Neil Davidson: Canada Crushes Belize

[Winnipeg Fury]

Canada crushes Belize

By NEIL DAVIDSON

KINGSTON, Ont. (CP) - Canada opened its World Cup qualifying campaign with an ugly 4-0 victory over an outmatched Belize side Sunday thanks to goals by Paul Peschisolido, Tomasz Radzinski, Kevin McKenna and Jim Brennan.

As if knowing what was about to happen, the sun disappeared at kickoff and the skies opened at Richardson Stadium, soaking a pro-Canadian soccer crowd of 8,245. Radzinski alone could have a half-dozen goals on the day. It was one-way traffic and Canada was at the wheel, but still needed three second-half goals to pad out the score.

In truth, the visitors were an awkward young amateur side whose first thought was to kick the ball out or tug a shirt to stop a Canadian attack. It made for a choppy one-sided contest.

The Canadians will easily win the two-game series - the return match is Wednesday night, also in Kingston - but they will not cause legitimate CONCACAF rivals any sleepless nights with this kind of sloppy finishing.

It was 1-0 after 45 minutes and it could have been 8-0. But the Canadians, like kids given the key to a candy store, all wanted a piece of the action and didn't know what to take first.

Peschisolido hit the crossbar with a header in the second minute. Belizean goalie Shane Orio made saves with every part of his body. And other Canadian attacks went just wide or the final pass went astray.

Canada controlled the game with Belize leaving just one man in attack and everyone else in defence. The Canadians outshot the visitors 10-2 in the first half and collected nine corners, with the Belizeans looking distinctly dodgy on every one as Canada sent the big men up front.

The breakthrough finally came in the 39th minute at the end of a nine-pass Canadian move. Peschisolido got the ball back from Iain Hume on a nifty give-and-go and drilled a low show past Orio.

Belize's best chance came in the first half on a deflected shot after a free kick hit the Canadian wall. But Pat Onstad adjusted to the deflection to comfortably snare the ball.

The Belizeans are part-timers and the team was missing star player Norman Tilliman, because of a disagreement with management.

Canada, meanwhile, was at full strength. And coach Frank Yallop opted for an attacking lineup with Hume and Dwayne De Rosario, who play striker for their club teams, on the flank in support of forwards Radzinski and Peschisolido.

Radzinski finally ended a string of misses in the 55th minute, chesting down a corner and banging in a side volley. The Everton forward hit the goalpost minutes later and should probably not waste money on a lottery ticket any time soon.

Substitute McKenna made it 3-0 with a 75th-minute header. Brennan, another second-half sub, had a goal disallowed on an offside call but made it 4-0 in the 83rd on a simple tap-in.

Thirty-four teams entered qualifying play in CONCACAF, which covers North and Central America and the Caribbean. Twenty-four are left and this home-and-away second round will eliminate a dozen more countries.

The remaining 12 teams will be split into three groups of four for the semifinal round, scheduled from Aug. 18 to Nov. 17. The top two teams from each group will advance to the final round of six next year, which will send three teams to the 2006 World Cup finals.

A fourth team will play an Asian country in a playoff for another berth at Germany 2006.

FIFA ranks Canada 10th in the region and 95th in the world. Belize is No. 180 out of the 205 rated by FIFA.

Bordering the Caribbean between Mexico and Guatemala, Belize's population of 266,440 (as of July 2003) is a little bigger than Saskatoon.

The country covers about 23,000 square kilometres, less than half the size of Nova Scotia.

Notes: Paul Peschisolido earned his 50th cap for Canada ... Canada's last home game was a 0-0 draw with Mexico at Toronto's Varsity Stadium on Nov. 15, 2000. ... Goalkeeper Pat Onstad served as Canadian captain.

[MikeD]

An awfully harsh description of the match by Neil Davidson.

I just got back from Kingston and wanted to add a few comments -

1) The soggy pitch in the first half had for more to do with the "ugliness" (to use Neil's word) of the match than poor Canadian finishing. The pitch had dried out considerably by the second half and we started filling the net on them.

