Lars is the better shot stopper and he hasn't demonstrated Onstad's ability to let in weak goals. When he's on Onstad is better than Lars I think (I really don't rate Lars' game against the US, I know that sounds crazy, but asside from the pinball play, almost everything else was at him), but Onstad scares me.

Take the MLS Cup final, Onstad probably deserves MOTM and still gives up a bad goal near post to let Chicago back into the game. One bad goal at the wrong time could sink us. Lars distrubtes better as well.

At the end of the day, I really don't mind either guy. I like Pat's temperment better and I think both can do the job satisfactorally on their day, but I guess it's more of a case of knowing what to expect with Lars, while Pat can scare the heck out of a guy.

cheers,

matthew

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Regarding the need for a player capable of moving the ball and quarterbacking our attack out of the back - I think Paul Stalteri is the man to do that but I think the position from which he should be doing it is defensive mid.

With all due respect to Daniel Imhoff and Fernando Aguiar, I think Stalteri would be just as effective as either of them in the defensive aspects of that position and I think he can do a much better job at linking the back line to the attackers. This is what all great defensive midfielders can do well.

I'm convinced that this is the best use we can make of Stalteri's considerable talents. Tam Nsaliwa isn't such a huge step down from Stalteri at right fullback that we'll suffer from not having Stalteri back there. DeGuzman has a bit more flair than Stalteri so he needs to be in a more attacking role, where Stalteri can feed him the ball.

As for the back line itself, I agree that ideally our second central defender would be a great playmaker to complement Jason DeVos. However, we musn't get too focused on playmaking out of the back and forget that the job of a defender is primarily to defend. That's why I worry about using somebody who isn't a natural centre back (like Stalteri, Nsaliwa, Mike Klukowski, Atiba Hutchinson or Chris Pozniak) in that position. At the highest levels of international play, defending is 80% mental so you need defenders who can read the play and make the right decisions with only split seconds to think about it. Guys who aren't natural centre backs haven't trained their minds to make those split-second decisions, so they need more time to think and they don't have that time the top levels.

My main worry about using A-League defenders is that the pace of the game in the A-League is a lot slower than what the Canadian team will encounter against top level international opposition. Defenders have more time to think in the A-League. I'm not saying that an A-League defender necessarily won't be able to cut it (for example, I thought Nevio Pizzolitto held his own relatively well against Germany last summer). All I'm saying is that doing well in the A-League doesn't necessarily mean a guy will do well for Canada. I think Pizzolitto can definitely cut it; Mark Watson used to be an outstanding defender but, based on his play with Canada last fall, I think he's lost his edge now; and I'm keen to have a look at Gabriel Gervais to see how he fares against top opposition (Barbados doesn't count.)

I'm not ready to give up on Tony Menezes just yet - the last time he was with the national team the Chinese league had been out of season for several months (because the start of their season was delayed by the SARS crisis) so he wasn't in shape. As long as he remains in China, he should remain game sharp but jet lag will always be huge issue. I can't see us being able to call him except for tournaments and/or training camps where he will have at least a few days to get over the jet lag before he has to play a match. Calling him in for one-off friendlies or the three day camp Frank Yallop is planning to hold in March won't be feasible, but that's fine because it will give Yallop a chance to look at the alternatives.

One of those alternatives still has to be Kevin McKenna. Admittedly, he's still young and, on the defensive side of the ball, I'm not convinced that he's even as good as Nevio Pizzolitto (at least not yet). However, I think his playmaking ability is very underrated and he only gets better every time we see him. A few years from now, I'm convinced that he'll be as good as DeVos is now defensively but with the playmaking ability of Menezes. For that reason alone, I think he has to be kept in the mix.

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I agree with your assessment that defending requires strong mental discipline. Being safe and error-free is most important.

However I will say again, we have been very weak on the back line with ball control and contributing to the attack.

While many midfielder have difficulty playing central defence, I will only draw your attention to Frank Rijkaard who routinely played an offensive midfield role with AC Milan while at the same time playing central defence with Ronald Koeman on the Dutch National team.

As for Hutchinson, I would give him a shot playing central defence in a friendly. Heck, he was good enough to be chosen to the WYC all-stars at that position and both Gullit and Rijkaard played defence at 17 in the Dutch National team in a friendly (one substituting for the other as I recall). What risk is there? Worst case, it doesn't work. Best case, you uncover a gem.

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quote:Originally posted by Canuck Oranje

I agree with your assessment that defending requires strong mental discipline. Being safe and error-free is most important.

However I will say again, we have been very weak on the back line with ball control and contributing to the attack.

While many midfielder have difficulty playing central defence, I will only draw your attention to Frank Rijkaard who routinely played an offensive midfield role with AC Milan while at the same time playing central defence with Ronald Koeman on the Dutch National team.

As for Hutchinson, I would give him a shot playing central defence in a friendly. Heck, he was good enough to be chosen to the WYC all-stars at that position and both Gullit and Rijkaard played defence at 17 in the Dutch National team in a friendly (one substituting for the other as I recall). What risk is there? Worst case, it doesn't work. Best case, you uncover a gem.

I hear your point about Rijkaard. It's clearly possible that a guy who doesn't normally play central defence could have the mental sharpness to do so when called upon for the national side. I just think that such a player would be rare. It certainly can't hurt to give a guy like Atiba a go in a friendly (or even in an intrasquad match), I just wouldn't want to see us experimenting when it's time to play Costa Rica and Honduras.

[Thread continued in Part 2]

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