WCQ should of been LINEUP

[stacks]

Damn, we would be in 2nd round qual. right now with this lineup.

Hirshfield

Stalteri Menezes Devos Mckenna

Bircham Serioux de Guzman Brennan

Hume Radzinski

subs: defence: Kluwkowski, Watson, Jazic, nsawila

midfield:Aguiar, Simpson, Imhof,

forward: Ocean, Derosario, Peschisolido

goalie: maybe Onstad

[marcl_19]

naaaaahhh

Onstad

Stalteri - McKenna/Hutchinson - DeVos - Klukowski

Hume - Bernier (defensive)- de Guzman - Simpson

Occean - Radz

Subs:

Sutton, Nsaliwa, Mckenna/Hutchinson, Imhof, Serioux, DeRo, Pesch

Edit: After further thought...Take out radz since he didnt score once in the semifinal round....replace him with ReRo...and since the rat obvioulsy wouldnt come just to sit on the becnh, replace him with someone like Friend or maybe Uccello

[Gian-Luca]

"should have been"

[stacks]

Thanx for the english lesson

stakks hah!

[Daniel]

Shoulda coulda woulda.

[Free kick]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Shoulda coulda woulda.

I agree. The point is that we didn't make this time. There are a host of valid reasons. But I find it hard to believe that adding a bunch of second division players would have made such a huge difference. Curiously, Stacks left DeRosario, and Grande off his list and they were two of our best players. No disrespect intended to any of these players that Yallop left off but come on, we scored what? four goals in six game? how would adding any of the aforementined players have change that?

Costa Rica seemed like a very different line up each time that we faced them, yet they won both games. Thats a what good sides can do; win with different lineups. We didn't win a single a game until it didn't matter at all for canada and its opponent. Therefore, we cannot infer anything from that final game against Guatemala because it was a totally meaningless game for both sides.

Yes, some of the players left off could have made a difference. But not that much to overcome zero wins in the first five games. Preparation was a factor, but it could not have that big a factor by the fourth and fifth games. At which time we were still in contention but still lost when we needed to win. Refereeing? yes, in that game in Edmonton especially. But lets not forget, that there was a game played for 85 minutes prior to that point of disgracefull refereeing and if you looked at the play up until half time of that match you would have a hard time stating that we should have won. Honduras was quite unfortunate to not come out of that first half ahead. Furthermore, even when we got beneficial refereeing ( the Costa Rica match in Vancouver), we still lost.

I am loss to explain why many fans have such a hard time accepting that at this time we are not good enough as a nation to qualify for the WC. Of course, we all hope that will change but if you still think it was all about player selections, then how would you explain our MNT's record in the past 2-3 years.

PS.: I am not dismissing player selection as a contributing factor. But I am sorry say that I shake my head in dismay when I read things like: " We would have qualified with these players" or " The CSA is entirely responsible" or "It was all the referees fault". All were contributing factors and , again, there are many reason why we are not going to Germany. But we can't dismiss the fact that we don't quite have the talent yet. Talented team will overcome these kind of obstacles.

[analyst]

Free Kick, I agree with you wholeheartedly, we don't have enough talent. We have some very good players who are playing for good teams in Europe, but mostly we have decent players who are playing for second and third division teams in Europe. Most of us have seen those players develop from youth players into pros. We have seen them get better, and we probably hope they will do really well when asked to play for the MNT. But the players on our opponents teams have also gone from youth to pro soccer and they are playing at higher levels because they had better coaching and they turned into better players.

I attended a meeting this fall, at which Lenarduzzi said that we can't blame Yalllop, because he did not have enough talent. Until that problem is corrected we will always be lamenting the fact that we are not doing well internationally. The CSA and the Provincial Associations need to upgrade their coaching development programs so that coaches have to take more training, so they can become better coaches. The current coaching programs are too short and too easy.

[Gordon]

Hang on a minute here Tony and Analyst. I don't see a lot of galatico's on the Guatemalan roster. I see a team whose best player couldn't make West Brom (probably more of an indictment of west Brom than anything). I struggle to see the Honduran League as any better than the second divisions in Germany and England. A lack of talent would be a problem if we were in UEFA, or COMNEBOL. I don't believe it is a factor in CONCACAF other than if we had more of it, we could probably survive weird selection, poor preparation and key injuries/suspensions.

[Ivan]

Thank you Gordon, for saving me some typing.

[Grizzly]

quote:I am loss to explain why many fans have such a hard time accepting that at this time we are not good enough as a nation to qualify for the WC.

