7/5/2011: Canada v. Nigeria

[Grizzly]

Totally agree. Call me old fashion and lacking tolerance, but I would like to see a team made out with no lesbians. Maybe that is a start.

So you would like several starters on the German team to be kicked off the team? Seems to me they are pretty successful playing with their lesbian players.

[CoachRich]

Should Canada have prepared for the cup by playing more difficult opponents? I have often wondered why we do not enter the Algarve Cup instead of the Cyprus tournament. Did we have too high of an expectation because we were winning against second tier teams?

Algarve Cup is by invitation.

IMO there was took much hype in the media. Also, with friendlies there are only so many teams available to play with as the rest of the teams in the 1- 20 range are playing in their leagues, league cup or NT residency. The CSA fixtures page has a good record of the games they played. Also if one goes back to the WWC 2007 prep there wasn't that much of a diff to the 2011 prep. Still our issue is the youth development structure/system

[gardencity]

Can't remember who posted it on this thread but the decline in the women's game was well documented. Certainly there were high expectations of the team, but those were a product of the players "brimming with confidence". I think the media picks up on that and you get yourself into a really crummy situation. In decending order of accountability:

1). the players sucked....pure and simple, they choked on the grandest of stages and have provided another hallmark of stain on our shi**y CSA program.

2). was the 4 months in Italy really necessary, was that they many bone of contention she had with CSA? She probably treated the players like premadonnas and it went to their respective heads.

3). The CSA for falling for all Morace's crap, our crap, the players crap....and earning another exclamation point in the Hall of Shame for running a program without a clue as to how to develop the best players when it's clear we had a head start on most of the World....well done CSA, soon our woman's program will suck like the man's program.

4). The media, but you can't blame them, they are driven by dollar signs and they saw a golden goose in the Women's World Cup and pumped up our girls for all it was worth....hard to see our TV crew trying to put lipstick on a pig.....

Disillusioned, disgusted, demoralized, disheartened, disenfranchised, and certainly dumber,

Gardencity

[The Ref]

So you would like several starters on the German team to be kicked off the team? Seems to me they are pretty successful playing with their lesbian players.

Could be that German lesbians are much more macho types.

[Vic]

For comparison, a similar couple of years after he was hired Even Pellerud turned us into World Cup semi-finalists using this preparation:

Algarve Cup in March and then:

CAN v. USA 4/26 in Washington (USA)

CAN v. ENG 5/19 in Lachine

CAN v. ENG 5/22 in Ottawa

CAN v. MEX 6/15 in Mazatlan (MEX)

CAN v. BRA 7/17 in Montreal

CAN v. BRA 7/20 in Ottawa

CAN v. GHA 8/16 in Seattle (USA)

CAN v. MEX 8/31 in Edmonton

CAN v. MEX 9/4 in Burnaby

CAN v. AUS 9/14 in Kingston

The team was on and off (pretty much all domestically) after Algarve for games and shortish mini-camps. During the summer it was appearance schedules, pep rally's, gala dinners, youth club sessions, etc. Pro team players played intermittent games and joined the team a month before the World Cup. The team played a couple of friendlies late August and then all went home for a week before getting together in Kingston 9 days before our World Cup opener.

[The Ref]

To be a completely fair - Nigeria are a very good team Their results are solid and consistent too: 0-1 Germany and France, 1-0 Canada. Healthy stats in every match too. They are a team of the future. And if they can push Germany and France like that, well... Pellerud was well known for asking Canadians "do you want to play beautiful and lose or un-beautiful and win?" - if he was selling women's football to Nigerians in Nigeria it would be "do you want to play hetero and go home in group, or..."

Pellerud must be basking under T&T sun in Warner's villa and laughing his a$$ off. And you are correct Vic, he told me "I play to win and not to entertain".

[Cheeta]

2007 China

Norway 2 Canada 1

Australia 2 Canada 2

Ghana 0 Canada 4

Record 1 1 1 4 pts +3 Goal Difference 3rd in Group

2011

Germany 2 Canada 1

France 4 Canada 0

Nigeria 1 Canada 0

Record 0 0 3 0 pts -6 Goal Difference 4th in Group (and probably 16th in tourney)

The Coach was replaced after the 2007 result.

EP must be laughing in his beer right now.

Doubt it. And if he is it's because he's on his 8th or so and simply plastered.

Think the shortcomings in the WNT are evident. Clearly evident. Don't think those shortcomings can be directed towards anything but the players themselves.

Couldn't say as much under EV. Not in the closing years at least.

