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International Player of the Year 2008


Cheeta

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quote:Originally posted by bettermirror

What do you all see Imhof's chances being at future involvement with the nats? based on his bundesliga pedigree he should be a stalwart for us allowing JDG, DE RO and HUTCH to push forward. Yes, not really the appropriate place on the forum. Yes, I know he was hurt for a lot of WCQ.

I get the feeling that he's on the outside looking in, regardless of his injury situation in recent years and regardless of league pedigree. Based on his club situation and age he might chose to give up international football and focus exclusively on his club career. I don't know him personally, but if his Bundesliga situation starts to wane he could probably make a return to Switzerland and finish his pro career there.

Considering that we gave up six goals off of unopposed midfield counterattacks I think the lack of a true "destroyer" type of defensive midfielder hurt us. It's one of many things which need to be addressed.

Before I forget, I give a hearty and sincere thanks to you, Cheeta, et. al., for moderating this forum for another year. :D

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quote:Originally posted by Winnipeg Fury

YES

Agree but Ali didn't performed that well when it mattered the most. Say what you want but the SVG games were a formality. It would be like Italy giving their MVP to Luca Toni for his 12 goals in the year when 10 of them were scored against Vatican City....

Make no mistake, Ali is a good player and I was impressed by how he played in Edmonton, by far his best game in a canadian shirt but pointing to his "6 goals season" is a bit misleading IMO.

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quote:Originally posted by loyola

Agree but Ali didn't performed that well when it mattered the most. Say what you want but the SVG games were a formality. It would be like Italy giving their MVP to Luca Toni for his 12 goals in the year when 10 of them were scored against Vatican City....

Make no mistake, Ali is a good player and I was impressed by how he played in Edmonton, by far his best game in a canadian shirt but pointing to his "6 goals season" is a bit misleading IMO.

Ali only started 4 out of the 8 World Cup Qualifying games. He played 413 minutes and scored 6 goals. One every 68 minutes. He is second among goal scorers in Concacaf World Cup Qualifying and the top strikers in Concacaf have played far weaker competition than us. You think SVG was a joke, take a look at who some of the other teams played. SVG was the 2nd hardest team that the seeded teams faced in the 2nd round.

How did Ali not perform when it counted? The most important game against Jamaica Gerba was on the bench and Friend started. Friend basically played 4 games and 233 minutes and didn't score. Against Honduras no one looked good other than Radzinski until he got injured. Again against Mexico Gerba was on the bench and scored coming off.

I'm not arguing that Gerba should be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. Gerba did not have a lot of expectations coming into this year and played great. Friend, deGuzman, DeRo, Stalteri, Onstad all had great expectations coming into this year and none of them played up to the level that they should have.

Playing great for your club team but sH**ing the bed when you put on the Maple Leaf is probably the greateast argument not to be nominated International Player of the Year IMO.

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SVG might have been the second hardest on paper but the reality is that teams like Grenada, The Netherlands Antilles, Guyana, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and Bermuda proved to be a lot better opponent for the top 12 teams than SVG. You should know as a canadian fan that rankings in CONCACAF are not really a reference.

It's just a question of how you rank his performance with Canada. If you take into account the SVG games, it look excellent, if you don't look at it, it look like a good performance just like Radz, Kluka and Serioux had this cycle. But those 3 players have a far much better club year than Ali.

We can say what we want but JDG being nominated as Athlete of the year in Canada is giving him a lot of points even if he didn't played well in qualifying. I'm not going to vote for him for other reasons but I still understand why he's 2nd right now.

Ali's 3rd place so far is fair IMO but there's some argument not to have him on your top 3. Having DeRo or Lars in your top 3 is far worst than not having Ali IMO.

Anyways, Joyeux Noel!

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1. Juilian De Guzman

2. Tomas Radzinski

3. Paul Stalteri

With all due respect to Radzinski, playing in the second division of the Belgian league won't get you recognition in any country in the world, nor should it in Canada. Sorry bro. De Guzman has put in some exceptional displays at Deportivo and had become a very solid holding midfielder, gaining recognition in La Liga, which is no easy feat. He's become a starting player on a team that came first in the Spanish league ten years ago.

No other Canadian player can come close right now. Not to mention he's a great professional athlete.

