Post Game Analysis - Guat Vs Canada

[Jarrek]

Some points to consider (and points that others have already made) ...

1. Games out West tire our players. Like someone mentioned in a previous post, the CSA hasn't learned a thing in regards to this issue. Considering the time difference for most, the game should have been played at Richardson Stadium in Kingston or Montreal's CCR (which hasn't seen a game in years) in the late afternoon.

2. Watson should be dropped completely from the squad.

3. Serioux should start the next game, he had a brilliant game.

4. Where was Bircham? How come he wasn't called up? He's certainly better then some of the questionable call ups made by Yallop.

5. Partial blame has to go on Yallop. With the assembly of such a unproven and untested squad he should of gave the team more prep time. How about a friendly or two versus Central American opposition? How about Cuba? What will it take to bring the Cubans to, let's say St. John's and play a friendly there?

6. Maybe it's time for Onstad to leave as well. He's approaching his 40's and I thought he was to blame on the second goal being well off his line (with two defenders about to completely cover Ruiz)

7. Piss Poor Finishing by Canada.

[canuck-fan]

A few quick points:

--the Canadian fans were loud, especially when there was something on the field to cheer for. Unfortunately, the team as a whole played very poorly and provided little fodder for the crowd. The Guats played better and gave their fans a lot to cheer about. One of the few highlights of the game from a fan perspective was the fight just down from me in section K between some Canadians and some Guatemalan supporters. At least we won something last night...

--I thought Imhof played well, unlike many others seem to think. He got stuck in wherever possible, chased back well and generally seemed like he had more desire than most of our other Euro-based players.

--losing De Guzman was a huge blow, and I'm amazed that Hutchison didn't get a run out.

--Serioux was excellent. I had previously seen him play for the Lynx and thought him nothing special, but now I see what the Millwall hype is all about. The Edgar Davids comparison is legitimate (on a lesser scale, of course)

--the back four was terrible, with Jazic the best of the bunch. As others have noted, Stalteri had the worst game I've seen him play in ages. At the international level he may well be more suited to midfield. Watson should never play in a senior international again. His lack of pace is frightening. His wild missed tackle was the start of the first Guatemalan goal (although Stalteri's allowing his man to walk past him was perhaps more the cause of the goal).

--Onstad was very poor. he never looked comfortable, didn't dominate in the air, and was very slow with his clearances. On the second Ruiz goal he was completely caught in no man's land, unable to decide whether to come out to Ruiz or stay in his goal. The chip was on for the Guat striker as soon as Onstad hesitated. I hope that Sutton or Hirschfeld get the call in the next match.

--Occean and Peters played well, but need more seasoning. I'd continue to play them -- they'll only get better.

--Simpson, De Rosario, Pesch did not play as well as they are able.

--we desperately missed JDV, Radz and Hume. It would have been nice to have McKenna and Brennan on the bench as well ( I would have replaced Simpson with him at the half)

All in all, a terribly disappointing game. Hopefully that is our one stinker and we can rebound in the remaining games, because we can't afford to play like that again.

[canso]

I'm always mildly shocked when I see Canada play that poorly, but it is a familar feeling unfortunately. After the hours of build up, visualizing who will be the game breaker and running over and over all the possibilities of how I imagine Canadians could play soccer...and then watch that!!! After the fact it's always easier to criticize, but our best players were played out of position and no one took control of the game to try and turn it around. I watch a lot of soccer, and I've seen a lot of poor performances by Canadian teams, but that has got to be the worst ever! Against Cuba we created chances at least, and against T&T you could see there was effort, if little effect. These guys were sleepwalking, clueless, uninspired, unprepared, clumsy, shambolic, disorganized, blah, blah, blah ...it's been said already but I feel like these guys betray my faith and trust when they play like that. They can't really be that bad...can they?

Hope is not an infinite resource.

