Player Rating Time

[Vancouver Fan]

quote:Originally posted by soccerbeast

Player ratings.........Canada @ Honduras

Onstad....3 very careless on tiying goal

Devos.....7 very steady at the back

Watson....5 mediocre

Hutchison.10 player of the match

Jazic.....5 needs more playing time now that were out

De Rosario..8 future star

De Guzman...8 excellent game

Grande......6 so/so

Imhof........5 needs more playing time

Hume........9 Another great player for the future

Radzinski...2 needed to show up

Occean......8 another star

Simpson.....8 good game

Yallop......5 couldn't keep the side calm in the last few minutes of

the match, should have had them kicking the ball in to the stands/

out of touch to kill time.

Wow,if it wasn't apparent before it surely is now.You really don't know anything about soccer do you?Can you give me your address?I'd like to send you a copy of the game because it doesn't appear that you even watched it.

Jazic and Imhoff need more playing time?Is that right?Is that because they are young rookies and havn't had a chance to prove what they can do?

You give Onstad a 3 because he was careless on the goal but Watson gets a 5 because I guess,he wasn't as careless.

Hume gets a 9 and De Guzman and Occean an 8?Can you explain?What exactly did you like about their game on Saturday?

De Rosario is a future star?You know he's actually been around for a while.Many already consider him a star for San Jose.Thats a team in MLS.Thats a league in the USA.

Radzinski a 2.Yeah right,he was really that much worse than the rest of the team.

Try watching the game next time instead of following a script that you've made to carry out your agenda.

[David C.]

Playing the ratings game...

Onstad: C+ Steady game, no glaring worries.

Hutchinson: B+ Solid defensive play despite lack of pace and supplied many positive runs down the right flank. Showed great enthusiasm. Oh yeah, and scored a goal. My MOTM.

Watson: C+ More solid than expected (with month off) but prone to late errors in the stiffling heat.

DeVos: B Usual solid game, without the late-error worries. Didn't break down in the heat.

Jazic: C- Great tackler but causes worries as he tends to get beat and often plays catch-up.

Imhof: B Intelligent veteran with underappreciated game vision and work ethic. Personally, I love to watch him play.

Grande: B Played surprisingly well, considering his month off. Solid, calm player with good passing skills.

deGuzman: D+ Very frustrating game, tried hard - too hard - but not focused enough on distributing ball to teammates, while dancing on his own. Too many giveaways in our end. He has and can do much, much better. Playing on his wrong wing didn't help him any.

deRosario: C Average game, a few good passes and links with Radzinski but not much else. Could have helped Jazic out a bit more defensively.

Radzinski: C+ Hard to evaluate when he gets little service. Average impact but forechecked defenders well to force bad passes. Showed more enthusiasm than he gets credit for.

Hume: C- Good first half effort died as the heat and humidity got to him. Needed to be subbed off.

Simpson: C Added some much-needed pace in the second half but didn't make any huge impact.

Occean: C Also added some late puch but nothing spectacular.

Bernier: N/R Late sub didn't really get a chance to evaluate properly.

[The Beaver]

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

Imhof was excellent last night. I wish all of the Imhof bashers would take the time to watch the game and just watch what he does and how effective he is. Mind you, I don't know if I would put him and Grande in the centre of midfield because they are both more defensive-minded link-up men than offensively creative. Especially as I don't think, and I believe said I was worried about this before hand, that De Guzman is as effective on the flanks than in the middle of the park where he has much more room to move past people.

Generally I think the whole team played well, especially in the conditions they were playing in. Yes, we could use some mental toughening with a player or two at the back, but that isn't the bottom line. The bottom line is that when you score more goals than the opposition, it means you win. Unless the game is in Concacaf of course.

G-L, you are bang-on!! I cannot understand those who bash Imhof, especially in this last game. He was very good in his role and his work rate was unbelievable considering the conditions.

I think the teams is starting to come together nicely: they are working out the little mistakes and figuring out how best to play together. Problem: They needed to do this BEFORE WCQ started. They needed to be ready for Guatamala, and they were not.

DeGuzman will be a great player, but needs to learn what to do with the ball when he has no support. I cannot understand why he played on the right when he plays on the left with his club. I wish we had Nsaliwa at right back. For what it is worth, here is my IDEAL team.

Onstad

Nsaliwa Kluka Devos Jazic

Imhof Stalteri Hutch DeGuzman

Radz DeRo

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Hume, Ocean as strikers

Grande, Bernier in mid

Simpson, Brennan defense/mid

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[Chet]

I thought Hutchinson was the best player on the field. DeGuzman was the worst. DeGuzman needs a decent club-level coach. I've never seen a player with so much skill and so little brain. I can't help wondering if he has any peripheral vision with all that hair.

