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Greece v. Canada - Feb. 9, 2011 - Match Thread (R)


RS

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I'll never criticize Friend's heart or his effort. He's almost constantly answered the call for Canada and had a good reason when he didn't. He doesn't shy away from physical contact and is willing to pay the price. I bet that if I actually shook his hand, I'd quite like him. He just isn't any good.

That header was, by professional standards, easy. Nothing he could have done would be worse than what he did, which is put it wide (even if he hit it more across the goal, the goalkeeper wasn't quite flat-footed and he might have gotten lucky or a rebound could have kicked out). Friend's failure to track back is also a problem in the sense that Canada was struggling to get the ball forward and the midfielders needed support. A striker's job is more than standing up front and gawking. Occean tracked back very well; indeed, it was almost the only thing he did very well yesterday.

Gerba's proven he can play that sort of role. I think Ricketts could, given a chance, and I'd like to see Jackson's skill given more of an opportunity than Friend's sheer hugeness.

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We can all agree we need more production from the striker position, Hart seems set on the lone target man and so far it really hasn't worked! This has to be sorted out real soon, I'm for giving Gerba another try there and I'm open to trying one of the other forwards such as Hume, Jackson, Ricketts or even Uccello! Has Radzinski officially retired from the National Team, he could be the guy!

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I got a chance to watch the match last night after following it on the live chat! I predicted a solid beating due to Greece's high ranking, playing at home and Canada's rather makeshift lineup, I was pleasantly surprised! I know we have to start getting some results and develop more of a killer instinct but I think some posters are being way too harsh on the team, individual players and the coach! We were inches away from coming away with a draw which would have probably changed 90% of the negative opinion around! I agree we have to get better in some areas but some of the individual criticism is unwarranted IMHO! Straith obviously made a major blunder but he's young and as noted played out of position on short notice, Cann is in pre-season training and was a last minute call up, he didn't have a whole lot of understanding with his central defence partner and keeper, I thought he was ok! I think Hutch is better suited for the more advanced role he moved into later in the second half, once again this was a product of having to put a makeshift lineup out there! Friend misses a good opportunity by inches, if he scores everyone (except Lord Bob) is singing his praises today! The forward position in the system we are playing is tough, I'm not sure who the answer is there, Gerba has to be given a chance there as well! I thought Peters, DeRo, Simpson and Borjan all had real strong games! If there is such a thing as a , this was one! good loss

Is it safe to say you are excited?

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We can all agree we need more production from the striker position, Hart seems set on the lone target man and so far it really hasn't worked! This has to be sorted out real soon, I'm for giving Gerba another try there and I'm open to trying one of the other forwards such as Hume, Jackson, Ricketts or even Uccello! Has Radzinski officially retired from the National Team, he could be the guy!

I think what would be interesting is try a 4-4-2 at some point, that could help the attack but it's risky against strong european opponents like Ukraine and Greece. Maybe try it before the GC against a CONCACAF opponent.

I agree with you about the header, it's a missed chance but not an easy header. You see similar headers being missed every game, it needs to be right in the corner or the keeper saves it.

Ali Gerba scores goal, he's an excellent poacher but looking at the game yesterday I'm not sure how he would've changed the game since we had no opportunities in the box except for one header. If OO and Friend had missed a bunch of chances around the net I would say "well, Ali would've put one of those in the net" but it wasn't never going to be that sort of game. Anyways, Ali deserves a call and a look and the March game will be the perfect occasion to take a look at him since he should be at the end of preseason.

The good thing about the March game will be the time the team spend together, I think Hart will have a better opportunity to work on cohesion.

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That is so it.

I do not understand how a) so many people pegged Occean as the starter, and when he was it was further confusing HE WAS INVISIBLE OUT THERE!!

B) don't understand why Friend get's picked on... he plays nearly box to box, which some of the best strikers in the world e.g. Rooney, Berbatov do for Man U, and his scoring pace this season is on among the better among the strikers on his team.

Yes the header went wide, but you see the same thing happen at all levels, if it was a league game it would hardly bear mentioning.. the problem is that he is starved of service, one two more chances like that he scores, instead he has to come back and work with the Midfield because they lack the pace and passing skill to work the ball up to him.

Both Simpson, and Jackson are finishing midfields at the international level, as long as Canada is unable to work the ball into the corners and put in crosses during the run of play, then Friend will not score for his country...

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That is so it.

I do not understand how a) so many people pegged Occean as the starter, and when he was it was further confusing HE WAS INVISIBLE OUT THERE!!

B) don't understand why Friend get's picked on... he plays nearly box to box, which some of the best strikers in the world e.g. Rooney, Berbatov do for Man U, and his scoring pace this season is on among the better among the strikers on his team.

Yes the header went wide, but you see the same thing happen at all levels, if it was a league game it would hardly bear mentioning.. the problem is that he is starved of service, one two more chances like that he scores, instead he has to come back and work with the Midfield because they lack the pace and passing skill to work the ball up to him.

Both Simpson, and Jackson are finishing midfields at the international level, as long as Canada is unable to work the ball into the corners and put in crosses during the run of play, then Friend will not score for his country...