[El Hombre]

quote:Originally posted by Jarrek

4. Where was Bircham? How come he wasn't called up? He's certainly better then some of the questionable call ups made by Yallop.

He's injured. Either an achilles or hamstring injury, I forget which. Hasn't played for QPR yet this season.

[Vancouver Fan]

Rather than critizing the way our team played I want to give some respect to the Guatemalans.It was obvious that they were the better prepared team but further to that they have good individual talent.They have several players capable of playing at least 2nd tier in England or Germany.I think many of us have made judgements on them based on the few times we've seen them many years ago.This is very different team than I had imagined.There is a confidence in there squad that is going to make them difficult to beat in this group.They are very quick and challenge hard for every ball.They gave us no room to work with at all.They remained compact at the back and made it difficult for us to penetrate.Their coach had them organised and ready and we were not.

How do we find hope for the remaining games?We have to put this game behind us for starters.Many of us thought that Costa Rica would be the toughest oppenent and they lost big time.Guatemala is for real and they are going to give the other teams some problems.We could be seeing a power shift and our more winnable games could be against Costa Rica and Honduras.We are not out of it.The top 2 teams advance and win against Honduras in Edmonton puts us right back in it.

[Vancouver Fan]

With regards to the crowd last night many Guatemalans that had purchased general admission decided that they would come over to the reserved east bleachers and get better view of the game.The General Admission seats are in the north bleachers which are far away from the field and are very poor seats.The Guatemalans were there early and just sat where ever they wanted.Many of the Canadians in our group came late as is usually the way for Canadian sporting events.I personally had to tell half a dozen of them that they were in the wrong seats and kicked them out.Any further attempt to get everyone in the proper seats was futile.It was a free for all to be honest.There were no ushers and it may as well been general admission in the eastside bleachers.The northside bleachers were sold out but you could see that they were not full.That was because many decided to come over to the east side.Dozens of people were just standing in the aisleways.A few decided that it was too crowded and overflowing and decide to stand near the beer tents.Yes there were beer sales contrary to what I had known.

The mix of Guatemalans and Canadians crammed together caused some security problems.It it could have gotten ugly.They sent some RCMP to get everyone sitting rather than standing.I couldn't believe it.Cups of beer drenched some of the cops.

You couldn't tell on tv but our section was singing right to the end.They had a bigger group just to the right of us but we were louder.In the Grandstand they had a couple of groups of 100 or so but mostly cheered the goals.

[Vancouver Fan]

Before the start of the game Christina Stalteri came over to our section to give us a stack of Stalteri autographed cards from Weder Bremen.What a cool lady.

Thanks 7.We really appreciated that.

[kelownaguy]

Polish Lynx Fan, I think its time we all get over the crowd and the city , we got bitch-slapped by the Guats, and it would have happened in Halifax or Victoria, whether the game was in front of 100% Canadian crowd or 50%. Fact is they came to play , they looked like a nicely jelled team with lots of preparation. I would much rather prefer Yallop and the CSA spend their time thinking about how to get our team ready and playing on the same page with each other then where the next game will be played. If things don't improve immensely, we could honestly lose 5-0 to Honduras in front of 50,000 Screaming Canadian fans in Edmonton in 2 weeks.

[Polish_LYNX_Fan]

I agree we need to smarten up I guess I was just trying to get some frustration out and well as you know you guys claim to be teh best fans from canada well................

[Lilloco]

quote:Originally posted by Vancouver Fan

.We could be seeing a power shift and our more winnable games could be against Costa Rica and Honduras.We are not out of it.The top 2 teams advance and win against Honduras in Edmonton puts us right back in it.

Just finnished watching the Costa Rica - Honduras game. I dont know how winnable either of these two games are going to be for Canada. I have been watching Honduras since I was a kid and I havent seen a team like this one..damn, 5 goal and all five scored by the foreign based players, including a defender from almost half. David Suazo is on fire, I cant see anybody stoping this guy unless he is fouled (which Costa Rica tried to do). The thing with Honduras is that for this team, the best defense is their offense, they defend themselves by scorring a bunch of goals but are shaky when they are attacked. But then again, Honduras plays better when they are down than when they are leading. I can see a tie maybe..bug maybe..but if Canada plays like last night forget it....