2) Kevin McKenna was dominant against a tired, small and amateur British Honduran defence but give me Pesch or DeRo against stronger opposition. McKenna's reaction time is slow compared to the rest of our attackers. Combined with his lack of pace, it makes him a rather one dimensional attacker. He's great in the right situations, though, and Yallop used him perfectly today.

3) I was sitting right behind the Canadian bench and it was great to watch Yallop down there. Before he sent McKenna on, he spent at least a minute giving him his instructions and appeared had what appeared to be some plays diagrammed on a little note pad to show McKenna.

4) Dwayne DeRosario is awesome. That guy has the best first touch I've ever seen.

5) The field seemed really narrow to me. I understand that they had to widen it to get it up to minimum FIFA regulations, so it was probably barely up to that standard. I think that we would have been even more dominant on a wider field, as the lack of room favoured the British Hondurans' tactic of trying to clog up the pitch with their bodies.

6) Did I mention that Dwayne DeRosario is awesome? Because he is.

[bettermirror]

Dwayne has the best touch you've seen? i am always disappointed with his touches. for a man of his ability it should be on a shoe string. i think he has one of the heavier touches of our attacking players.

[Winnipeg Fury]

DD was solid today, and always threatening. Too bad he didn't score.

[snake]

if cuba could knock out costa rica ranked 17th in the world it would make the next round a hell of a lot easier.go cuba

[Winnipeg Fury]

quote:Originally posted by snake

if cuba could knock out costa rica ranked 17th in the world it would make the next round a hell of a lot easier.go cuba

There's a lot of tight matches: ES only holds a 1 goal lead going into Bermuda. Haiti/Jamiaca & Cuba/Costa Rica & Suriname/Guatemala are all tied.

Honduras goes home with a 1 goal lead. Unfortunetly Costa Rica also plays at home next match, as does Guatemala. All three of the favoured teams in our group should unfortunetly go through, but one of the favoured CONCACAF teams should drop in the half dozen close games.

[ditty]

Davidson is definitely being a little harsh. I think more fair point is that today's game won't tell us much about how we can or will need to perform in the future. Belize was weak and we didn't finish even a quarter of our chances but this doesn't make the performance as horrid as Davidson thinks. We crushed a minnow, as we should have, and have hopefully given ourselves some confidence in attack and brought the team a little closer together. There should be some new faces in on Wednesday and that's good too.

Keep in mind the other CONCACAF results this weekend. CR, ES and Guatemala aren't out of the woods yet so I'll take our position anyday.

[Winnipeg Fury]

quote:Originally posted by ditty

Davidson is definitely being a little harsh.

Yes, I too felt Davidson was being too harsh. Canada came out and completely dominated as they should have. We may have squandered many chances, but still soundly beat them.

I hope we see the bench on Wednesday. Give Bernier a start in midfield and see what he can do.

Here's hoping Radzinski and DD score a hat-trick !

[Jarrek]

We played some good soccer, and if it wasn't for some unlucky misses it could have very well been 8-0. The crowd was great too, although LOT of people were turned away by the rain, as it was a downpour in the first half. DeRosario was simply amazing, Radzinski was showed some speed as well, as did Hume. Too bad he didn't score. All the other top CONCACAF nations had a rather harder experience against their opponents then Canada had. Costa Rica tied Cuba. Jamaica tied Haiti. USA was really unimpressive against Grenada. What's the outcome for Canada? Certainly better then 2002 qualifying round. Like the 4-0 score I predicted I predict a top 3 finish in the hex round for Canada

[marcl_19]

Remember guys, we beat CR and lost to cuba in the gold cup....i dont think it matters who wins this game....it's gonna be tough against either or.

[MikeD]

quote:Originally posted by bettermirror

Dwayne has the best touch you've seen? i am always disappointed with his touches. for a man of his ability it should be on a shoe string. i think he has one of the heavier touches of our attacking players.

