July 9 GC - USA v Canada - POST-match [R]

[DJT]

<center>Gold Cup - USA 2005

First Round, Match 2United States 2  Canada Saturday, July 9, 2005

1:30 PM PDT / 2:30 PM MDT / 3:30 PM CDT / 4:30 PM EDT / 5:30 PM ADT / 6:00 PM NDT

Qwest Field, Seattle</center>

Stats: United States - Canada

Final score - Qwest Stadium

United States 2 - 0 Canada

Atiba Hutchinson (og 48)

Landon Donovan (90)

Teams US

18 Kasey Keller

6 Steve Cherundolo

4 Oguchi Onyewu

23 Eddie Pope

3 Greg Vanney

10 Landon Donovan

25 Pablo Mastroeni

5 John O'Brien

19 Steve Ralston

13 Pat Noonan

16 Josh Wolff

Substitutions

J Conrad for E Pope (47)

D Beasley for J O'Brien (67)

C Armas for P Noonan (81)

CANADA

Greg Sutton 1

Adam Braz 2

Gabriel Gervais 5

Adrian Serioux 8

Patrice Bernier 6

Jim Brennan 11

Atiba Hutchinson 13

Patrick Leduc 16

Josh Simpson 15

Dwayne De Rosario 14

Olivier Occean 10

Substitutions

J Peters for P Leduc (68)

A Gerba for O Occean (70)

S Grande for J Brennan (79)

Yellow Cards

US:Landon Donovan (45)

Pablo Mastroeni (75)

Oguchi Onyewu (90)

CAN: Dwayne De Rosario (23)

Adrian Serioux (26)

Red Cards

US: None

CAN: Adrian Serioux (82)

Shots (on Goal) US: 15 (7) CAN: 8 (5)

Fouls: US 11 CAN: 14

Off-sides: US: 0 CAN: 2

Corners: US 8 CAN: 1

Saves: US:2 CAN: 3

Referee: Neal Brizam, Trinidad and Tobago

[strobe_z]

Well.. I'm sick of losing.

I do have to say we looked at least a little positive in our play though. The USA had only a couple of really good chances, and anyone but Bernier would've had that. He's been in good position a couple of times and either waited too long and lost the ball, or blasted it wide. If he could hit the ball on the volley... we'd be looking at a win and a draw I'd suspect.

[Gordon]

Another stupid card for dissent (or displaying passion and commitment to Canada depending on your point of view.) leading to a red when Canada pressing for a goal. How many times do we have to keep shooting ourselves in the foot before we figure out the gun is loaded?

Score flattering to the Americans who were not that much better than us overall. Lots of "shots" that wouldn't have scored on our U-19 ladies keeper, padding their stats. Our finishing downright horrible! We couldn't have scored on their U-19 ladies keeper with our efforts.

Overall, better, promising as they were closer to their A team than we were, but their attack much, much better organized. Standouts for Canada, I thought: Serioux (other than his dissent); Simpson (much better than last game, clearly learning); Hutchinson (unfortunate on the own goal) and Occean (great control as a target forward today). Peters showed well in his short period of time. Sutton was good, no chances on the goals, no mistakes. Leuc still disappointing to me, although better than last time.

Positive play generally, we need to get onthe same page offensively. Does Yallop even coach this element of the game?

[Paddy]

quote:Originally posted by strobe_z

Well.. I'm sick of losing.

Hey, come on, didn't you hear Craig and Gerry...it was a moral victory for Canada.

Moral Victory table

Canada morally victorious over Costa Rica.

Canada morally victorious over the USA.

I am sure we can pull out a moral victory over Cuba, too.

We are pretty much sure of a place in the moral quarterfinals.

Oh yes, and Yallop, way to explain 'discipline' to your players after the first game. Also, I suggest starting our best players in the next game and trying to get a lead rather than playing catch up.

Overall a better performance than I expected, but still, something is really wrong.

[ESG Shawn]

Another frustrating match, another dissapointing loss. However, there were some positives.

I agree with you Gordon, Serioux was my man of the match, everytime he had the ball he created something positive. Great touches, great passing, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing him build on this performance.

Simpson was also a player who caught my eye. He mad a couple nice runs and was pretty solid on the defensive side of the ball as well. Sometimes he tried to do a little too much with the ball but all and all, he had a solid match today.

I thought De Rosario had terrible first touches on the ball today. He received a few balls in promising positions but his first touch was letting him down. He looked good passing the ball and had a few nice crosses, if only we had a finisher....

Maybe we can go with Occean and Hume/Gerba upfront vs Cuba with De Rosario just behind them as someone suggested in the pre match thread.

