WOQ: Canada vs. Mexico [R]

[The Ref]

I think Pellerud lost his marbles, maybe it is a case of early onset of alzheimer. Bad choices and positions. Add lack of motivation, unfit, persistent give aways and uncompromising long ball style, resulted in another non-achievement for the women senior national team. I am looking forward to the excuses this time.

[Jarrek]

quote:Perhaps Rodway can return the favour by purchasing you both Etiquette By Emily Post

Ah Gordon, so true so true

[WildboutCdnScr]

To quote Nelson of the Simpsons: "Hah-hah!"

Hats off to those who predicted this day would come due to the side's, ahem, "style" of play. Oh, right that was just about everybody in this forum who believed the hit and hope game would doom us. Ironic that the Mexicans used the long ball to great effect, you'd think our defenders had seen it before.

[canadiankick97]

This kind of performance just calls for a coaching change. What an awful tournament.

[Guest Georgio]

What are some possible alternatives for coaching?

Bridge?

Lewis Page?

Stephen Hart? (unlikely but he did coach Women's University and Senior Teams)

Holger Osieck? (they'd be lady-like with impeccable table manners and there would definately be no messing around with the boys )

A proven foreign coach?

US Top Ten University coach?

Make a better offer then Mexico are to their coach?

Yo momma?

[DJT]

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

teams such as mexico cannot improve that much in less than a year.

But Mexico played better than Canada at the WGC/WWCQ in November 2002. That match was at the top of my mind going into today's. All those articles about Canada being undefeated against Mexico (and other Central American teams) with lopsided scores, including all those friendlies just last year, were misleading --- the only historical result (if you even care about such things) that really mattered in my mind was that one in November 2002. Mexico have now outplayed Canada in two consecutive official matches. Of course, that close loss to the US a few days ago was telling as well.

[imusic]

Tough luck there Canada. This one must hurt as the women's team seemed a virtual lock to qualify. In hindsight, maybe a lot of the Mexican players are actually Americans who qualify for Mexico based on parentage. They probably play a lot of top University football and maybe not "developed" by Mexico.

As a T&T supporter, I know well the disappointment. At least you all didn't announce a national holiday BEFORE THE GAME WAS PLAYED like we did in 89 when we needed 1 point to go to the Men's WC and lost 1-0 to the US....

Better luck next time....

[The Ref]

quote:Originally posted by jonovision

I hear Holger is available.

Maybe Bobby can make a comeback!

[brodycheese]

I watched the game and would like to point out some things to those who didnt' get to watch it.

1. The pitch blew, it was aweful and it hurt us immensely because of our "athletes" out there with less skill with the ball than the mexican soccer players. Latham although a good finisher had the worst first touch I've ever seen.

2. The mexican's negated Canada's gameplan with a sweeper to intercept the long balls and players in front of the lone striker (latham)to get the shortballs, therefore our one dimensional game plan was ineffective.

3.Latham and hooper played strikers, with sinclair left mid and Jamani right mid (hooper withdrawn). Sinclair is too slow to be a left mid and is by far our most talented finisher/target woman up front so that was puzzling. Jamani was good, but isn't a pure midfielder in the sense that she was late coming back often, exposing our flanks. Hooper was fairly quiet, slow, and was handicapped by the poor field. The mexican's watched Jamani very closely on the flank, undoubtably because she ran at them to substantial effectiveness.

4. Midfield nonexistant, slow, couldn't make short passes. Matheson is good but her touch let her down alot today. But this is probably due to the tactics Pellerud does in games and practice rather than her skills.

5. Defence was atrocious. The two new girls were lost in space, Nonen was shakey, and hermus was just average. Slow, didn't mark their players (or should I say player Dominquez was the only one up there), and lacked cohesiveness. Chapman and boyd are really missed.

6. Goalie made good stops but attributed to the confusion at the back.

7. Check this out: if I had a hockey team, and I had incredible forwards, but average defencemen would I put my good forwards back to play positions they are not used to, so as to cover my d if they fell injured? Um, probably not (unless they're hooper)! Pellerud needs to make some tough decisions and realize that although the forwards are tremendous strikers, that doesn't warrent them all to play at the expense of midfielders and defenders? Sinclair, Jamani, Hooper, Latham are very good, but 442 is the modern formation. I'm sorry, but either two are going to sit (or hooper on d), or the disgrace that happened today is going to happen. We really need an actual dedicated midfield.

8.Why wasn't Moscato, Timko introduced in the midfield? Moscato brings control, timko an improving defensive midfielder?

9.In a way this is dissappointing, but in another way hopefully a wakeup call for pellerud to adapt to the modern game. I hope they don't dismiss him (hell I think he should be the head scout for Canada, he's very good at uncovering talent, Jamani is going to be incredible in 4 years), but at least make him change the tactical focus to ball control and positive soccer. Hell even with the players we had today and playing a proper style we would've beaten the mexican team soundly. Just my two cents.

[DJT]

quote:Originally posted by Ed

Here's some etiquette for you Gordon. Mexico beat us with the long ball so piss off.