Grande was a revelation. His ability to pick out a target man with those long balls adds another dimension to the team. I also noticed that the quality of the corner kicks improved after Hume left the field and Grande started taking them.

It will be interesting to see whether Yallop picks McKenna over Occean once Big Kev gets back. They both play a similar role up front. Occean has a better upside because of his youth and the fact that he's a natural striker, but he has yet to score a goal for us. Despite his utter lack of gracefulness, McKenna puts the ball in the net.

[Grizzly]

I have to agree with Ed that some of the ratings and opinions of the game are exagerating the play of our team. With the amount of talk about missed Canadian chances you would think we completely dominated the match. Actually we were far better at converting than the Hondurans were. They had at least an equal number if not a couple more chances than we did but their finishing was terrible (plus we got lucky on a few close offside calls that may have been incorrect). The run of play throughout the game was fairly even, the only exeption being the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half until our goal during which the Hondurans dominated. Of course finishing and scoring is the most important factor and we should have rightly won the game 2-1 even though the actual 1-1 result was more reflective of the run of play.

The exagerated response is probably due to the previous poor performances of our team in Central America during WCQ. This is also one of the few times I can remember a Canadian team playing at an equal level with a major Central American team in Central America. However, the amount of talent on our current team is also vastly superior to our previous teams and vastly superior to what Ossieck had available only four years ago even with what I consider to be some poor selection decisions by Yallop. Here is the lineup we played with against Trinidad in the famous 4-0 loss in the last WCQ:

Canada: 1. Pat Onstad, 2. Paul Fenwick, 3. Mark Watson, 4. Tony Menezes (13. Richard Hastings, 46,

Martin Nash, 60), 5. Jason deVos (Captain), 6. Jason Bent, 7. Carl Fletcher, 8. Nick Dasovic, 9. Carlo

Corazzin (16. Paul Peschisolido, 80), 10. Davide Xausa, 11. Jim Brennan. Head Coach: Holger Osieck

Although I can't recall seeing such a poor Honduran team in recent memory, they would have easily beat this team. It is no surprise we overreact given our previous experience with teams only able to hoof the ball and unable to score goals.

This is not to denegrate the effort of the team in playing well under very hot and hostile circumstances. However, in qualifying there is very little room for error and again I have to question some of Yallop's decisions. Particularly when we are constantly getting shafted from the referreeing I think our coach has to make very good decisions. Certain choices in player positioning and tactics seem to be a bit suspect. It makes me wonder if we are using the right tactics when our top and most skilled players seem to perform below expectations while our less talented players are exceeding expectation. Is Yallop using our greatest threats in the most effective manner? Shouldn't a coach plan his strategy around the best players including playing them in their natural positions and select those other players and tactics that can best support these players? Did Yallop have the people on the bench to make effective substitutions in every circumstance? He had made two substitutions before the goal but only had Bernier and Gervais available as a defensive player to substitute in the situation of a late lead. Bernier is maybe an acceptable choice but certainly not my first choice and what if he had had two subs available but no defender or defensive midfielder to switch on to either take out an offensive player or sub a tired defender. Is Gabriel Gervais really the next best defensive player available and someone we would presently want to be on the field defending a close lead in WCQ? Did we need to call Corrazin instead of Nsaliwa or Klukowski on a team with Radz, Hume, Occean, DeRO as possible strikers?

I think we are demanding too little from our team and coach. I think we currently have a team fully capable of beating and consistently playing at the level of the Central American teams (excepting Mexico) regardless of the location. What I saw when I watched the game was a pretty even match in which we converted our chances better than Honduras and got ripped off by a referree. In such a competition a few small mistakes from a coach can be very costly. Of course it is all speculation now but in such a game one or two different players, even a slight variation in tactics and a much stronger and more flexible subs bench could have made a difference in scoring an additional goal or preventing the goal against. As well somewhat less jetlagged players may have made a big difference in earlier games and Yallop seems to have played a fairly large part in the CSA's sudden infatuation with playing exclusively in the west, probably because he lives there and has connections to many officials there. Yallop may improve with time on the job but I am worried that he will make similar mistakes in future matches. With our current talent I expect us to be competitive in every match as a minimum regardless of where the game is played. I will not overlook his mistakes because we play well in two of four games in WCQ because I am used to the mediocre teams we used to send to such matches.

[shaku_bert]

quote:Originally posted by Chet

It will be interesting to see whether Yallop picks McKenna over Occean once Big Kev gets back. They both play a similar role up front. Occean has a better upside because of his youth and the fact that he's a natural striker, but he has yet to score a goal for us. Despite his utter lack of gracefulness, McKenna puts the ball in the net.

kevin is, like, 23 or something. He has lots of upside too due to his age. Personally, I must have missed everything good about OO as I didn't see anything to write home about. (that's saying he sucked, I just didn't see anything spectacular)