I don't think many people are thinking OO is our starter, as this question is probably one that most of us feels Hart has to answer before WCQ starts. No one is really impressive at the moment.

BTW, if you are arguing Friend is lacking service I think you should give the same excuse to OO.

IMO, it's fair to say our forward aren't receiving great service. Our midfield is generally lacking the ability to make penetrating pass from the midfield and our the crosses aren't really good either. Where I think OO and Friend are to blame is when it's time to hold the ball to help the build up, they sometimes loose the ball too easily.

I also feel we might be a little bit hard on them as it's always going to be difficult to play the lone striker role when we're playing teams like Ukraine and Greece away. They probably would look better if we were lining up friendlies against the likes of El Salvador and T&T.

Look at the second half again, you'll see that until stoppage time Friend has had very few touches and lost the ball on most of them.

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Ali Gerba scores goal, he's an excellent poacher but looking at the game yesterday I'm not sure how he would've changed the game since we had no opportunities in the box except for one header.

12 second mark, Ali 'poaching' one from outside the box... just saying :P

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12 second mark, Ali 'poaching' one from outside the box... just saying :P

yeah what Ali and even Radz have, is true killer instinct!. Canada lacks at the moment.

watching that clip, reminds me of how funny the reaction of the opposing players when we score on them.....absolute comedy.

Also this clipped showed me that when Canada plays with confidence(Mexico,Ukraine) and not timid(Peru,Greece) we'll always have a good showing.

As a team we're almost there, we just need to change our philosphy a bit,. Instead of "hoping for good result" we need to say F the other guy and go balls to the wall.

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That is where Ali Gerba is good, he creates a lot of oppotunities.

I don't think any Canadian team should be without Ali Gerba. Say what you like about his club career but Ali has always preformed for Canada, there isn’t really a reason to argue against results. My guess is when Montreal joins MLS he will have a much better go of it than he did in Toronto.

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I don't think any Canadian team should be without Ali Gerba. Say what you like about his club career but Ali has always preformed for Canada, there isn’t really a reason to argue against results. My guess is when Montreal joins MLS he will have a much better go of it than he did in Toronto.

From what I recall Ali had a somewhat banged up knee when he first came to TFC, still managed to get a goal. In the preseason for 2010, he asked Preki about some concerns he had with his "coaching" methods, and rather than being spoken to, he was released a day later. I'm sure he'll tear it up for Montreal this season in NASL.

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I watch the game twice ;)

I just think OO did a better job at showing himself in the build up than Rob. I also saw some bad touches but that is expected with a forward. I didn't say OO was great (he was OK) but he looked better than Rob IMO. I would like to see him and Gerba called for the next game.

I also thought Atiba numbers were interesting as he lost the ball quite often out there when he should be taking care of it more.

One thing that comes up from looking at the game again was that apart from Rob header we didn't get a solid scoring chance in the box.

I rewatched the first half and I agree with your observations about Occean. Though he had a rocky start (which probably tainted my initial observations) he had a good stretch in the middle where he showed well and played the way he faced. I stand corrected!

I wasn't surprised about the statistics you recorded regarding Hutchinson. He's always been more of a read and react finesse type of defensive player as opposed to a ballwinning battler.

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Your use of exclamation marks tends to suggest you might be conflicted between how you feel and what you write? ;)

Just think of it as if we're having a chat in a pub! There is excitement in my posts, sometimes positive, sometimes negative! Hope people don't mind too much if it may not be grammatically correct!

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12 second mark, Ali 'poaching' one from outside the box... just saying :P

Nice goal but at that game the thing I remember the most about him is how often he gave the ball away during the game under any kind of pressure. Unless you get him the ball a lot he's not going to work miracles.

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Nice goal but at that game the thing I remember the most about him is how often he gave the ball away during the game under any kind of pressure. Unless you get him the ball a lot he's not going to work miracles.

Doesn't matter IMO, he puts the ball in the net with consistency. Our current other strikers do not. I wouldn't care if guys like Friend and Occean had a 100% possession rate, if you're not scoring, you're not the striker I want on the pitch.

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Doesn't matter IMO, he puts the ball in the net with consistency. Our current other strikers do not. I wouldn't care if guys like Friend and Occean had a 100% possession rate, if you're not scoring, you're not the striker I want on the pitch.

TBH, I find it a bit unfair that OO is getting write off as unable to score goal for us since he has played a little bit more than one game (1 half against Greece and 70 min against Ukraine) for us since being absent from the MNT for a long period of time. Those 2 games weren't against SVG but 2 quality Euro teams. He did OK in those 2 games so I say give him a chance to prove what he can do against a CONCACAF opponent and then we'll judge his effectiveness.

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Gerba is just so frustrating to watch everywhere besides the penalty box. His touch in the middle of the field is not good, and I get very frustrated when we lose possesion because of it. However within the penalty box he does seem to have that inate ability to be in the right spot at the right time and this is something Friend hasn't displayed (for the nats). Too bad we couldn't combine the two into a great all around striker.

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