[Winnipeg Fury]

quote:Originally posted by canuck-fan

A few quick points:

--the Canadian fans were loud, especially when there was something on the field to cheer for. Unfortunately, the team as a whole played very poorly and provided little fodder for the crowd. The Guats played better and gave their fans a lot to cheer about. One of the few highlights of the game from a fan perspective was the fight just down from me in section K between some Canadians and some Guatemalan supporters. At least we won something last night...

--I thought Imhof played well, unlike many others seem to think. He got stuck in wherever possible, chased back well and generally seemed like he had more desire than most of our other Euro-based players.

--losing De Guzman was a huge blow, and I'm amazed that Hutchison didn't get a run out.

--Serioux was excellent. I had previously seen him play for the Lynx and thought him nothing special, but now I see what the Millwall hype is all about. The Edgar Davids comparison is legitimate (on a lesser scale, of course)

--the back four was terrible, with Jazic the best of the bunch. As others have noted, Stalteri had the worst game I've seen him play in ages. At the international level he may well be more suited to midfield. Watson should never play in a senior international again. His lack of pace is frightening. His wild missed tackle was the start of the first Guatemalan goal (although Stalteri's allowing his man to walk past him was perhaps more the cause of the goal).

--Onstad was very poor. he never looked comfortable, didn't dominate in the air, and was very slow with his clearances. On the second Ruiz goal he was completely caught in no man's land, unable to decide whether to come out to Ruiz or stay in his goal. The chip was on for the Guat striker as soon as Onstad hesitated. I hope that Sutton or Hirschfeld get the call in the next match.

--Occean and Peters played well, but need more seasoning. I'd continue to play them -- they'll only get better.

--Simpson, De Rosario, Pesch did not play as well as they are able.

--we desperately missed JDV, Radz and Hume. It would have been nice to have McKenna and Brennan on the bench as well ( I would have replaced Simpson with him at the half)

All in all, a terribly disappointing game. Hopefully that is our one stinker and we can rebound in the remaining games, because we can't afford to play like that again.

A very good summary !

- Pesch should never start another match. He is simply ineffective at the international level and is simply not the player he once was. Keep him around as a sub at best.

- Watson should never start another match. Like Pesch, he has been a great Canadian international, but no longer has the speed to compete at the international level.

- DD is not a midfielder. Our attacking force should have been DD and Occean. I believe the two would have been a lethal combination that would have produced goals.

- Onstad can't be blamed, but I agree that that he does not leave me with a confident feeling. Unfortunetly Yallop does not have a lot of quality options.

- Agree that Jazic was solid at the back.

- Serioux Man-of-the-Match. We need him in our starting squad.

- I think we could have used Nsaliwa. Perhaps he chose not to come as he has a new club team ?

[kelownaguy]

living in Kelowna , I'm not part of any stupid debate about where the best fans in Canada are, if you cheer for the maple leaf then your good in my book no matter where you are,, I'm all for games being spread out all over the country from Halifax to Victoria, and maybe this one should of been on the East Coast to reduce forms of jet lag or whatever. But whats done is done now, all I'm saying is people should be a lot more concerned with our calibre of play and preparation right now rather then, Canada should play here...no I think here instead...how bout here...and worrying about how many guatemalans were in attendance,,,, cause I guarantee it ,,,Honduras is gonna bring it in Edmonton

[Gian-Luca]

Unfortunately Nsaliwa simply wasn't called, rather than not choosing to come. Yallop has not called him once, on the basis of an allegedly poor Olympic qualifying tourney even though he wasn't fully healthy at the time.