To expand on Gordon's comments: It is not that I have a hard time accepting that we are not good enough to qualify for WC which may or may not be the case. I have a hard time accepting we are not good enough to avoid finishing in last place in a preliminary group stage to qualify for the final round of CONCACAF qualifying. Admittedly, we had four reasonably well matched opponents in this round of which I would rate one (CR) slightly ahead of us on talent available, one roughly equal (Hon) and one somewhat below us (Guat.). Note that the key word in the previous sentence is talent available as opposed to the talent that actually played. I have often stated that in my opinion coaching decisions such as player selection, substitution bench, tactical strategy etc. can have a huge influence in qualifying from such a group or not qualifying. This can be seen in the fact that the team that was chosen not only by neutral observers but by many of its own fans as the weakest of the group won the group even before the final match was played. Here was a coach who got maximum performance from mediocre players against superior competition while ours got below standard performances from many players even those who were his favourites (and no it can't all be blamed on one coach having a couple of extra friendlies).

Among the players not selected for qualifying were a Premiership sub, a starter in one of Portugal's biggest clubs, a top defender in the 2nd Bundesliga and a top defender from the Belgian first division. They are not going to strike fear in the likes of Germany and Brazil but would be starting players in any of the other four teams of our group. For us they were apparently not good enough to sit on the subs bench while a player like Corrazin even got on the field for a game. I don't want to repeat the whole list of problems I have with how Yallop coached during the WCQ nor what the CSA could have done better so I will summarize my feelings as such: If I felt we played in WCQ with the best players we had available being somewhat competently coached and got knocked out by superior teams I would be disappointed but would accept the result. I don't think this was the case. After watching us improve slowly over several years to the point where we may not be automatic qualifiers but should at least be considered in the top 6 of our conference only to be humiliated in a preliminary group stage is hard to accept, especially when accompanied by numerous instance of incompetency by those in charge of the team.

[analyst]

Grizzly, I also don't understand why Watson and Corazzin were selected ahead of Nsaliwa, Brennan and Aguiar. Hopefully Yallop will explain his choices some day. I note that most of the omitted players you referred to were defensive players, and none of them are playing regularly at a high level.

Th noted ommissions also means Yallop probably picked the best available strikers.

It seems like Yallo didnt have much to choose from - a Fullham striker with limited commitment to Canada, a third division Tranmere striker, and a MLS striker. Without better strikers we'll play boring soccer and never go far in WCQ.

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

Talented team will overcome these kind of obstacles.

The way Guatemala, Panama & T&T all did?

What bothers me most of all is the thought that at least one of these three countries, who do not have more talent to draw from than we do, will be squaring off against a 5th placed Asian team in a home & home to get into the World Cup. That could so easily have been us.

This is where the "we didn't have enough talent to qualify argument" falls down. If you can indicate where the superior talent on those three teams are I might change my opinion.

[Free kick]

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

The way Guatemala, Panama & T&T all did?

What bothers me most of all is the thought that at least one of these three countries, who do not have more talent to draw from than we do, will be squaring off against a 5th placed Asian team in a home & home to get into the World Cup. That could so easily have been us.

This is where the "we didn't have enough talent to qualify argument" falls down. If you can indicate where the superior talent on those three teams are I might change my opinion.

Maybe there isn't noticably superior talent on the Honduran and Guatemalan side. But at the same time, in the games versus these sides, Canada didn't not exactly display that they had noticably surperior talent either. I cannot think of a single game that we dominated for 90 minutes much like the match against T&T in Edmonton in 2000. The problem is that we are unable to create a sufficient number of quality scoring chances to score more than one goal per game and/or win our fair share of matches. Compared to your typical weekend match on TV involving relatively evenly matched sides, Canada did not create a comparable number of scoring chances in order to get more goals. We are capable of sustaining possession for a certain period of time but we still cannot create the plays that will break down tough defences. For example, individual efforts to beat defenders or quality through balls or crosses. As a result we are vulnerable in home game where the opposition sits back with many men behind the ball and waits for the counterattack opportunity on balls that are lost in Midfield ( eg.: the game versus Guatemala in Burnaby). We have see this before haven't we.

What puzzles me, is that we do have some players who can display tactical brilliance when they play for their clubs. But some reason it doesn't happen when they line up for MNT. A couple of weeks after the semi final round of qualifying, i caught a game on the tube involving JDG. He was brilliant in that game. Showiing the kind of play that we didn't see in qualifying. Similarly, Otto was getting great reviews for his play in Norway and drawing interest from bigger clubs. I suspect that travel has alot to do with it. Or the chemistry of players selected is not right.

