Friendlies In England to prepare for upcoming WCQ

[Guest Georgio]

Let's look ahead.

Having a couple friendlies in England where European players have to fly 2 hours maximum (enabling a return flight within a day) to attend on a date that no league games are being played makes way to much sense.

Let's look at the players recognized within the men's player pool on the CSA website that could attend (likely just have to skip a practice if scheduled properly):

Fernando Aguiar

Jason Bent

Patrice Bernier

Marc Bircham ($no flight$)

Jim Brennan (no flight)

Maycoll Canizalez

Julian Deguzman

Jason Devos (no flight)

Paul Fenwick

Rob Friend

Richard Hasting

Lars Hirschfeld (no flight)

Ian Hume (no flight)

Atiba Hutchison

Daniel Imhoff

Mike Klukowski

Kevin McKenna

Tam Nsaliwa

Olivier Occean

Paul Peschisolido (no flight)

Jaime Peters (no flight)

Chris Pozniak

Thomas Radzinski

Mark Rogers (no flight)

Adrian Serioux (no flight)

Josh Simpson (no flight)

Paul Stalteri

Kenny Stamatopoulos

Marco Reda

And I pick one definate North American player to make the trip by leaving the trainer or someone behind:

Dwyane Derosario

Ok, in the latest call-in interview Yallop did mention something to effect of how it would be good to have an "American" which he obviously means North American players training session/friendlies, but concedes that all his European players wouldn't be able to attend. He's been thinking about the feasibility of it but it just doesn't seem to make sense. I submit to you the players that could attend these sessions or friendles at often a higher individual cost because of larger distances to fly (yet he made no mention of the possibility of European Friendlies in the interview as one in Canada seems to be on his mind):

Mauro Bielllo

Adam Braz

Carlo Corrazin

Gabriel Gervais

Martin Nash

Dwayne Derosario

Pat Onstad

Nevio Pizzolito

Johnny Sulentic

Greg Sutton

Mark Watson

Davide Xausa

Theo Zagar

Tyler Hughes

Mesut Mert

Now you tell me fellas, which possible event sounds closer to an act of futility? Which events would be more productive?

Pick 16-18 players you think could attend the European friendlies keeping in mind that they would likely play in our upcoming Qualifiers which means that it is not a trial, no new players. Also bare in mind the cost when selecting as that appears to be quite a setback for Yallop from listening to what he said in the call-in interview. Choose a specific location and any scenarios that you feel would be ideal.

P.S. This is the staff who attended the B-Team Tournament. Surely atleast three of these guys can be dropped for European Friendlies as people in England can be utilized:

Frank Yallop Head Coach

Dale Mitchell Assistant Coach

Paul Dolan Goalkeeper Coach

Morgan Quarry Team Manager

Kevin Wagner Equipment Manager

Greg Bay Physiotherapist

[soccerbeast]

The only person that should be left of the entire world cup roster is

Yallop himself. But yes geting some games even against english div 2 or

3 teams would be better than sitting idle.

[Guest Georgio]

Or even Premier League reserve squads which will often have a few 1st Team players taking part.

[highburygooner]

this is what the MNT have been doing for the last couple of years. scotland, finland, ireland, czech republic, germany, switzerland, wales, etc.

is there anything new about what you're suggesting?

if you're talking about sqeezing in extra friendlies, i think you're being compeltely unrealistic. it will be very tough (ie. impossible) to get clubs to release their players for friendlies that aren't on fifa's international fixture dates...seeing as our upcoming WCQs are on the next available dates, the next feasible date that you would be talking about would be after we're knocked out of our WCQ group or (hopefully for canada) in between the MNT starting their first game in the hex.

[Guest Georgio]

All the games you've mentioned were way back when they would have no bearing on preperation for this WCQ campaign in the effort to have one familiar team playing together.

I am suggesting a couple of basically two day camps with club teams, not nations who would also require the release of their players. It would be an attempt to set up a training base in England, not randomly spread out friendlies five months and more before qualifying with other nations which are quality for the coach to get a look at players but not geared towards preperation.

