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OPEN CANADA CUP SECOND SEMI FINAL


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Saturday September 2/2006

London City vs. Ottawa St. Anthony Italia(WILD CARD GAME) has been postponed due to the weather.

The game will be played Sunday at 7:38pm.

Other rescheduled games and times are as Followed

Monday, September 4, 4.08 pm Brampton Stallions vs. Winner of the Wild Card game (SECOND SEMI-FINAL)

Monday, September 4 Toronto Lynx / Team and Date TBA

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Ottawa Italia advance

Ottawa St. Anthony Italia of the Ottawa Carleton Soccer League got a first half jump and never looked back in defeating the CSL’s London City 3-1 in a wild card game of the Open Canada Cup played at the Cove Road ground in London Sunday night.

The win moves the capital city team to the second semi-final and a date with another CSL side, Brampton Stallions on Labour Day Monday at Cove Road, a 4.08 pm kickoff.

The winner of Monday’s semi-final will meet the USL’s Toronto Lynx following that team’s 1-0 win over London AEK on Friday night. The Ottawa Italia vs. London City wild game played Sunday was originally scheduled for Saturday but rain washed out that game to put the weekend program behind 24 hours. The second semi-final goes on Monday and the Open Canada Cup Final will be delayed for several days and will be announced during the coming week.

Ottawa’s Urbaine Some opened the scoring on a penalty kick at the 11th minute mark after London midfielder Johan Wikman brought down Italia’s Souleymane Gagou inside the 18 yard line. Gagou scored the second Ottawa goal at the 28th minute mark for a 2-0 score at the interval.

London City fought to get on even terms in the second half, but could only match an Ottawa Italia second half goal by Christian Hoefler with a 79 minute strike by defender Marco Peeters and the 3-1 score held to the final whistle.

London City manager Harry Gauss was visibly disappointed with the loss. “The turning point was early in the game, the penalty put us behind and we never really recovered,” he said.

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Results to date in the 2006 Open Canada Cup:

FIRST ROUND

Hamilton Serbians 1, GS United 0

London AEK 5, Hamilton Argentina 78 0

SECOND ROUND

Ottawa St. Anthony Italia 4, Laval Dynamites 2

Italia Shooters 2, vs. Oakville Blue Devils 0

Brampton Stallions 5, North York Astros 0

London AEK 1, St. Catharines Wolves 0

Hamilton Serbians 3, Toronto Supra Portuguese 2

London City 4, Caribbean Selects 1

Serbian White Eagles 2. Toronto Lynx 2 (Toronto Lynx win 4-3 on penalty kicks)

THIRD ROUND:

London AEK 2, London City 1

Ottawa St. Anthony Italia 1, Windsor Border Stars 0

Brampton Stallions 1, Italia Shooters 0

Toronto Lynx 1, Hamilton Serbians 0

WILD CARD GAME

Ottawa St.Anthony Italia 3, London City 1

FIRST SEMI-FINAL

Toronto Lynx 1, London AEK 0

SECOND SEMI-FINAL

Ottawa St. Anthony Italia 3, Brampton Stallions 1

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quote:Originally posted by Richard

None of the CSL clubs made it through - wow.

St.Anthony has a long history of a close knit community dedicated to help eachother in every aspect of soccer.they've been around for about a half a decade.Italia is just one product of their successes.

I'm not going to take away or put down any team from any league that has been defeated by them.St.Anthony Italia earned their place to fight for cup. The Toronto Lynx better be at the top of their game,or the USL will be another notch on the belt for Ottawa.

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I quite agree, well done St. Anthony. I remember that club from my days in Ottawa with my son playing against their youth teams. They were always strong competitors. I was more interested that none of the CSL 'professional' teams managed to make it through to the final, not even the much vaunted ethnic/international ones supposedly stacked with professional imports.

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Richard,I'm not surprised at all.Anytime you have a team in north america that play's european style soccer and pit them up against a style of soccer that is so different as the case is here,It throws them for a loop.They don't know how to adjust and in most cases, they get frustrated and before you know it,they either lose the game or use the excuse that we don't know how to play soccer the right way...I find that funny!!!.