To elaborate, it is quite alright to criticize the coach (and I am all for that) but just not cricket to criticize a forum participant for some bonehead post. Did I get that right?

It's about how you do it. Your sarcasm sometimes comes across as unnecessarily harsh and thus upsets others. Besides, all Rodway did was mistakenly write "South America" where he meant "Central America", just as you wrote "UAE" where you meant "Qatar" in another thread --- do these small mistakes make the entire posts "boneheaded"?

[Gian-Luca]

Mexico played a possession game (or at least much more of one than we did), not what I would term as being classical "long-ball". There's nothing wrong with the odd successful long-ball perfectly placed into the path of an oncoming striker to smash into the goal (which is the case with their second goal), especially when it is preceded by a lot of possession. That's a lot different than simply kicking the ball way the hell up in the air & down the field as a player's first instinct, in the hope that someone will chase it down. Mexico killed off the game at the end by keeping possession. We would have just whacked it down the field (as we did against Costa Rica).

Possession is also as much about positioning as it is about passing, and our positioning was awful in comparison to Mexico's. They gave themselves plenty of options to pass to, while our strikers were normally miles away from the rest of the team (and with Latham & Hooper up there, far too slow too boot).

[Moosehead]

If this was a normal country the top dogs would pay the price for this result. They say they were not in game shape becuase of the winter season, well they should have received the funding so they were in game shape for this very important tournament. Such as training in Costa Rica and Mexico before the tournament. What happened there? We must have known Mexico would have been a threat.

Maybe its a question of over hyping and too much pressure on these young girls without the proper backing to get them prepared.

I don't think long ball is the problem. Long ball doesn't mean kicking the ball in a panic up field aimelessly to no one or to the opposition. I am sure the coach isn't advocating that.

Since the U19, the team has demanded more money and more share of revenue and really didn't deliver in my mind at the world cup and now in this qualifying tournament. I only saw the first few games at the world cup but they were a major disappointment to me in terms of play.

[Michael Crampton]

I've written some long posts after every game but I'll keep this one short.

Mexico won because they were the better coached, technically skilled, and committed team. The also happen to have the best striker I have ever seen in the women's game. This team playing the way they did today would have gone very far at the WWC.

Their caoch deserves tons of credit though. He got them to play longball (yes, they did play longball - any time they were under pressure they weren't afraid to hoof it) against all their natural Latin American instincts and they scored both of their goals that way. Also defensively they were very well organized as others have pointed out. Basically their coach was smart enough to realize that all it takes to stop Canada's one-dimensional attack is a sweeper behind the defenders for when the ball goes over the top and a stopper to collect balls that bounce off of our strikers (LATHAM) into midfield. You don't even have to worry to much about marking our strikers since the ball never actually gets played to them.

Finally, Mexico's superior confidence on the ball did let them close the game out when they had the lead and frustrate Canada's attempts to win back possession. Not that Canada really could do anything with possession but alas that's our "system."

Longer than I meant it to be but once you start pointing out all of Canada's problems he can get hard to stop. Massive disaster in the final analysis.

Mike.

[Gian-Luca]

I think it has to be said that there's probably tends to be a bit more "kicking the ball out of danger" in women's soccer in general than we see in the men's. But I would still suggest Mexico attempted to play more of a possession game than we did. (Of course, that might not be saying much).

I think that "long ball" perhaps should be distinguished from "kick & run" or "kick & chase" (even though the latter two often feature a lot of long or high balls). The former can be effective if done with accuracy or purpose, as Mexico did in this game. The latter two terms is what we do more of and I think are what more people are objecting to (and rightfully so) & is also what Kristina Kiss was quoted as saying she hated seeing Canada play (and one reason why she left - she was sorely missed, btw).

[Michael Crampton]

Saying that Mexico tried to play more possession than Canada certainly sounds like damning with faint praise to me.

I've got no problem (like any other reasonable fan IMHO) with direct balls when called for and have argued before on other forums that just making pretty passing patterns is equivalent to masturbation in the final analysis. Mexico was very obviously employing the Pellurudian "transfer-of-pressure" mentality throughout the match. They knew that Canada's defence was poorly organized, prone to mental lapses (2nd goal) and often guilty of poor first touches (1st goal) and wanted to immeadiately put this defence under pressure as soon as they had won possession as often as possible. This is exactly what Pellurud argues you have to do in women's soccer (to him probably all soccer). Canada got beat at it's own game for the reasons I listed in my earlier post.

If you watched the game it closely resembled a game of EA's FIFA 2004 played between two human opponents using mediocre to poor teams (on X-Box if you want to get really specific). Since the poor first touch of the players (especially on Canada) is so bad defenders can close them down long before they can start a decent play so maintaining possession is a couterproductive strategy. The dominant strategy becomes hoofing the ball forward as fast as possible so that when/if someone gets caught in possession it's not in your end. Basically you just try to keep the ball in your opponents end and wait for them to make a mistake. There is little to no off the ball running (that button is impossible to reach of X-Box - I hear PS2 is better) and most longballs are just aimlessly booted down the field (since you can't look down the field on most views in FIFA). There were times when this game resembled volleyball more than soccer.