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quote:Originally posted by earlimus

1. Juilian De Guzman

2. Tomas Radzinski

3. Paul Stalteri

With all due respect to Radzinski, playing in the second division of the Belgian league won't get you recognition in any country in the world, nor should it in Canada. Sorry bro. De Guzman has put in some exceptional displays at Deportivo and had become a very solid holding midfielder, gaining recognition in La Liga, which is no easy feat. He's become a starting player on a team that came first in the Spanish league ten years ago.

No other Canadian player can come close right now. Not to mention he's a great professional athlete.

Welcome aboard!

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quote:Originally posted by earlimus

1. Juilian De Guzman

2. Tomas Radzinski

3. Paul Stalteri

With all due respect to Radzinski, playing in the second division of the Belgian league won't get you recognition in any country in the world, nor should it in Canada. Sorry bro. De Guzman has put in some exceptional displays at Deportivo and had become a very solid holding midfielder, gaining recognition in La Liga, which is no easy feat. He's become a starting player on a team that came first in the Spanish league ten years ago.

No other Canadian player can come close right now. Not to mention he's a great professional athlete.

Yes, but all that is secondary to their performances for Canada, and that is where Radzinski really shined, both on and off field.

And you fail to mention Radzinski's performance last season in the Greek Super League, top 5 in scoring.

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quote:Originally posted by gwallace76

How did Ali not perform when it counted? The most important game against Jamaica Gerba was on the bench and Friend started. Friend basically played 4 games and 233 minutes and didn't score. Against Honduras no one looked good other than Radzinski until he got injured. Again against Mexico Gerba was on the bench and scored coming off.

I remember the ongoing Gerba/Friend debate during the WCQ: Friend starts the first match, Gerba comes on as a sub and a number of posters clamour for him to start the next game. He does, but then Friend replaces him and another group of posters clamour for Friend to start again. The BM man starts in Chiapas, but Gerba comes on as a sub and scores; Gerba starts again in Honduras but gets subbed by Friend not long after the restart. Gerba starts in Edmonton, scores an excellent goal, and has a strong match (along with a number of other players, including MOTM Radzinski, I might add). I'm not sure how relevant this is towards people's voting preferences, or whether some people out there might like to recast a vote in favour of Gerba, I don't know.

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Geoff, your posts made my day. I think Radz is most deserving of the #1 spot but I voted for Ali because I knew he would get no love from a lot of guys. A great WCQ performance should outweigh a great club season in which you shat the bed in WCQ.

And maybe in a few years when Ali is Canada's all-time leading scorer and Friend has 3 for us we'll stop with the "Friend is a better striker, we just don't play him right" crap. rant over.

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quote:Originally posted by Scottie

And maybe in a few years when Ali is Canada's all-time leading scorer and Friend has 3 for us we'll stop with the "Friend is a better striker, we just don't play him right" crap. rant over.

Hard to say, right? Maybe in a couple of short years neither of these guys will be on the radar screen, who knows?

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quote:Originally posted by Scottie

Geoff, your posts made my day. I think Radz is most deserving of the #1 spot but I voted for Ali because I knew he would get no love from a lot of guys. A great WCQ performance should outweigh a great club season in which you shat the bed in WCQ.

And maybe in a few years when Ali is Canada's all-time leading scorer and Friend has 3 for us we'll stop with the "Friend is a better striker, we just don't play him right" crap. rant over.

What's your point? Ali is 3rd in voting so obviously he is getting some love from the V's, specially if you think that Radz is number one, there's not that much difference between 2 and 3...

Like I've said, Serioux, Kluka, Radz and Ali all have had good WCQ performances but you have to include club performance as well IMO. That's where I loose Gerba.

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Loyola you've clearly consumed far too much Rum and Eggnog this holiday season. Time to cut back perhaps. New Year's Resolution maybe?

No one is arguing that Klukowski, Serioux, and Radzinski shouldn't be chosen.

I'm just saying that as suposedly "National Team Supporters," I think people who choose Rob Friend or Julian deGuzman over Ali Gerba either forgot about Ali Gerba, or clearly have their craniums rammed up their backsides. With all due respect.

And Loyola how come you always have to argue with everyone just for the sake of arguing? Come out to a game for once and we'll chat rationally over a beer or two.

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quote:Originally posted by gwallace76

Loyola you've clearly consumed far too much Rum and Eggnog this holiday season. Time to cut back perhaps. New Year's Resolution maybe?

No one is arguing that Klukowski, Serioux, and Radzinski shouldn't be chosen.