[Bxl Boy]

Sad lost, but logical

Half of the match, the US pressured us in our own half/third of the field

They could cross too much times

What our lateral backs did was good, the problem was what they didn't do... preventing all those dangerous crosses. So, I give them bad numbers.

Sutton saw the difference between D1 and international level. Often off position, not easy balls he only has to jump and take it...

Our centre backs were good, no mistake by Gervais and Hutchinson except the goal... very sad...

Loved Serioux too but we clearly miss a playmaker...

Bernier missed too much things. Brennan was so so, Occean played pretty well even if he was isolated up front

Finally, de Rosario. What can I say about him ? Is he really useful ? I mean : yes, he's doing wonderful things, running, etc. But so much gasp ! Awful, we all get mad because of that ! He's on his planet... but does it help the team ? Today, certainly not.

Even if I give bad commentars on the individual performance, I think we did pretty well, almost in the first half, on a collective point. That's a good point and if we keep that, almost for the future when the players will be more experienced with such matches and with all our troops available.

Hope we'll beat Cuba (I'll be there ) and go to the next round

[devioustrevor]

The thing I don't get is awhile back Yallop said that he wouldn't be playing people out of position anymore yet he had played Atiba as a Central Defender in both games. As much as I thought he'd be what Canada needs, I am now officially on the 'Fire Frank' bandwagon.

[loyola]

Wow, Paddy found a way to bash Yallop on a player getting a card for dissent. The coach can't do everything, maybe he told them but Serioux didn,t get the message. You better criticize him for not starting Grande over Leduc, but still we played well in the first half and got unlucky early in the second.

Sutton, didn't stand a chance on both goals, I thought he would've received more shots.

DeRo, this guy is impossible, shouldn't have been our captain and heis a very frustrating player to watch.

Simpson, showed some nice skills with a nice run but sometimes should pass instead of dribbling. Doesn't look that good on the defensive part of the game.

I agree Serioux was very good. But the red card..........

Occean, also agree with Gordon on that one.

Peeters is better than I thought, very interesting prospect.

I don't think we should've expected a win against the US but a draw would have been possible. I still think we showed some interesting stuff but we need to improve our finishing and now a new thing our discipline.

[RJB]

This is too repetative. I don't care how close we came, or how we're on the verge of being good. The fact is that we aren't, and have shown very little since the beginning of WCQ and into the Gold Cup that suggests we are any further ahead than we were fifteen years ago.

I agree that this was better than the Costa Rica game, but the fact is that it wasn't good enough. Frank Yallops job really should hinge on the Cuba game. If they don't win decisively, then he needs to go.

[Gordon]

quote:Originally posted by devioustrevor

The thing I don't get is awhile back Yallop said that he wouldn't be playing people out of position anymore yet he had played Atiba as a Central Defender in both games. As much as I thought he'd be what Canada needs, I am now officially on the 'Fire Frank' bandwagon.

Frank can be faulted for only selecting two centre backs, but Hutch was their in game one because Gervais was injured and game two because McKenna was carded. Given that the third choice is Pizzolitto, I think I'll forgive Frank his choices, as I think Hutchinson did better than Nevio would have. Of course, I am not sure why Reda wasn't selected, espec. since Kluka and Nsaliwa declined.

[Paddy]

quote:Originally posted by loyola

Wow, Paddy found a way to bash Yallop on a player getting a card for dissent.

Second game in a row a player was red carded, so it wasn't hard. We must have about 8 players on yellows now (5 after the first game, i believe). If its not Yallop's job then whose is it?

[loyola]

So every time a player get carded it's the coach fault? No fault on the player at all, all on the coach who maybe did his job but the player forgot the message for a second or two.

[LMW]

I thought Canada played better in the Costa Rica match. This game against the U.S. was disappointing. We could only string a couple of passes together minimally throughout the game. Our touch on the ball is terrible, same with our confidence. Can't expect anything more from this or future Canadian teams until we take soccer seriously in this country. The U.S. passed the ball around nicely and they have a great touch on the ball. This is what you get from a country that makes a serious effort to improve their game.

[Paddy]

quote:Originally posted by loyola

So every time a player get carded it's the coach fault? No fault on the player at all, all on the coach who maybe did his job but the player forgot the message for a second or two.

Hume

Stalteri

McKenna

Seroux

How many more examples do you need? It is Yallop's job, and he is obviously not doing it.

[loyola]

No, it's the player job to control himself when a bad call happen and he disagree with it. If a player personnality it to argue after every call I'm afraid the manager can't do much. Look at Hume, he has 11 cards in England, is that his manager fault, the same can be said about a player like Rooney.

Yallop is spending 4 weeks in the year with those guy, if they can't control themselve you have to look more at their clubs than Yallop.

I suppose that it was Yallop fault when Stalteri decided to throw a bottle on the pitch against Honduras.

