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Sept. 2, 2011: Canada v. St. Lucia (R)


loyola

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This round might be our saving grace. It's 1st half performances like this that would be seeing us out of the semi-final round.

The misses in the first half (Jackson's complete whiff from 8 yards and Dero's one where he was alone 6 yards out and the ball went under his foot) especially concern me bc when playing the likes of Honduras/ Panama/etc., if you don't get those you are going to be quickly put out of qualifying.

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That was frustrating to watch big time. We need to learn how to score. Possession means nothing if you go nowhere. Not to mention I thought our corner kicks were awful...

On a side note El Salvador is currently tied 0-0 with the dominican republic

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Time of possession = A

Chances generated = A

Finishing chances = C

Defending = C

We didn't finish. Dero and Hume both had bad nights from the run of play.

When the other team only has one player who is a threat and he has already scored one he should not be allowed to attempt another long range rocket.

In the end we wore them out. They were bagged and we took it to them. That will work for this group but not beyond.

Our chances were generated from some very good flank buildup and overlaps. The low hard crosses into the 6 yard box were good and caused trouble. We need to finish a lot better against Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

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Everyone looked nervous for the first game of WCQ. Not really sure why as we have a ton of vets, but hopefully we get out the jitters in this game calm down a bit and have a good showing the next game in PR. Making mistakes can be turned into a positive, lets use this to focus on improving our play and finishing chances. Hopefully we tighten up, play better and steam roll this group and get into form right before the next round!

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I was at the game. Here are my thoughts:

1. Great crowd. Perhaps the biggest pro-Canada crowd I've ever seen in Toronto.

2. Canada was simply dominant for the first few minutes, but that St. Lucia goal stunned them. That penalty kick goal really settled them down.

3. They played a lot of through balls. I thought this was good to see. Granted, the quality of the opponent really makes a difference. St. Lucia were creating a ton of holes. Marks for Canada for exploiting the weakness.

4. Canada's finish was sloppy. They could/should have easily had 3 more goals.

5. They need to play better than tonight when they play better opponents, but I am satisfied with the win.

6. St.Lucia was getting ridiculous with the injuries. It became a source of humour for my section (117), with "get the stretcher" chants.

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Certainly one of the most stressful matches I have seen in a long time. That being said it's nice that our team has these games to play and gel together. Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault was by far the worst Canadian outfield pitch today. He is not the future of our right side defence. I seriously hope we see Peters there against Peurto Rico.

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The positives are that we picked up three points. St. Kitts and Puerto Rico drew meaning a win in PR would give us some margin for error (though not much).

Also in the second half we were merely bad verging on not very good. If we can progress to ‘okay’ by Tuesday we should pick up a point, if not all three.

We often struggle in the first game back after a layoff and making five changes to the team that started against Panama (esp. when dropping Klukowski, Johnson, Borjan and Dunfield were voluntary) isn’t going to help cohesion. I was fine with the mids and fowards (we were always going to struggle playing that formation without a true target forward), but I don’t understand Jazic or JBB. How often have we heard that someone really impressed in training during the week and then didn’t look all that hot in the match? I didn’t think Jazic was bad really, but he’s not Klukowski.

I know it’s the oldest cliché in the book, but there’s no easy games in international soccer and we never do anything easy.

We can make fun of the size of St. Lucia and their lack of fitness and professionalism, but this might be the biggest game of their lives and it might be the biggest crowd some of them ever play in. And I don’t care how big the country, I’ve yet to see a Caribbean side that doesn’t have some technical skills and some players with some pace.

What bothered me was that they played such a high offside line. If you watch highlights of Guatemala’s 6-0 win over them last cycle, Guatemala just put through balls into the space, ran onto them and scored easily. They did that four times. That’s how a not bad Cuban team was demolished twice at the Gold Cup: they played a suicidally high line and Mexico and Costa Rica tore it to shreds. Well so did St. Lucia tonight and until we found Simpson we didn’t seem to be able to make a nice pass over the top or stay onside. In the late-going that final ball got better. But our attackers were faster than most of their defenders and they left an awful lot of space behind them.

It makes me feel a little better that we’re not alone. T&T needed a second half goal at home to beat Bermuda. Grenada (who was at the Gold Cup at the expense of the likes of T&T) lost at home to Belize 2-0. El Salvador played much of the second half up a man before beating the Dominican Republic 3-2 after a scoreless first half. Both DR goals came a man down.

Heck even Australia was down at home to Thailand and China trailed at home to Singapore.

This game Tuesday is going to be tough.

Great job by the south end support. I wish I could have been there, but it was an excellent crowd (great turnout for St. Lucia by Toronto) on the whole and the supporters group brought it despite the fact it wasn’t easy for any of us to live through that.

cheers,

matthew

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Really quite poor.

Lars - if your starting keeper is going to let in a soft one against no matter who the opposition we are always going to be in trouble in later rounds. (Note to Hart - please stick with Borjan for a few matches)

Jazic - was pleasantly surprised considering how old he is. Has now perfected the back pass, I see. He overlapped well a few times. Says a lot that he thought it was a prank when he was called. Still would have preferred either of De Jong or Klukowski although it wasn't our weak side. (Note to Hart - I give you benefit of the doubt that Klukowski has a slight knock - otherwise this is craziness as Simpson started and trained just as much as he did given they play for the same side in Turkey)

Hainault - steady - winning me over. Never really seems to gel with McKenna, though, which has held him back in the past.