In any tournament of this kind, you certainly need breaks. Had Canada be placed in another group, we could have been playing in hex next year. But that doesn't change the fact that our qualifying results are very much a continuation of what we saw in the results for the 2-3 years leading up WCQ 2006. Eventually our game would have been exposed. If not in the hex, then in Germany. One cannot help but think about the kind of qualifying breaks that the Saudis got in order to get to Korea/Japan. Yet once there, their tactical inferiority and poor tackling/defensive play had been exposed. Similarly, our technical play might very well have been exposed in the same manner in Germany and what good would that have acomplished for the game in Canada in the long term. Teams can get positive results under many circumstances. But qestion remains, did we play well enough as team to qualify for the hex?

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

Maybe there isn't noticably superior talent on the Honduran and Guatemalan side. But at the same time, in the games versus these sides, Canada didn't not exactly display that they had noticably surperior talent either.

Yes, but we haven't been arguing that - the argument has been made that Canada had lesser talent than our opponents and that's why we were unable to make the Hex & World Cup. And remember that part of our argument is that we had equal or better talent but it wasn't selected - therefore you did not see it on the field. Perhaps Brennan, Nsaliwa, Klukowski & Hirshfeld wouldn't have made a difference, but I doubt it highly - that is after all potentially four players out of 11 on the field, which is a fairly high enough percentage.

I agree that our talent on the field isn't being utilized properly into a proper cohesive unit, but that's where the criticisms of the coaching & preparation come into play, which is a different consideration that lack of talent. Yes, I think we can all agree that our talent level can be improved over all, but that's not to say that we must agree that our opponents like Guatemala advanced instead of us because their skill level was just too high for us to compete against.

[Grizzly]

I don't think anyone is disputing the fact that Canada needs to develop more talented players and more depth. I am only disputing the supposition that we didn't have the talent to beat Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. We may indeed have had some bad results if we made the WC and faced top teams. The problem is with our limited talent pool we need to have all of our top players playing for us and in a tactical system that suits their abilities. Countries like Germany, Holland and Brazil can easily replace a few players who the coach doesn't like with others of similar ability. If a few players don't fit into the coach's tactical philosophy they can be replaced by equally talented players who do. We are improving both in our top players and in depth but are still far away from being able to do this.

My greatest frustration in the last 2-3 years of Canadian soccer is that we are seeing our talent pool slowly but surely improving but that we are never seeing the best players on the pitch. Holger had increasingly larger personal problems with many of the players and played the last few years of his tenure with depleted lineups. This was worsened by his prejuidices against players from North American leagues and youth players which stunted the growth of our depth pool. Finally Holger was taken to account for this problem, possibly a bit too late and Yallop was hired in order to correct this. Unfortunately the situation hasn't improved under Yallop who has had his own problems with several players and then didn't select many deserving players in favour of some dubious replacements for reasons that I have yet not heard explained. In the past 3 years only the Wales friendly and Belize matches featured anything near to what I would consider our A team. Put our A team out against our CONCACAF opponents in a suitable tactical formation and if we still lose I will listen to claims that we don't have enough talent to beat these teams. Until then I think the only thing that the last 3 years have proved is that we need all of our best players on the field and subs bench if we are to have success against other mid-level soccer nations.

[BearcatSA]

Passing and possession are absolutely crucial in both attack and defence, and for most of the qualifying matches I saw (and re-watched on tape) I thought we were the weakest team in the group in this vital area. Players giving the ball away with inaccurate, "on the deck" passing, players not having passing support options, players not passing at the right moment, then holding the ball too long, attempting to shield in a one on one situation, getting stripped, etc. I'm not sure if that is a lack of talent or a lack of teamwork. I'm inclined towards the latter because the play in the match away to Honduras and the first half home to Costa Rica showed much improved passing and attacking variety, including more early balls from the flanks to our swift front runners and fewer backpasses to our keeper!

I believe we had enough talent to get to the hex.

[denis]

Bearcat I'm with you on the lack of team work issue. I felt the most noticible difficency was our inability to move fwd effectively. This is more an issue of team cohesion than just lack of tallent. All our competition in the last round showed there superiority over us in this reguard.

[BearcatSA]

Denis, I'm hoping more friendlies in 2005 will address the teamwork component, especially if Yallop decides upon what his first team selection looks like, then introduces the likes of younger players, such as Klukowski, into the mix.