Yallop job is to tell the player not to argue with the ref and to be discipline, but if one decide that to argue with the ref what can Yallop do??? It's not like Yallop is giving a bad example to his players......unlike Osieck who got red carded once......

P

[Gordon]

I think if we split the middle between you guys we'll get to the right spot. I think the responsibility is shared between the two: manager and player. The player for what he does, and the Manager for how he chooses to handle things. In the case today, despite the fact that Serioux was playing well, why not sub him when he takes the card? To send a message to all the players that this sort of lack of discipline will not be tolerated. I can understand leaving in McKenna when we have no other centre half, but Yallop needs to be putting his foot down. we are ebcoming the Arsenal of CONCACAF (unfortunately only in the discipline record).

[Paddy]

quote:Originally posted by Gordon

I think if we split the middle between you guys we'll get to the right spot. I think the responsibility is shared between the two: manager and player. The player for what he does, and the Manager for how he chooses to handle things. In the case today, despite the fact that Serioux was playing well, why not sub him when he takes the card? To send a message to all the players that this sort of lack of discipline will not be tolerated. I can understand leaving in McKenna when we have no other centre half, but Yallop needs to be putting his foot down. we are ebcoming the Arsenal of CONCACAF (unfortunately only in the discipline record).

Yup, that's it exactly. Teach discipline and enforce it. If not, then there is a problem. If the players don't respect the coach then the coach has to find players that do, or else the coach must leave. These discipline problems are costing us again and again. I just can't believe that it hasn't been raised as an issue. If it has, then players should ride the pine, as their absense will not hurt us as much as their inclusion.

[loyola]

That's an interesting opinion Gordon, but you're sending another message to your players if you sub them because they're arguing with the ref: You're not sticking with them. Look at basketball a lot of coaches will take a T because they want to show to their players that he's with them and that the refs aren,t doing their job.

But letting this go is also dangerous because we seem to have some discipline problems, which is new to the team. But my point is that we have no indication that FY hasn't adress this point with the team. And subbing a guy for this........I don,t think so.

[Soccer_Josh]

Outstanding preformance! best ive seen in a long time. After that preformance I finally have confidence that we can beay Cuba on Tuesday. Hats Off to a terrific game.

[gardencity]

I thought we looked solid most of the game, definitely need to work on our poise around their 18 yard box, but the one thing I've taken most positively from the last two games is our poise in our own 18 yard box. I saw the fellas dinking it around amongst themselves on several occasions, supporting the ball and each other and coming out of their end with positive ball control and even a couple of counter attacks. I think if we can build that poise and promise from the defenders, it only bodes well for better service to midfield, and obviously at the striker position. I was heartbroken as usual with the own goal (constant run of misfortune) but the defensive ball control in areas where we may have just booted it away in the past looks promising. Yallop has to keep pushing that, he was the worst at just lofting it away.....a.k.a. Frank Whallop

cheers GC

[BearcatSA]

Just to change the pace from player discipline to player evaluation, I would like to quote Comic Book Man's assessment of Leduc: "Worst Canadian player ever!"

Okay, I think his appraisal of the Impact midfield man was a little harsh but I didn't think Leduc warranted a start ahead of Grande (unless Grande was nursing an injury I was unaware of). He worked hard but he always seemed a step behind in anticipation, and his technical side was lacking international pedigree. Behold the video evidence:

7th minute: inaccurate return pass to a retreating Adam Braz after the latter's throw in. Possession cheaply lost.

9th minute: takes pass in midfield, moves to the right, sends a poor ground pass to a Canadian flank player that goes out of play. Possession lost cheaply

19th minute: makes a run through midfield, ball gets too far in front of him suddenly turning the situation into a 50-50 challenge, gets there first but desperately hooks the ball in the general vicinity of Simpson, promptly intercepted by a Yank, resulting in a counterattack. Possession lost cheaply.

Gerry and Craig were very generous in praising his improved performance today... I'm not going to be so kind.

[aussoccerfan]

Any photos from the game ?

[BearcatSA]

On a positive note: great tackle, Adam Braz, on Greg Vanney. Crunch!!

[Crazy_Yank]

I think the main difference was skill level. The US players can all dribble in tight spaces and pass the ball around. Canada didn't string passes together and never really looked threatening. This group of US players have not played together very much. Overall I'd say that Canada did not play well.

[youllneverwalkalone]

quote:Originally posted by Crazy_Yank

I think the main difference was skill level. The US players can all dribble in tight spaces and pass the ball around. Canada didn't string passes together and never really looked threatening. This group of US players have not played together very much. Overall I'd say that Canada did not play well.

Wow, you should see us on an off night! [)]

Far be it from me to mess with Texas, but the main difference I saw was depth at the back and a couple of class players we are without.