Mike.

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by BHTC Mike

Saying that Mexico tried to play more possession than Canada certainly sounds like damning with faint praise to me.

Well, I am dammning the Canadian team with faint praise to the Mexicans. I'm not saying it was a well played game by any means, though again women's soccer does tend to feature less possession in general. Nor am I suggesting that the Mexican's performance on the day in terms of possession was in any way a repeat of Brazil's 1970 World Cup final performance. But if you compare their second goal (& their positioning on the play, & throughout the match generally) to our very first play of the game (which was frankly astonishing, I'm surprised that even Dobson & Stoumbos didn't immediately shout out "What the hell was that?", which is what I did), or indeed what how they hung on to the ball (not always successfully) to defend the lead while we hoofed it all over the place against Costa Rica, you can see a pretty noticeable difference.

[hamiltonfan]

I didn’t get a chance to actually see the game but they the sounds of it I can officially say that both men’s and women’s team need to improve big time especially against CONCACAF opponents. I find that the women’s team is every inconstant, Lang, Sinclair, and basically all of them. If they could play at their top game all the time we could have one of the top squads in the world. I not this loss was no Kevan Pipe fault but I do think the CSA front office does need to be shuffled and I do mean more then just Pipe. There’s some more future exposure ($and cash$) thrown out the window.

[strobe_z]

I wonder if LeBlanc knows the difference between an agressive keeper and a showboat?

I hated it when she was goofing around up near the half line against our weak opponents and I cringed even more every time I saw her come roaring out against Mexico. Someone should tell her that just because she's bored in some of those matches doesn't mean she should try to do something exciting. By the time the Mexican game came around our defence had no idea what she was going to do with it.

Add that to the fact that we couldn't even seem to boot the ball clear... I was NOT surprised that we lost.

[Guest Ed]

CBC story has some quotes from Pellerud. I am not going to bother commenting:

http://www.cbc.ca/pcgi-bin/templates/sportsView.cgi?/news/2004/03/03/Sports/cdasoccer040303

[mtlfan]

quote:Originally posted by massimo

Sorry, that doesn't fly with me. At this level, the fact that Mexico had a whole 30 hours more to rest doesn't mean that much. We talking about atheletes who are in top fitness, not overweight slobs!

It is pure and simple science that recovery time is a huge factor for all athletes. As you state the Mexicans had 30 hours more recovery time. This is important.

While I'm not using this an excuse for the loss it is a contributing facor.

I'm puzzled that the tournament would be played in 9 days.

[beachesl]

Again, the Mexicans deserve to be going to Athens because they played smarter, were coached better, and were better prepared during the tournament. I couldn't see the game, but I've seen lots of telling commentary on this and other sites (including a Mexican site).

Hoewever, to add to what mtlfan just said, it should be noted that the schedule and groups were set by the Mexican organizing committee when the tournament was originaly scheduled to be held in Mexico, and obviously they had a greater plan in view then. When the venue was changed to Costa Rica (because it was decided that with the men's tournament there would be oversaturation in Mexico), the original format was maintained.

[playbyplay]

.Play construction will not happen if it is not practiced. Options are limited. Might as well have two midfield , 4 attackers and 4 defenders all passing to attackers direct.Cant rely on the fact that fancy play does not always prove results but fancy play is almost always the way teams in the finals play.

[Gordon]

I though Mexico played a style similar to Sweden - although by no means as polished or as well generally. It is long ball, but distinguished from Canada's version in that they usually played it out of the back to their midfielders, who would make a controlled effort at a long pass that had a reasonable chance of successful completion. Canada on the other hand, goes for speed - a first time hoof upfield in the general direction of a striker. It is a low percentage pass that far far more often than not results in a turn over. Mexico's game was more mature. Just as Sweden's was.

If Canada were to play that style they would be far more successful, IMO, because I think that Sinclair, Lang, Hooper and Latham - although she was brutal today - are very good strikers who can use their collective size and skills to put even the best defences in the world under a lot of pressure. I thought the U-19s did that reasonably well - better than the senior nats seem to - particulalry Moscato.

I do not think that the Mexican's are better players although they do have some skillful players (just as we do). They just played with better tactics both offensively and defensively and won the game.

[Gordon]

quote:Originally posted by Ed

Here's some etiquette for you Gordon. Mexico beat us with the long ball so piss off.

To elaborate, it is quite alright to criticize the coach (and I am all for that) but just not cricket to criticize a forum participant for some bonehead post. Did I get that right?

Sorry Ed. I thought the big 'ol indicated it was all in good fun. Not sure what your long ball reference is about however.

[bungey]

I missed the first half, but from what I saw of the second half Canada didn't put in much effort until after Mexico's second goal. It was evident because up to then Mexico was always first to the ball and just seemed to outnumber the Canadians. There positioning was definitely stronger than ours. After the second goal the girls seemed to get the wakeup call they needed, scored twice with one coming back on a close offside call, then just ran out of time. I thought it was a case of too little too late.

A performance like this makes me question if the girls want to play for Pellerud. It'll be interesting to see if any more of them speak out like Kiss.