I honestly never noticed whether Dwayne had a particularly good or particularly poor first touch until seeing this match live. All I know is that in this match his touch was awesome - always controlling to ball perfectly whether he needed to deaden it at his feet to keep control of it or tap it into space. I was awed by his performance today.

[Gian-Luca]

Neil's not the only one to give a harsh account of the match - there's one by Neco Cockburn in the Toronto Star today, who claimed that this match wasn't a big enough of a blowout required for Canada to progress further in Concacaf qualifying. (??????)

Canada had the largest margin of victory for a Concacaf team on the day along with Panama and we're supposed to be gravely concerned about this? Even the almighty US only beat Grenada at home 3-0 - doesn't that mean now that teams are supposed to not fear them in the subsequent qualifying rounds? Nonsense. And it's not like the Canadian team has reached it's peak under Yallop already this early on in his tenure. Sheesh!

Had the surface not been so wet in the first half I think we would have had more by halftime as we were trying to play an attractive style of fast-paced, passing soccer (which seems to have gone un-noticed by the pundits in the press) rather than simply bludgeoning the ball into the back of the net. Once the team got the break-through first they relaxed a bit & it was just a matter of how many more they would get on the day.

Yes Belize was weak, yeah we could have scored a few more (that will be the case in every match) but let's not take away from the style of play we chose to play against a Bunker defense, it could have been an ugly style of play that was seen in Neil's eyes but it wasn't.

If other teams still don't respect Canada once we get to the next round, that will be their problem, not ours. This team is building in chemistry and is confident. That was as evident from the stands as the rain falling from the sky in the first half.

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by MikeD

5) The field seemed really narrow to me.

It isn't just you - it is very narrow, especially compared Commonwealthy or to what we are seeing on tv in Portugal. It aided Belize in their bunkering job a bit with less room out there. Not that I don't want to see more matches held in places that are a couple hours driving distance for me, but after this round I'd like to see us move into bigger stadiums with larger surfaces as that should play into our favour with the kind of team we have - at least from an attacking point of view. It will make De Vos & Watson run a little bit more, but when we are at home we should be taking the fight to the opposition anyway so I'd still prefer the extra room, as our players will be able to exploit it much better now than they have been able to.

[The Beaver]

I don't know what Davidson and the other dude were expecting from this game. We played and performed exactly how I thought we would. I did not expect 8 goals, but I knew we'd win, and I knew we'd do so with a good deal of positive possession. I wonder how closely Davidson--who is usually very fair--and the other dude have been watching and analyzing this team. They MUST take into account that this team has just played its 3rd game together under a new coach. It is a new team and a new vision. It will take time to gell, but I can see it already happening. This team looks like they are having fun--they look like the genuinely like each other, and they look like they could get even better. (I know they'll be even better in Wednesday's game. They are only just learning to play together.)

Watson needs to go, I'm afraid. We have options, and we need some pace and skill. Menezes comes to mind, as do Reda and Gervais, Hutch and Kluka. Even Poz or Nsaliwa. Or, since McKenna is so deadly off set pieces in the air, let him play with DeVos.

[Free kick]

The concern about the missed chances is not so much related to this game rather for the upcomming games. We won't get as many chances from the sides that we will see in the next round.

[marcl_19]

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

The concern about the missed chances is not so much related to this game rather for the upcomming games. We won't get as many chances from the sides that we will see in the next round.

well put, i was thinknig the same thing.... we wont be able to afford all the missed chances...we missed a few key ones against wales that could have tied it up or even won.

[Gian-Luca]

I think there are more concerns about central defense (and it's speed in particular) than our offence right now. We won't get that many chances in a game against a qualification contenter, but on the other hand I can see us getting fewer but better ones due to having a lot more space to operate in. I can't really see the likes of Honduras or Costa Rica trying to bunker against us like Belize did, which should leave more space for us to exploit when we do go on offense.