I'm just saying that as suposedly "National Team Supporters," I think people who choose Rob Friend or Julian deGuzman over Ali Gerba either forgot about Ali Gerba, or clearly have their craniums rammed up their backsides. With all due respect.

And Loyola how come you always have to argue with everyone just for the sake of arguing? Come out to a game for once and we'll chat rationally over a beer or two.

This is a forum to discuss Canadian soccer, so I discuss Canadian soccer, like it or not.

You brought the question about Gerba and I discussed it with you. I think I've said it, you have valid arguments it's just a question of personnal preference on how you rank a player for this voting and we didn't agree on how we perceived our opposition (SVG). No big deal IMO.

I answered Scottie's post because I felt it was in part directed to me and I saw flaws in what he said. Can I do that?

BTW, I agree that Ali is a much better choice than Rob, disagree for Julian because his clubs accomplishments are too great to ignore and it's not like he was the worst player ion the field during WCQ. But I'm not gonna vote for him anyways.

As for X-Mas spirit, I would like to remind you that I,ve wished you Merry X-Mas twice in my posts and you haven't done it for me...:D

As for arguing with everyone, I wouldn't be here if everyone agreed with me, that would be boring.

I was at the Honduras game in MTL, just not in the V's section and didn't have much time to introduce myself since I had a group of 15 people to take care of. I also attended the Chile game in 2007. Maybe we'll meet sometime, it will be a pleasure for me but until then we'll have to coexist on this board, talking canadian soccer and disagreeing on some subject and agreeing on others.

If more people are telling me I'm off the board the way I post or that I'm unpleasant, I'll reconsider but so far, that's pretty much one post in 9 years. But I appreciate the comment nontheless.

Joyeuses fêtes!

Loyola

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quote:Originally posted by gwallace76

Loyola you've clearly consumed far too much Rum and Eggnog this holiday season. Time to cut back perhaps. New Year's Resolution maybe?

No one is arguing that Klukowski, Serioux, and Radzinski shouldn't be chosen.

I'm just saying that as suposedly "National Team Supporters," I think people who choose Rob Friend or Julian deGuzman over Ali Gerba either forgot about Ali Gerba, or clearly have their craniums rammed up their backsides. With all due respect.

And Loyola how come you always have to argue with everyone just for the sake of arguing? Come out to a game for once and we'll chat rationally over a beer or two.

Well, I had Gerba tied for fourth with DeGuzman and Friend ahead him, so perhaps you could recommend a good proctologist to help me!;)

Good on you two (and others) for showing passion on this board.

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The famous proctologist ,Dr. Common Sense, will probably prescribe a replay of the Honduras game in Montreal. You know, just to get things moving if you know what I mean. lol ;)

quote:If more people are telling me I'm off the board the way I post or that I'm unpleasant, I'll reconsider but so far, that's pretty much one post in 9 years. But I appreciate the comment nontheless.

Sorry that was a bit unfair of me. What I should have typed was "How come you always argue with me..." That's my own opinion really, no one else. Alot of people don't share my opinions on things and that's fine, I still get along pretty well with most people.

I love this group, we have a good core group of loyal supporters that attend matches. Maybe I'm just getting a bit sick of this message board. Not to tread too far off topic here but there's a lack of camaraderie on the board itself. There's a lot of "poo-pooing" of opinions and that's not right. Maybe I've been guilty of this too.

In the meantime if you haven't voted yet. Be proud of how our boys played in a Canadian uniform. Include Gerba in your top 3. (This message brought to you by the coalition of Supporters of Gerba for International Player of the Year 2008) ;)

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I've never, ever realized, we were arguing each other that often...If you ask me now, I would've to tell you that our only argument happened in the last 48-72 hours, and I'm being honest. You can give me examples if you have the time.

As for camaraderie, I try to help as much as I can on this board when people have question or are trying to remember something. Even when they could just go on canadasoccer.com and check, I go and get the info they need. I'm trying to help here and I don't think I offer arrogant answer unlike other posters. Of course, when I argue, I might show an unpleasant side with the fact that I insist a lot or that I'm too often on this board so the temptation is greater to give my opinion.

I only gives my opinion on canadian players or teams performances, so I feel all right with my contribution here. Of course it can lead to debates but that's why we are discussing I think.

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Guest Jeffery S.

I love you all very much and you are like blood brothers to me, all of you, but I did not vote for Gerba and won't change my mind. That is what makes us such a great family, ain't it?

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