[Andrew W]

quote:Originally posted by kelownaguy

living in Kelowna , I'm not part of any stupid debate about where the best fans in Canada are, if you cheer for the maple leaf then your good in my book no matter where you are,, I'm all for games being spread out all over the country from Halifax to Victoria, and maybe this one should of been on the East Coast to reduce forms of jet lag or whatever. But whats done is done now, all I'm saying is people should be a lot more concerned with our calibre of play and preparation right now rather then, Canada should play here...no I think here instead...how bout here...and worrying about how many guatemalans were in attendance,,,, cause I guarantee it ,,,Honduras is gonna bring it in Edmonton

Here, here!

As another westerner, I see the value in playing games in the eastern part of the country. I want to see the team play near me, but I want the best set-up possible. If that's St. John's NFLD, then I'm all for it, in spades. I think the fans that actually do get out and watch, whether that's Vancouver, Edmonton, Kingston, Montreal or further east, do a terrific job because it surely isn't fashionable to support Canadian soccer, sometimes even in our own country.

[nolando]

I like most of Rudi's evaluation and, like many posters, he is apparently recovered enough to have made some great comments on the board.

Dave C, I usually agree with most of what you say too but I don't know what game you were watching if you thought, "Pesch played very well." I admire his ongoing dedication to the Canadian program and that's about it at this point.

Also, even in Kusch's wildest Scandinavian herring-jerky induced dreams he never had even a quarter of the touch that Occean has shown over the last few games. Let's give him at least until his third full international before we completely rake him across the coals.

You are absolutely right when you say, "we played like 11 individuals, last night."

[CanadasBest]

The game was ugly all around. We need to start a petition to have Watson removed from playing any further games. I don't care too if Onstad is the only Canadian keeper playing active games. Nothing good has ever happened when he has been in net! Sure he had no chance to make either saves, but there's more to a good goalkeeper than keeping the ball out of the net.

Anyways Sportsnet had their directional mikes on the east side, facing towards the field and the main bleacher section that's why we could not be heard. We were way louder than the Guatemalan contingent until after the 2nd goal.

Time to re-organized and look forward to the Edmonton game.

[Winnipeg Fury]

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

Unfortunately Nsaliwa simply wasn't called, rather than not choosing to come. Yallop has not called him once, on the basis of an allegedly poor Olympic qualifying tourney even though he wasn't fully healthy at the time.

Do we KNOW that he hasn't been called by Yallop. Perhaps Yallop did speak to Tam, and Tam stated that he wanted to cement his position with his new club.

Another player that has been completely ignored by everyone (including the Voyageurs) is Kappos of AEK.

[DarnCherry]

quote:Originally posted by Bertuzzi44

FIRST of all the game was a SELLOUT.

SECONDLY, I wouldn't describe Swangard as being in the 'heart of metro Vancouver'.

THIRDLY, Canada played like crap. How can you cheer for crap? If Canada had WON 2-0 then everybody would probably say "the fans were great". Lets face it, when the Vancouver Canucks suck, the crowd sucks too! it's the nature of sport. if they are playing great, then the place is hopin'

LASTLY,

-Replace the entire back line except for maybe Jazic, stalteri

-Imoff should be a sub, not trying to run the midfield

-Seroiux, and Occean deserve starts next game

-We need Radzinski & Hume back BAD!

ps-BHTC Mike, Vancouver's the best city in Canada so shut your f'kin mouth and concentrate on soccer. No wonder Yallop wants the team based in BC.

Bertuzzi, I don't know where you were sitting, but in the Southsiders/Voyageurs section we were loud and singing in the park hours before the game (Guats came up to take our photograph many times) we were loud inside the stadium. Before kickoff we had sung the anthem LOUD twice. Even when we were down we were loud. Now, I noticed a microphone stuck in front of a Guats section and none in front of ours, that might explain why people thought we were quiet. But we did cheer for crap.