[CoachRich]

2007 China

Norway 2 Canada 1

Australia 2 Canada 2

Ghana 0 Canada 4

Record 1 1 1 4 pts +3 Goal Difference 3rd in Group

2011

Germany 2 Canada 1

France 4 Canada 0

Nigeria 1 Canada 0

Record 0 0 3 0 pts -6 Goal Difference 4th in Group (and probably 16th in tourney)

The Coach was replaced after the 2007 result.

EP must be laughing in his beer right now.

Coach wasn't replaced but he stepped down on June 2nd, 2008 before the Olympics

http://www.cansoc.org/showthread.php?33957-Pellerud-confirms-he-ll-be-stepping-down&p=33961&viewfull=1#post33961

[dekester]

So what happened? Who picked the player?. Who came up with the tactics? Who prepped the players?

It really is too bad that our soccer culture is encumbered with so many bleeding hearts ( likely the same one's that came up with old participaction theme!)

Is Jason De Vos a bleeding heart? Of course not, he is a brave, skilled, played at Dundee Utd for years and was terrific, he was a stand up and be counted internationalist.

Yet he said on TV today the problems with Canadian soccer are systemic!!

Of course he is wrong. What could he possibly know about the state of the game in this country. Bleeding hearts just get the carpet wet.

Oh well 1 goal in three games and seven against. Can't be the coach. Would any other seeded country keep their coach after a debacle like that? Other than us of course> Sorry if this is negative(lol)

[TFC07]

Why people here blaming the coach? There's so much a coach can do. End of the day, it's on the players. They simply suck and lack proper technique (passing, touch, dribbling etc.) to hold their own against top teams in the world.

They're good with one-two touches and movement seems alright, but individually the players aren't that good. Our defending has been awful throughout this tournament. Maybe that could be blamed on the coach for trying to make the defenders play off-side trap which didn't work and cost us couple of goals.

That being said, this team seems young and coach has been running the women's program for couple of years only (they have made progress IMO). Given women football is getting competitive and more "soccer nations" are investing into their women program more, it's going to be hard for Canada to keep up unless we fix our program (this one is on CSA).

[canfan22]

Could be that German lesbians are much more macho types.

Wow you are a real jerk aren't you. Criticize their play all you want but I think the attacks on their sexuality are totally unwarranted.

I'll say it again. Bottom line is that they didn't show up to play. Nobody knows that better then the players themselves.

[gator]

Totally agree. Call me old fashion and lacking tolerance, but I would like to see a team made out with no lesbians. Maybe that is a start.

I'm not sure that I agree with you Ref but I give you credit for posting your thoughts no matter how politically incorrect they may be!

[CanadasBest]

(MOD) Guys the sexuality comments are innapropriate, un-necessary and over the line.

[Richard]

The Canadian women were simply lacking in basic skills in too many areas relative to their competition. Lack of ball skills, inability to complete passes, coughing up possession needlessly too often, passing into space where no other player has a chance to gather the ball, misjudging bounces over and over...... Based on their play in the round robin games they didn't deserve to progress. The basic skills are those learned from a very young age and many of our men are lacking in that department too. Morace had to make the best of what she had to choose from, can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear even with all the money in the world. Problem runs much, much deeper than the performance of this particular group of women or Carolina Morace though they probably are still the best WNT and coach we have ever had in the WWC. The problem is a systemic one with soccer in Canada.

[The Ref]

(MOD) Guys the sexuality comments are innapropriate, un-necessary and over the line.

Some seem to disagree with your view.

http://www.africanoutlookonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2084:nigerian-womens-football-team-eradicates-lesbianism-&catid=99:outlookscroller

[navycyr]

The Canadian women were simply lacking in basic skills in too many areas relative to their competition. Lack of ball skills, inability to complete passes, coughing up possession needlessly too often, passing into space where no other player has a chance to gather the ball, misjudging bounces over and over...... Based on their play in the round robin games they didn't deserve to progress. The basic skills are those learned from a very young age and many of our men are lacking in that department too. Morace had to make the best of what she had to choose from, can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear even with all the money in the world. Problem runs much, much deeper than the performance of this particular group of women or Carolina Morace though they probably are still the best WNT and coach we have ever had in the WWC. The problem is a systemic one with soccer in Canada.

I agree with you Richard. Now we have identified the problem we need to come forward with solutions. One of the first things to be done, is to establish a development program for all players and coaches in this country : what skills do we expect the players to acquire and by what age do we expect them to start learning and mastering those. Then produce education material to support them : books, videos... If we spend 2 millions on that rather than outside training camps I garantee we will obtain better results, not immediately, but 15 years down the road. This is just the way schools who have hundreds years of experience proceed : teachers are told children should know their alphabet, write their letters and count up to 10 by their first grade, start reading, counting up to 100, adding and substracting in their second grade and so on... It's a proven technique of learning: you need to set up a learning plan and evaluate both children and those in charge against the expected skills to learn. I have coached young children and asked unsuccessfully at the time for such support from the club my children were playing. I realize today, I was asking them too much. This has to be done not at a local but at a national level. I have also coached hockey and I had lot better coaching material available like training drills by age group.