I am suggesting for the future and not necessarily immediately as I know full well how much limited time we have before our next game against Honduras immediately followed by Costa Rica.

We have got to demand more of our players like other National Federations and there coaches do. I don't think it's "completely unrealistic" as other countries (ie. Australia) either have worked towards or do have this in place. Also pulling players away from practice outside of International dates is not as big a deal as away from matches, and if scheduled properly would probably only leave out a couple important players who may have a game or some other pressing matter.

Also, right now I am not thinking that we don't have a chance for the Hex as that was one loss, albeit a tough one to take, but I believe we still have as good a chance as Costa Rica (they lost too remember). If for some reason it doesn't work out, all is not lost because we would have a relationship with a club or facility and a training base set-up. What I am suggesting is not new, I am just a proponent of it.

[highburygooner]

can the CSA summon players for a training camp in the international windows? or does it have to be in the build up for a match? i still think it would be extremely difficult to have club teams agree to release their canadian players to attend "mini camps" in england during the season. honestly, just can't see managers being thrilled to let their players risk injury unless compelled by fifa regulations. i'd be interested to see how australia has attempted to do this. as far as i'm aware, they face even more difficulty than canada in getting their premiere players together for training (of course they do have an arguably easier route to qualifying despite drawing with the solomon island recently) as we know, they, along with jamaica, nigeria, south africa and others have all certainly started playing friendlies in london (and elsewhere in europe) as canada have done. i haven't read or heard of any of these countries doing anything differently to canada in this way. that said, the idea of setting up a "training base" for our international breaks in england is an interesting idea. i'm sure frank could get hold of ipswich town's facilities. i just think the CSA would rather invest the money in developing facilities in canada (or so they'd have us believe).

as for recent canadian friendlies in europe. you said, " All the games you've mentioned were way back when they would have no bearing on preperation for this WCQ campaign in the effort to have one familiar team playing together."

what were they for then? all of those matches have happened in the last three years and have consisted of, for the most part, the same player pool as we are currently using. they have been used to blood the likes of hume and de guzman to the national squad. of COURSE they have bearing on the current WCQ campaign, regardless of the fact that the players are dealing with different managers/philosophies. The CSA needs to use ALL of the FIFA sanctioned dates to schedule these friendlies over here...i know it's a funding issue, but they've got to bite the bullet if they want to be taken seriously. using the 7 day windows that they're given 8 to 10 times a year is the only realistic way that yallop is going to be able to work with these players outside of qualifying fixtures.

it also seems that people are making this out to be a "hard luck canadian" story. i think we need to realise that this problem is in no way unique to canada and is simply a reality in international football. lord knows sven would love to have more of a chance to train with his players. ok, geography accentuates the problem significantly. but look at nations like australia, japan, china, south africa. their managers all face the same problems. so where's the difference between canada and these countries? the one major one that jumps out at me (apart from the talent pool of players) is that canada doesn't have a viable domestic league.

[Guest Georgio]

Listen, do we really need to talk about those games as far back as three years ago that we had with different coaches in the context of our preperation for upcoming games. It has little bearing. Maybe when I said 'no bearing' I was being extreme because sure you can connect games from the distant past to today and apply value to them but that is not what this idea of a Euro camp is about. It is not why so many people are frustrated about our lack of preperation.

I am not sure what the all out solution is, I was just setting up a possible scenario that makes sense, particularly if another nation is doing it. Surely the CSA can have a couple things going at once, domestic league/MLS and Euro based training. The CSA always has it rough and many excuses are available for them to use. But with every plan they come up with you can be assured it is going to either take longer then is reasonable to be implemented or be scrapped altogether. Maybe we'll have one or two MLS teams in four years but lets give our players every chance to get some results today.

On a side note, I liked what that authority from the Canadian Olympic Team said. That if we really want some changes for funding in Canadian sport we, the electorate, have got to demand it at the polls.