Now all this crap being put forth by BHTC MIke and Free Kick et all about crowd size is completely retarded. The game sold out. There were hundreds of people watching the game from outside the stadium, all they did was remove some slats from the fencing around the stadium (really easy to do) and watched from outside because they couldn't get in. If we had a 10,000 seat stadium we would have filled it. If Radzinski and the missing players would have been playing we would have filled a Kingston sized stadium.

BHTC mike can go fcuk himself.

[DarnCherry]

quote:Originally posted by Polish_LYNX_Fan

what happend to the pro-canadian crowd wasnt taht the reason why this game was played in BC ?????

It was a pro Canadian crowd. There were more Canadians there. But for the typical Canadian who sits on his hands during games (the ones in the grandstand) there was nothing to cheer for. If they had mic'd the Canadian crowd in the bleachers instead of the Guat crowd (the mic was right in front of them) perhaps you would have a better knowledge of what exactly hppened at the game.

[shaku_bert]

I haven't gone through all of the replies so I apologize if these points have already been made. I think that in addition to us just having a bad game collectively, there are two major areas that hurt us last night.

First, I think our injuries / suspensions / no-shows really hurt us, we aren't as deep as we thought, and our players aren't good enough to play out of position. I'll discuss this in the following paragraphs.

With respect to the keeper, I just can't get myself to feel good about Pat. Lars or Sutton have to be the future for us.

As for the back four, I think you tack deisel's performance as a one off - he'll never be that bad again. Of course, I have never seen him play well at the back for Canada. It may be where he plays for Bremen, but he looks more useful in the midfield for me. Jazic did very well except for when the whole back went pear shaped (more on that later). As opposed to dumping on the central defenders, I would rather say that we REALLY missed JDV. If you replace Watson with JDV you're replacing slow with slow, limited talent with limited talent, but you're getting someone who can FORCE the back to keep its shape and not have the glaring f-ups that we saw last night. Cripes, you don't get to be captain on every team you step into without having some sort of prescence. We missed that last night.

In midfield, DeGuzman going out was a huge blow as he was beginning to stamp his authority on the game. Tranmere supporters don't like Hume in mid-field but I think his running and creativity was sorely missed. At least he would have been better than Simpson who looked completely out of his depth. You can see Josh has all the makings of a good player but he obviously isn't there yet. On a positive note, Serioux showed that he has to be a starter next game. He was incredibly solid. DeRo looked awful. Does he play mid field for the Quakes? He looks like a striker playing out of position.

Up front, we really suffered due to injuries. Pesch gives it his all, but is there anyone in the world who wouldn't take radz over Paul? You gotta pray Radz decides to show up for Edmonton. If we figure we really need a big guy up front, I would take McKenna over Occean in a second. To be frank, OO was a complete bust for me. Missed an open net and continually gave the ball away very cheaply. Big Kevin has an eye for goal and we missed it last night.

My second point is that Canada will be at a competitive disadvantage as long as our players are flung all over the globe. The Guats looked sharper and played much better as a team than us. That's due to their players not being jet lagged (for England based players, the game started at 3:00AM according to their internal clocks) and to the guats having some freindlies to prepare. Its hard for our guys to gel and make the intuitive plays to team mates when you play together four times a year. You can't dump on Yallop or the CSA for this problem.

So what next? I think we need to pray for our best players to be available for Edmonton. It was good on Frank to give the youngsters a run out, but lets go back to tried and true players. My team:

Lars / Sutton

Brennan JDV Kluk or atiba (but I suspect watson) Jazic

Stally DeGu Serioux Hume

McKenna Radz

[nolando]

there's another thread already strated for speculating on the next roster

[Chet]

Here are my impressions after having had a few hours to think about it:

Basically Guatemala beat us by using their speed and putting pressure on the ball carrier whenever Canada had possession. It was a sound strategy and I think reflects good scouting and good coaching on their part. The players executed the game plan almost flawlessly.

