Crappy Canadian Team??! More Debate Anybody?

[Ian Kennett]

We have discussed and debated a lot about the state of the Canadian National team, and we compare it to more established and superior teams. We always have this optomistic view that SOON, SOON we will be better and in the World Cup. Then we grieve and argue about good players playing for another country, and we repeat the process.

I believe that the question is: How do we develop Canadian players to the point that a) they are good enough to improve our national team, and

they will want to play for our country if faced with another choice?

What if Owen Hargreaves and Jonathan De Guzman and Ugo Ihemelu, all faced with more than one international choice, had (or will opt) opted for Canada? Would that not have made our program instantly better? Of course it would.

So, what does the CSA have to do to improve the standard of our national team? What is it doing well? Where is it missing the boat completely? Which players will make Canada better on the world stage?

Ideas? More debate anybody?

[Richard]

What program do you think the addition of these players to the MNT would make instantly better?

It would be unlikely to have much if any impact on the development of younger players and after all is that not the root cause of our lack of achievement at the MNT level?.

[Ian Kennett]

Richard,

I wonder if, had Canada qualified for the 2006 World Cup, there would be a lot of excitement among Canadians and among Canadian soccer players. I wonder if Canada had qualified would Jonathan De Guzman perhaps be leaning more to playing with his brother in Germany this summer? I wonder if there would be the establishment of a couple of Canadian soccer heroes for young players to look up to. I wonder if the CSA would have millions of dollars more to spend on soccer player development.

If we can get our players to the standard needed to be a stronger team at the international level, then we will succeed. The question is, and here I agree with you, how do we do this?

Cheers!

[Free kick]

Wow. There is so much to say here that I don't know where to start. Plus I am not so sure that I have the energy to compose something that long. So I try with a few short points that are topical in that they have been raised in other threads today.

We need to keep as many players as possible at home until they are full developed. That means having a pro environment that fosters that development. One thing that hasn't been touched on much is the fact that there are many examples of players on our MNT that appear to perform better when they are with their European clubs and you are watching them on TV, as opposed to wearing the red Canadian jersies? Why is that? It could be that:

1)) Its hard to build chemestry and cohesion on the pitch when you have to bring players in who have developed their game in a multitude of different cultures.

2) Could it be displacement and fatigue.

3) Perhaps, even though we would hate to admit it, players loose their attachment to Canada as result of spending a significant and important part of their lives in a different culture or country. Maybe that extra engery, loyalty and drive that you get from the pride of representing your country is not there to same extent as it would for, say, our international hockey teams. Of course you will never hear any player admit or show this. But how do you really know how a player really feels on this issue? And what is more truly important to them, the pride of wearing the jersey or the feather in your cap for your professional career?

I think a that all three of the above could be addressed by having a stronger domestic pro structure that a national selector could count on. At least we should see the ball rolling on this front starting in 2007 with the MLS club.

I don't know to what extent Hargreaves would have helped. I thought that in the early stages of qualifying, we could have used him.

I don't think that coaching was all that great. We never got a spark from any of our subs and we had strikers playing on the wings who did not deliver the same quality of crosses that we saw from the players that the previous coach employed at those positions. Alot more to say on this But I'll leave it at that for now. Still, I hate to bring up coaching because it tends to become a scapegoat issue.

Regarding skills. It seems that everytime you think that we have made some progress here, we get a reality check and we end up seeing games like the Can-Col and Can-Ita from the recent u20 WC. You can never be too strong or satisfied ( if you are the CSA) in this area.

[Gian-Luca]

All three of those factors probably exist, though not necessarily with every player, and to a different extent with some. I agree that MLS coming to Canada is a start, and I hope it doesn't end with Toronto. The US has proven that with a domestic league & the best going abroad in numbers you can still be successful in this region, so there's no reason we can't emulate that success here, especially as I believe with our available personnel that we can call on, we have been underperforming within Concacaf recently. Having a base for those players in the country could make a huge difference in the ways you suggest.

[CanadasBest]

Good discussion here. I think the problem lies with hockey to be honest. The majority of our good players grew up in environments where soccer was the number one sport. What would have happened had Walter Gretzky kicked the ball around with Wayne rather than taught him hockey?? My point is that a huge percentage of our top athletes are growing up around hockey as the prime influence. Sure more kids play soccer than hockey, but they don't relate to many male soccer superstars in the same way they relate to and idolize the NHL stars. Steve Nash was an excellent soccer player but chose his other love basketball instead just to give an example.

Now that the female program has taken off here and we have some world class talent, we will continue to see production of world class female soccer players. In the next few years we will see a steady production of girls that want to follow in the footsteps of Lang, Sinclair etc.

The implimentation of large Canadian soccer franchises in Canada is a must. Be it MLS or another Canadian league. But i'm afraid that as most of our top athletes are striving for the NHL, we have been losing prospective superstars for years.