[garbuckle]

Damn, that's depressing.

I think part of the problem is that the international competition has gotten much better over the years. It has improved more than the Canadian team has. Since women's soccer has started to catch on (FIFA WWC started in '91), the countries with the resources have been able to develop at a faster pace. Canada is still stuck in the '80's it seems like, and it will take years before we can grow a team that can compete on the highest level. Maybe we were just lucky to get as far as we did (6th ranking, CONCACAF, etc).

Whatever, there's no use in me beating a drum that has been beaten to death by now.

Get well soon, Canada

[argh1]

I'm kinda worrying about the impact on 2015 since we got the WWC by default.

Will this affect interest or will the hype spin take over?

This was supposed to be a good tourney for us and...........well.....ya know..........

I'm sure Sportsnet and CBC have already felt the affects of the France game in viewership.

Will this devastating performance affect 2015 in Canada?

[Vic]

It already has.

The net economic loss of this performance is mind-bending.

[Free kick]

It already has.

The net economic loss of this performance is mind-bending.

I never really ponderred that one yet. But now that you mentioned it, I would agree that its huge. As far as ticket sales support and overall hype in the run up to 2015, its a massive difference between going in as team that reached semis at the WC and one that lost all three of it's games and managed just one goal.

Also, I am pretty sure that the rights holders (CBC, RSN) are feeling the pinch as are the people who have ro sell those rights. I'll say this about the women's game in Canada, the value that the rights have, is attributable in a very part to the women's game. This was very a marketable group, but now, you have to wonder.

[gator]

I think we'll do just fine filling seats when Canada plays, it's the rest of the matches that concern me! I don't know who pays for what but I just hope the CSA hasn't got themselves into a potential money losing venture, that's the last thing we need right now! Hopefully in 4 years time we'll all be feeling a little better about things, I think many of us are reacting with negative emotion after this shocking performance on the world stage!

[The Ref]

I think we'll do just fine filling seats when Canada plays, it's the rest of the matches that concern me! I don't know who pays for what but I just hope the CSA hasn't got themselves into a potential money losing venture, that's the last thing we need right now! Hopefully in 4 years time we'll all be feeling a little better about things, I think many of us are reacting with negative emotion after this shocking performance on the world stage!

The CSA going broke would be a blessing in disguise. Great opportunity for savvy people to take over and revamp the whole ball of wax.

[Free kick]

I think we'll do just fine filling seats when Canada plays, it's the rest of the matches that concern me! e!

I think that this highlights the difference between the mens game and the women's game in Canada. With the mens games there isn't that much of concern when it's comes to selling the games that don't involve Canada. Whereas with the women, it's should be an easier sell comparatively for the games that do involve Canada. The demographic of both sports are very different and with the women, you can appeal to a much broader spectrum of Canadians including regions. just look at the names of the players and their origins.

It's easier to sell your product to homes coast to coast when its attached to names like Matheson, Sinclair, and Belanger. Whereas, for the men, most them ply their trade overseas and are known only to soccer fans. But winning is key to everything

[Posessionsoccerrules]

Morace is on the right path in terms of the style of play required to be successful in the modern era of womens football. The question is do we have the right players to execute this style of play. The problem is systemic accross the country at every level of play from development of youth players to the highest levels of amateur football. Having watched many youth games it is very apparent that basic technical soccer skills are not in place due to the inability of coaches to teach these basic skills and/or many clubs are short sighted and play to win instead of focusing on development. This lack of vision for the future carries through to the senior level. Being on the west coast and having attended a few of the Vancouver Whitecaps senior womens team games it is shameful to see the lack of skill and soccer savvy the players routinely display. A lot of the things Richard has pointed out are accurate and lacking at supposedly the highest levels of the womens game. Ironically these same players are selected to the senior team and have no business being there. Players such as Tancredi and others who can not control a ball should not be selected which i believe is Morace's biggest problem. There are more Sophie Schmidt's (who was Canada's most consistent player at the WWC) out there palying collegiately that need to be identified. Carolina's needs to start over with a younger group.

[amacpher]

We seen this many times over the years with the Cdn men and the women are just following in their footsteps as we continue to fall behind other countries who have a proven development model have finally decided to take the women's game more seriously.

I wonder what percentage of Canadian women soccer players are also soccer fans. That could be part of the problem.