Yallop Announces Roster for WCQ vs Honduras, CR

[Grizzly]

quote: At best, we are amongst the top 50 in the world. No where near top 25. I don't like the captaincy issue, tactical decisions, or player selection. But we have deep-seeded and long-term problems that no man can fix in one WCQ campaign. Yallop needs more time.

I agree we are at best around 50 in the world and also that sometimes we have heightened expectations of what our team should accomplish. We have only three players in the big four leagues of which only Radzinski is at present even near to being a star player. However, we may not be the favourite in our group but we are well able to beat any of the three teams we are playing against. It is not like we are playing in a group consisting of Germany, Brazil and Argentina. And given the lack of top level talent and depth available it is even more crucial that our coach is calling the best players available and playing them in an effective system. This is the prime responsibility of the MNT coach. I don't feel this has been the case in this WC qualifying campaign and also see no reason to believe this will change in four years when we may or may not have a better talent pool available. If Yallop was making logical squad selections, playing them in an effective system and we were competitive in each of the six games and still did not advance I would be in favour of giving him more time. In the absence of this though I think he should be held accountable for some very strange decisions. I hope he proves me wrong and we are able to qualify but I am not very hopeful based on the selected squad.

[Canadienfan]

The Belize games should have been the blueprint for selecting players for this round of qualifying. The only changes that should have been made were ones for injured or suspended players.

I agree that Yallop didn't have the time to properly prepare a team. Thus making it all the more important that we keep using roughly the same players each time, due to the fact that atleast they are spending some time together on and off the pitch and can grow as a team in the little time they have together.

[redhat]

Why is everyone worrying about the what-ifs?

Who could have known that De Vos, McKenna, and a few others would get

injured early on? I doubt if anyone would have predicted Guatemala to be on top of this group, or if the ref would have robbed us in Edmonton. Nor would anyone would have figured that Costa Rica would

have some difficulty, or that Panama would have surprised in their

current play.

Yallop sure has made some strange picks, but most coaches do!

Why do we always compare against the USA, when we have to get out of

our group first? Why do some consider the A-Leaguers in the team

to be disasterous picks, when some of these Central American players

we play against would play in equal or inferior leagues?

We can only speculate, but I doubt if Brennan/Aguiar/Nsaliwa/Bunbury

can really make a HUGE difference at this point. We really needed

better preparation for various apparent reasons.

[youllneverwalkalone]

I favour Bircham over Imhoff. Many disagree, and as Red Hat points out, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Yallop made some questionable decisions, but that's what leadership is all about. Can you imagine if he actually made his selections based on this board? Would that inspire confidence?

If we fire Yallop and hire a new coach for the Gold Cup we'll go through the experimentation all over again. I guarantee Yallop will have a more cohesive club by Gold Cup. I'm not giving up, but if things don't go our way we still have many tournaments to look forward to. Speaking of which, can somebody summarize the invite process for Copa America? What happened following 2000?

[redhat]

quote:Originally posted by youllneverwalkalone

Speaking of which, can somebody summarize the invite process for Copa America? What happened following 2000?

Well after winning the 2000 Gold Cup, Canada was invited to 2 tournaments as CONCACAF champs: Copa America and the Confederations Cup. The Confed Cup was held in Japan in 2001 and we played fairly well, considering the travel and facilities we were given. The highlight was the tie against Brazil (B-Team, but it's Brazil still).

We also were invited to Copa America which was held in Colombia in 2001. But there were HUGE security problems and all teams withdrew. Eventually the sponsors forced the tournament to continue, albeit

with most B teams of South America. Canada had returned most of their

Euro players with their clubs, and without a domestic league or a

B team, withdrew from the tournament as did Argentina.

Costa Rica and Honduras replaced Canada and Argentina in the tournament.

In a nutshell, if we are CONCACAF champs (next Gold Cup) we join

Mexico (who has automatic invite) to the South America tourney.

[Gordon]

quote:Originally posted by redhat

Why is everyone worrying about the what-ifs?

Who could have known that De Vos, McKenna, and a few others would get

injured early on? I doubt if anyone would have predicted Guatemala to be on top of this group, or if the ref would have robbed us in Edmonton. Nor would anyone would have figured that Costa Rica would

have some difficulty, or that Panama would have surprised in their

current play.

As a manager, you have to contingency plan for injuries, cards etc. You need to make at least some of your selections on the basis of the what ifs...that is the point of the bench. To simply say, well I'll pick so and so to give him some experience and have a look at him in training is not good enough. What happens if 2 of the 3 players ahead of him run in to some difficulties? Then you are having a look at players who may or may not cut it in games that matter. Yes, it hasn't helped matters to have many of our centre halves knocked out due to injury, but has Yallop taken the best route to mitigate the fall out? I don't think so, personally, nor has he adequately prepared for other potential disaters in my opinion. As a result we end up with guys playing who are in a little bit over their heads at this level.

[MikeD]

quote:Originally posted by youllneverwalkalone

I favour Bircham over Imhoff. Many disagree, and as Red Hat points out, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Yallop made some questionable decisions, but that's what leadership is all about. Can you imagine if he actually made his selections based on this board? Would that inspire confidence?

If we fire Yallop and hire a new coach for the Gold Cup we'll go through the experimentation all over again. I guarantee Yallop will have a more cohesive club by Gold Cup. I'm not giving up, but if things don't go our way we still have many tournaments to look forward to. Speaking of which, can somebody summarize the invite process for Copa America? What happened following 2000?

As I understand it, Mexico always gets invited to the Copa America along with the Gold Cup champ. If Mexico wins the Gold Cup, then the next highest placing team in the Gold Cup gets invited along with Mexico.

Thus, since Canada won the Gold Cup in 2000, we, along with Mexico, got invited to the 2001 Copa America. (After Canada and Argentina withdrew from the 2001 Copa due to the security issues, Costa Rica and Honduras were invited to replace them. That made the 2001 Copa the only tournament to include three CONCACAF teams - Mexico, Costa Rica and Honduras.)

The 2003 Gold Cup was won by Mexico and the next highest placing CONCACAF team was the US, so Mexico and the US got invited to the 2004 Copa. (Mexico won in the final over Brazil and the US won the third-place match over Costa Rica.) The US chose to decline the invitation to the Copa that year, so Costa Rica, as the 4th-place finishers, got to go to the Copa in the US's place.