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The only team in the international division that is above the regular playing level of the CSL is the Serbian White Eagles and they were placed in an early round match with the Lynx and only went out on penalty kicks. This was really the only CSL team that might have done some damage in the competition. Otherwise, I think it has to be quite embarrassing to the CSL that an amateur team has defeated all of the CSL competition it faced and in most cases quite easily. Nor was it the only amateur team to defeat CSL competition. I wish the CSL all the success but like Richard really have a hard time correlating the franchise fee asked with the level of play, crowds and organization offered by this league. Maybe the high fee gets rid of some less serious teams but it also seems like several of the elite teams in Ontario, teams superior to many of the CSL teams in playing level, are also not convinced that the CSL offers them anything superior to what they are getting in their city's elite men's league. I think the only CSL team that is at par with St. Anthony's is the White Eagles and I think many of the other Ottawa men's league teams are just as good as an average CSL team. If people are willing to pay the franchise fee then good for the CSA but if I were a team owner I certainly would not go this route. A better solution might be to lower the franchise fee but require teams have a certain player budget at the start of each year so that the level of play could be raised.

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quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

I think the only CSL team that is at par with St. Anthony's is the White Eagles and I think many of the other Ottawa men's league teams are just as good as an average CSL team.

Actually that isn't quite true. Far from it TBH.

Soccer Standings OCSL Men Premier - Outdoor 2006

Stats below are (GF / GA / GDiff / Pts)

St Anthony 69 21 48 34

Ottawa Royals 49 18 31 31

CAPU MEN PR 29 23 6 26

Hornets MP 30 40 -10 16

Ottawa United 19 31 -12 16

OISC MP 25 26 -1 14

Rockers 15 22 -7 12

Kanata Light'g 14 69 -55 0

A league of two "halves". One with St. Anthony's and the Royals (CAPU just beat up on the rest of the division), and the other with the rest. Pretty poor in reality.

The Royals lost three or four players to St. Anthony's and that had a dual effect at the top of the standings.

But congrats to St. A's. Their runs in both Cups added to the CIS runs of the Ravens men and Gee-Gees women last year (along with the Algonquin Thunder at the college level) highlights a very purple patch for the Ottawa amateur soccer community at the present time.

GWS

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the lynx certainly had a difficult road - as the results suggest. never winning by more than 1 goal. were they playing their first choice XI in all the matches? will they have gas left for the final? have they promoted their place in the final in anyway to try and attract some lynx fans to the game?

the question i wonder however, with the apparent open cup for this fall with the USL sides, will the open canada cup still be around? if only to determine the participants in the fall cup? if the fall cup does not go forward, will we see expansion to quebec in anyway to try and entice the impact into the cup as well?

side question: what is the quality of soccer like in western ontario as the province nears sudbury and manitoba? do they have teams which can compete at this level? if they can, then manitoba may want to consider participation as well?

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quote:Originally posted by gwsmith63

Actually that isn't quite true. Far from it TBH.

Soccer Standings OCSL Men Premier - Outdoor 2006

Stats below are (GF / GA / GDiff / Pts)

St Anthony 69 21 48 34

Ottawa Royals 49 18 31 31

CAPU MEN PR 29 23 6 26

Hornets MP 30 40 -10 16

Ottawa United 19 31 -12 16

OISC MP 25 26 -1 14

Rockers 15 22 -7 12

Kanata Light'g 14 69 -55 0

A league of two "halves". One with St. Anthony's and the Royals (CAPU just beat up on the rest of the division), and the other with the rest. Pretty poor in reality.

The Royals lost three or four players to St. Anthony's and that had a dual effect at the top of the standings.

But congrats to St. A's. Their runs in both Cups added to the CIS runs of the Ravens men and Gee-Gees women last year (along with the Algonquin Thunder at the college level) highlights a very purple patch for the Ottawa amateur soccer community at the present time.