I guess it's up to us really to breed a new generation of soccer stars. lol But for the near future I can see the majority of our best talent coming from households where soccer is the main game, I.E. probably only about 10% of households. Also as a result, we may continue to face competition with other countries for these players since the majority of these households have immigrated from countries where soccer is THE sport.

[The Ref]

Hey gwallace76 do you still play soccer, if so what div and club.

[Curtis Armada]

Here’s my 2 cents.

IMHO, there is no soccer development worthwhile in Canada. Rad, Stalteri, Julian, Jonathan and even Owen developed their skills overseas NOT Canada. We need to have a program in Europe associated with a professional club. IMHO a player can be developed “properly” with the type of development they have in Europe. The player can also attend school and eventually receive residence status where the player does not have to sacrifice his Canadian nationality and still maintain an EU exception. A perfect example is Lionel Messi of Barcelona, he is not listed as a foreigner and also represent Argentina internationally. A professional team may help a bit but definitely not for developmental aspect especially on young players. We need the proper player development and there is NO qualified training available in Canada. If we keep on relying on the CSA’s lack of vision along with it’s provincial association, we will continue to lose our best talents overseas and continue our miserable & unsuccessful WC qualifying.

quote:Originally posted by Ian Kennett

We have discussed and debated a lot about the state of the Canadian National team, and we compare it to more established and superior teams. We always have this optomistic view that SOON, SOON we will be better and in the World Cup. Then we grieve and argue about good players playing for another country, and we repeat the process.

I believe that the question is: How do we develop Canadian players to the point that a) they are good enough to improve our national team, and

they will want to play for our country if faced with another choice?

What if Owen Hargreaves and Jonathan De Guzman and Ugo Ihemelu, all faced with more than one international choice, had (or will opt) opted for Canada? Would that not have made our program instantly better? Of course it would.

So, what does the CSA have to do to improve the standard of our national team? What is it doing well? Where is it missing the boat completely? Which players will make Canada better on the world stage?

Ideas? More debate anybody?

[Free kick]

quote:Originally posted by Curtis Armada

Here’s my 2 cents.

IMHO, there is no soccer development worthwhile in Canada. Rad, Stalteri, Julian, Jonathan and even Owen developed their skills overseas NOT Canada. We need to have a program in Europe associated with a professional club. IMHO a player can be developed “properly” with the type of development they have in Europe. The player can also attend school and eventually receive residence status where the player does not have to sacrifice his Canadian nationality and still maintain an EU exception.

Five years ago I would have agreed with this, but not anymore, you cannot rely on others to solve your own problem. Why would any entity ( club or country)in Europe feel so obliged to be that benevolent for Canada? They'll do it if there is something in it for them. That is nature of any contactual agreement. Then you need to ask yourself what could canada offer that Argentina, Brazil, ecuador, chile etc cannot? If I am club X in european country Y, why would I be interested in tapping and getting the inside track for talent in Canada as opposed to say Uruguay or Ghana?. Also, while you state a good example of Messi with Barcelona, why hasn't Barca demonstated an interest in Canadian talent and why would that change.

Secondly, You have to wonder what would happen to our national team if we adopt the " Send them all to Europe to develop" attitide. I think you need to have a national team with as many Canadians as possible. Not players who just happen to have Canada on their birth certificate or who who visit canada once in a while. To me, the most important factor in determining what nationality you really are is where you live? Otherwise its inevitable that the supertalents who develope in Europe will also question whether they are still Canadian. Heck, if you haven't lived here for an extended period, why bother crossing ponds for for 4-8 games every four years.

Thirdly, if we accept you assertion that we cannot keep on relying on the CSA’s lack of vision along with it’s provincial associations, then you also need to ask youself who has done a better job of developing canadian talent? the Montreal Impact and Lynx or the likes of Tranmere, Helsingborg, Ipswich, Tromso, Sheffield, Millwall, Sauerbrucken(sp). As I said earlier, my views on this matter have evolved and real eye opener has been the recent individual performance of our MNT players. Specifically, I saw little if anything to distinguish between the contribution of players from second tier leagues and clubs in Europe and those players from a-league clubs or who had transferred out of the a-league to Euro within an 12 month period. For stronger evidence, look at our recent U20 WC's. Which sqaud fared better? the 2005 version with virtually no a-leaguers and college players or the 2003 version with several ( eg>; matondo, DiTullio, Lemire, Arrango, Simpson etc.) .

In closing, If its barcelona ( or even Bremen , Olympique Marseille, Lille or Nantes)who is going to the develment work, then no one would complain. But more likely it will be some like Ipswich or Tranmere. Thats a huge difference.

[Alex M]

You take the exact same program and put Canada in Europe and all 3 players are playing for Canada, without a doubt. The history isn't there. De Guzman doesn't aspire to be the next Yallop.

I'm sure it has to do with travelling as well as the fact that Canada does have any shot at winning a world cup in our lifetime. England and the Netherlands do, I guess, even though neither has won one in my lifetime, but whatever.

Anyhow, pick Canada or I will kick your dog.

[Soju]

Yes now that's an interesting point about kicking said dog. I would like that on a T shirt.