Red tide rising

[JB_Tito]

Red tide rising

By Scott Ferguson ,a student of the game based in Ontario, Canada.

Fresh off a 7-1 aggregate win over St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Canada’s national team will take on Mexico, Honduras and Jamaica in a four-team home-and-away round robin series beginning August 20th. Early reports are indicating that the squad will line up against Jamaica at BMO Field on that date.

A victory in their first semifinal match could prove vital for Canada’s World Cup hopes. At this stage of the preliminary tournament for the World Cup in 2002, Canada, fresh off a Gold Cup win in 2000, were beaten by Trinidad & Tobago at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. The sour mood around the stadium at half-time was only compounded by the fact that the organizers had invited a Caribbean steel drums band.

In 2004, hopes were high after an 8-0 aggregate win over Belize after two games at Richardson Stadium on the Queens’ campus in Kingston, Ontario. They were quickly dashed once again, however, as Canada fell 2-0 to Guatemala in Burnaby, B.C.

With two soccer-specific-stadiums and a growing fan base, 2010 could be the year that Canada finally makes reaches the biggest stage in world football since 1986. As CONCACAF’s second representative behind hosts Mexico that year, Tony Waiters’ men impressed defensively but slipped out of the tournament without scoring a goal.

Many of the leading lights on Dale Mitchell’s squad have already expressed a preference for the immaculately-groomed grass surface at Montreal’s Saputo Stadium, and indeed, the short-passing game favored by Canada’s new breed of superstars was out in full force on Friday night at Saputo. Last month’s 3-2 defeat to Brazil at Qwest Field was another exercise in joga bonito by both teams, who took full advantage of the grass surface brought in for the night to create a football spectacle.

Toronto’s soccer-specific-stadium has a lot of things going for it, including the raucous atmosphere that Toronto FC season-ticket-holders are likely to bring to any Canadian fixture; one thing BMO Field lacks, however, is grass.

When the plans for Canada’s first Major League Soccer franchise were being drawn up, community use at BMO Field was high on the agenda. In the winter, youth teams play on the field turf under a bubble protecting the stadium. Natural grass, it is argued, could not survive continued use throughout the cold months of the MLS off-season.

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