GWS

These standings prove my point instead of disproving it. What is different in these standings from the CSL standings? In the Ottawa league there are two other teams competitive with St. Anthony. If they were playing in the CSL international division only the White Eagles and possibly Croatia would be competitive with them. In the regular division probably none of the teams would be competitive with them, they quite handily beat the the 2nd and 3rd place teams in this division. My point is if I were head of St. Anthony's, Royals or CAPU and was looking at paying a significant franchise fee to play in another league that league would have to offer among other things a significantly higher level of play. At the moment CSL would offer St. Anthony's two competitive teams with a lot of cannon fodder teams which is exactly the same situation as they find themselves in their amateur men's league. I think this is the reason why none of the Ottawa teams have joined the CSL and that the one team that is not playing in the Amateur league decided to join the PDL instead of the CSL. Again I state that if the CSL wants to be a serious league, it needs to dedicate less funds to league administration and more funds to team player budgets to raise the level of play.

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All,

Firstly, congratulations to Ottawa and the Toronto Lynx. The Open Canada Cup has been a well fought event with some great soccer, and the teams most deservant have advanced to the final.

Secondly, I am very proud of the nobility of the CSL to offer an Open Cup Competition. Unlike any other league that I know of in Canada, we 'open it up' for scrutiny by allowing amateur teams to compete with our professional clubs.

Thirdly, in four years, our clubs have won 3 cups. We have had over 40 amateur clubs particpate to date, and now a USL club.

We feel clearly that the quality of the CSL, and the professionalism of the organization, as a whole is above any amatuer league (PCSL and PDL included) in the country and positioned correctly in Canada.

If AAA baseball teams played Major League teams, or CFL teams player NFL teams, or AHL teams played NHL teams, on occasions their would be upsets.

As well, attendance for the CSL finals in London was nearly 2000 for three games in total - we think that is 'well attended' for our league and pro soccer in Ontario.

Again, we are proud of the event, and although they are not CSL clubs, we are pouud of the teams that have advanced. We look forward to an entertaining championship.

Cary Kaplan

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Kaplan:

No regrets required for Ottawa being in the final against the Lynx.

Ottawa dominated the CPSL prior to being kicked out. The team disappeared; not the players. With the population of both Hull and Ottawa to pick from at least one or two pretty respectable teams has the base to form very competitive squads.

The Canada Cup is kind of like the FA Cup minus the Canada's two or three best teams.

Without question, the officiating for the games is professional and a step up from any amateur games I've seen.

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quote:Originally posted by CSL Commissioner

We feel clearly that the quality of the CSL, and the professionalism of the organization, as a whole is above any amatuer league (PCSL and PDL included) in the country and positioned correctly in Canada.

I really fail to see any basis for you making this claim, seems like wishful thinking with no basis in reality. I am no expert on previous Open Cup competition and the quality of amateur sides entered in them but this year there were three amateur clubs who defeated CSL teams, one of them making the finals and the other two being eliminated not by CSL teams but by the USL Lynx. St. Anthony's defeated 4 CSL teams en route to the finals and only one team even managed to stay within 1 goal of St. Anthony's. These hardly seem like upsets as you imply. The CSL only managed to get 1 team in the semi-finals of its own competition even despite the Wild Card game which gave London City a second chance. This is despite the fact that a number of the better amateur teams in the province did not even enter the competition, from Ottawa alone Royals, CAPU and the Fury did not enter (I am sure there are some amateur teams in other cities of a similar level) all of whom seem to be at least at the level of a typical CSL team. Had some of these teams entered how many CSL clubs would even have made the 3rd round?

The point of all this is not to give you a hard time but rather to point out what has to be the number 1 priority of the CSL and that is to significantly improve the playing level. If you are going to get the respect of posters here and soccer fans, claim to be a professional league above amateur level and claim that you are superior to leagues like the PCSL and PDL then you are going to have to have a much better product on the field than you currently have. At present the evidence does not support your claims.

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The CSL Commissioner is doing what he is paid to do - cheerleading for the CSL.

That being said, he is quite right that in open cup events there are occasional upsets but this year there seems to have been an inordinate domination of CSL teams by amateur teams. This is not a knock of the CSL but merely a suggestion that perhaps the standard of play is not quite as high and professional as the CSL would like everyone to believe - or am completely wrong here?

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