It was a sound strategy because of a few notable weaknesses on the Canadian side:

- A lot of young and/or inexperienced players who are not used to playing at this level. By getting on them quickly Guatemala was able to force players to make bad decisions or fumble the ball.

- Players were unfamiliar with each other or playing out of position. This was a problem because it meant that the ball carrier constantly had to hesitate and look around to find their teammates. The Guatemalans, on the other hand, seemed to know instinctively where each other were, so they were able to move the ball quickly. That momentary hesitation gave the Guatemalans just enough time to jump on the Canadian ball carrier and for their teammates to cut off passing lanes.

- Canada's defense, on the whole, are slow compared to the Guatemalan forwards.

Basically Guatemala had a game plan to exploit our biggest weaknesses. They played fast and physical, gave our guys very little space, and Canada simply couldn't handle it.

A couple other comments:

- I don't agree with Watson being made the scapegoat for a bad defensive performance. All the defenders were bad, and Watson was no worse than the other three. Jazic is the only one of the four who I'd care to see starting the next game.

- I also don't agree with the comments that have been made about Onstad. He was far from the worst player on the pitch last night. His distribution and attrocious handling of pass-backs deserve criticism. But I don't see how he can be blamed for either of the Guatemalan goals. He was out of position on the second goal, but when the defense lets two strikers run right through them, leaving the keeper all alone facing two strikers, and the guy with the ball is Ruiz, I'd tend to bet on Ruiz, no matter who the goalie is.

- All this crap about the Guatemalans diving is completely unfair. There was a lot of diving in the first 10 minutes, but the Canadian players (esp. Simpson and DeGuzman) were equally guilty. Also, late in the game, there were a lot of Guatemalan players going down and feigning injury. But I don't consider that 'diving,' not when the intent is just to waste time rather than draw a foul. Surely you'd expect any team with a 2-0 lead to do that, especially with the other team pressing. If they didn't, it would be down to bad coaching. We've seen enough bad sportsmanship from CONCACAF opponents in the past, I don't think it's fair to accuse this Guatemalan team of it.

- I have to say I liked what I saw of Guatemala. They play an attractive brand of football. If Guatemala ends up going through to the hex and Canada doesn't, I may very well be inclined to cheer for them. But I hope to hell we get our **** together and kick their butts when we meet them down there.

[Guest Ed]

Chet, no disrespect but Watson was totally useless. I will concede he was not exposed as much as the other three backs, but that was only because he was full throttle in reverse backing in on Onstad anytime a Guat attacker came within 30 yards of him. I cannot recall him doing anything useful with the ball at any point in the game. Oops, sorry. Got his head on the ball on Pesch'

s first corner. My bad on that.

Onstad was equally bad. The 2nd goal aside, he is the captain and a veteran and has to be a presence with a back line with so little experience. He did nothing of the sort and basically gave his defenders so little confidence they had to resort to booting the ball out or upfield rather than risk a normally safe pass back. His ball handling was inexcusable at the national team level.

[kokanne]

Jet lag wasn't the biggest problem, in my opinion, Serioux, De Guzman had great games, really too bad De Guzman had to come out. Looked like a Calf Strain to me. But Occean, De Guzman and Serioux had some of the farthest distances to travel and they were our best players, so this jetlag thing shouldn't have been an issue. Now that doesn't mean that Vancouver should host all the games, I still believe we should spread games out. Maybe this game should have been played in montreal or toronto or where ever. The Costa Rica game needs to be in Van, Do you honestly think our Nats want to play in freezing temps they don't mind cold weather but snow and ice and all the fun injury stuff.

[Guest Ed]

Well it looked like they were icing his hamstring which is quite a bit north of the calf. He was definitely starting to make the Guatemalan defenders nervous when he went down too. I do think we could have won that game despite the poor start if we had just a few players changed. Serioux should have started on the right somewhere putting DD up front where he can be effective. The other changes are more obvious.