McKenna - played some great (but rather predictable) through balls, tackled tough when he needed to - was vocal.

Beaulieu-Bourgault - deficient in almost all areas. Poor positioning, gave way too much space to the goalscorer. A few airballs going forward. Really, really out of place, even against this beer league-side. (Note to Hart - would Peters have been such a bad idea given that Hart obviously wanted an all out attack, include runs down the wing?)

JDG - Terrible. Thought he stunk up the joint again - sloppy passing and unconvincing tackling. Instilled no confidence defensively - was poor going forward and has no shot left except where that poor boy's thigh is concerned. (Note to Hart - Johnson and Hutchinson are your two best DM's by a country mile) Where's the Born-Again-Julian I've been reading so much about?

Hutchinson - cool and calm as usual. I always want more from him going forward (like on that errant shot) but it ain't gonna happen. (Note to Hart - if you have a multi-million dollar PSV player recently returned from injury out in the middle of what looks like a landmine field of leg-shattering tackles, use your best judgement and pull off the star a little earlier)

Simpson - can obviously score in front of goal. Wasted tonnes of chances. (Note to Hart - remind me why it just wouldn't be sensible to play him more centrally for Canada)

DDR - so many skills, so many wasted chances. Classic Dero - at times selfish, and times trying to do too much - is always going to be a guy who whiffs on 90% of his chances, only to contribute highlight reel attacks that tenth time. Nice having a guy you know can score a PK, though. Took a lot (all?) of the corners, many of them totally wasted.

Hume - Forgot how much I love his spark-plug efforts of pure passion. Too many missed chances. Still the same old problem since he was a kid of his style not really fitting in that well with the bigger picture for Canada. Can see him being a useful sub but may never start again.

Jackson - must have messed up more good chances that anyone on the night. If this guy can't score against St. Lucia, even quite central and with a lot of support around him, there is no way in hell he is bagging goals isolated up top against our opponents in the next group stage, let alone the hex (or EPL, for that matter). I want to love this guy, like Hume, because he is trying so hard, but, like Hume, his skill set just doesn't seem to match our needs.

-------

Johnson - this guy is great, potentially an all-CONCACAF DM who should play DM (or box-to-box) for us match-in match-out. Like that it took him to show our attacking players how to bury one (did you see the wink he gave shortly after he came on, as if to say don't worry, I'm going to score one and we are going to win, so relax?)

Ricketts - I love what he brings as a sub. I still have reservations about his current league and about how well he will fit into the picture when the opposition gets stiffer, though.

Haber - very linear - not a big fan, tbh, but he nearly calmly put away a really sweetly placed shot

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Not inspiring. I don't care about the number of goals, either. If we had won 1-0 but looked confident doing it I would be very happy tonight.If we played Honduras like this tonight (or Panama, even) we would have lost 4-0. Heck we made St. Lucia look like Honduras during stretches of this match, as they effortlessly slipped right through our mid and caused trouble for our defenders.

I am sure that some knocks were taken so we are likely to see some different starters Tuesday even if Hart wasn't having second thoughts after tonight - there were a lot of rough tackles, and this was on a predictable pitch - I'm a bit scared to have so many of our "stars" subjected to this for another five matches (often in much worse conditions) and then back to fight at club level, especially for Hutch and Simpson, whose club managers must read match reports with crossed fingers every time, cringing each time they are called in.

With reservations based on who's available, here's what I like vs PR:

---------------Jackson--------------

Simpson--------DDR----------Ricketts

---------Johnson----Hutch-----------

Klukowski - McKenna - Edgar - Hainault

--------------Borjan-----------------

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Ya I don't understand the JBB and Jazic moves. Jazic I can understand more than JBB, why are we playing a fairly weak holding mid at right back as opposed to Hainault, Edgar (playing one at CB one at RB), Peters even a guy like Johnson. If we are going to convert a holding mid to a right back lets do it with our best players who we want to get on the field (Johnson or Bernier in the future) not a guy who does'nt offer anything special.

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I was at the game and appeared to watch a different match than most of the people posting here. Canada wasn't clicking on all cylinders (unsurprisingly for the first game) and a little bit down to their opposition and there was definitely an air of frustration in the first half that was in the stadium with so many chances not going in, but the score at the end could easily been 10-1, and even the 1 was a bit generous. The St. Lucia keeper stood on his head (yes I know he gave up 4 goals but still) and was the only reason the scoreline was so flattering towards St. Lucia and the feeling at the stadium certainly wasn't one of the shame and embarassment that seems to be the feeling here. My main concern is playing Borgeault out of position at right back - for a game like this, we couldn't have gone for the most offensive option with Peter (who at least has played there in the past)? He wasn't getting any penetration, nor delivering good crosses or beating his man though I don't blame him but the coach that played him there.

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