CANADA vs Martinique - July 7th - 2:30pm PST (R) Game Thread

[Addona]

I was thinking the same thing. Colin Miller made poor choices with on-field selection and tactics, but really it's the way we played that's disappointing. It seemed that we played not to lose rather than playing to win decisively. The loss was awful, but it's the way we played and couldn't finish that's worse. Piettte and Ricketts looked out of place, Johnson was subbed out too early, and Henry and Morgan were out of their element. We really missed Atiba and Bernier in midfield to battle and control. People can say all they want about Martinique but they played well and battled to the very end --- and we didn't.

Colin Miller couldn't bring out the best in our players in the past and in this game.

Morgan's biggest obstacle was that he was on the bench ... No, but in all seriousness, Miller is not a bad person, he loves Canada; that much is clear as day. But he should never coach at this level.

Right now, I am thinking that the biggest shame in all of this is that we couldn't figure out the Floro hire a few weeks earlier and get him in place before the GC. He would have been able to spend 10 days in camp with the players, and coach at least 3 games ... And results be what they may, when is the next time Floro will be able to spend 10 days in camp with one of our teams. It seems like it'll be a very long time, given the typical 2-3 day camps.

[Lennie]

Just got in and saw the score... good grief ... this is so embarrassing!! Beaten by a minnow ... shame.

[Ivan]

^

Meh.

Great tackle here and there but he's the New Millennium's Paul Fenwick. Ass Sprayer.

Oh, he may know where he wants this or that pass to go, I'll give him that much. But the execution...well. Ass Sprayer. Try though he may you just don't know where his **** is going to land.

Not sure of your definition of "ass-sprayer", but if it means tough in the tackle, hard, physical player, we need more of them. We simply have too many soft players that offer none of the intimidation factor. I love Tiebert, but he tore through Martinique for the first 15 minutes before they started tackling him hard, taking a couple yellows. What did he do in the last 75 minutes? Do we have any players like that, other than maybe Henry? Our "enforcer" was 18 years old. Until we give our opponents someone to worry about, they play with no fear. And we will lose.

[Gian-Luca]

Here's a classic quote from Miller RE: Rebuilding, "We can’t expect miracles."

Beating Martinique is a miracle now.

Well, to be fair to him, he's 100% correct. With him as coach, beating Martinique (or anyone) would be a miracle.

Ok, a cheap shot against a guy who's doing his patriotic duty by filling in as asked in his spare time. The fault lies moreso in the system that would deem in acceptable to have an interim coach who normally has another job in charge of the team during its continental championship (the only tournament that we can realistically expect to have a shot at winning). So I apologize for that.

But all that said, I've never seen a coach so proficient at ensuring that we don't create any sort of chances from the run of play with the personnel, tactics and formation. The fact that we couldn't create anything against a minnow that had gaping holes in its defence is simply astonishingly poor. These players would do just as well coaching themselves or allowing Floro to coach-by-observation from the stands. And yes, some players didn't play well or are not yet ready to start (namely Piette) but the blame largely falls on the coach for not utilizing what he has to the best of his & the team's abilities.

[Lord Bob]

Martinique's no more a minnow than we are. Where the hell did this meme come from? They're not a great team, they're not Panama, that doesn't mean they're a minnow.

[canadianfoot]

In all seriousness the CSA should look into playing a S-hit load of friendlies against...called minnows. We are the bottom of the food chain at this point and time let's be realistic. Just because Canada is the 2nd largest country by land mass it doesn't convert into soccer skills at all. Invite, Jamaica, Haiti, T&T, Martinique(yes them too). Pay for their flights/hotel and setup a Home/Away schedule with them. If we win 75% of those games then setup another tourney with Central American countries: Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, etc. we get the idea. Only after playing 12-16friendlies try the US/Mexico sides. And we shouldn't get excited beating St. Lucia because the next day we can lose against Martinique.

[ag futbol]

Not sure of your definition of "ass-sprayer", but if it means tough in the tackle, hard, physical player, we need more of them. We simply have too many soft players that offer none of the intimidation factor. I love Tiebert, but he tore through Martinique for the first 15 minutes before they started tackling him hard, taking a couple yellows. What did he do in the last 75 minutes? Do we have any players like that, other than maybe Henry? Our "enforcer" was 18 years old. Until we give our opponents someone to worry about, they play with no fear. And we will lose.

For my money, it wasn't about Tiebert's play as much as their incredibly weak and overwhelmed RB. If we had attacked him as often as they attacked Ledgerwood we might have faired a little better than we did. 2nd half not only did we fail to attack their RB enough, but we didn't find Tiebert with the ball either. We took ourselves straight out of the game.

As far as having physically imposing players goes, I'd say that's pretty much all we've ever had. It's not enough and it just plays right into the trap of trying to kick around the central americans who are more than willing to feign injury to take the physicality out of the game, which in concacaf usually works.

[madmonte]

I'm too lazy to find the original post on Johnson getting subbed off at halftime. Incorrect. He got subbed off early in the second half, and he also gave the armband to JDG. I remember that there was a moment when you could see Will and he didn't have the armband. Hope Will's OK and can continue the tourney with the team.

Fair enough, it was tough the announcers completely missed the substitution. But it was earlier than the 53' I think.

As for Henry he did things good and bad in this game. Good...sticks in hard, and is good in the air, which was invaluable against a Martinique team that had definite size.

Bad: his challenges are often rash and card worthy. He got beaten off the dribble one v one extremely horribly at one point in the second half that resulted in a shot right at Borjan (thankfully), I was watching and wondering if Ashtone Morgan somehow got in the match...and his positioning isn't always top notch. But his positioning is definitely improving big time over what it was a year, two years ago, so that's something.

He's young yet...at times against "high level competition" like "Martinique" (and they aren't a horrible team) but he sometimes looks lost and confused out there. But is always determined enough to pull it back together on the next play.

He'll be fine in a couple years I think, but I wouldn't oversell his performance, he had some poor moments today.

[ag futbol]

Well, to be fair to him, he's 100% correct. With him as coach, beating Martinique (or anyone) would be a miracle.

Ok, a cheap shot against a guy who's doing his patriotic duty by filling in as asked in his spare time. The fault lies moreso in the system that would deem in acceptable to have an interim coach who normally has another job in charge of the team during its continental championship (the only tournament that we can realistically expect to have a shot at winning). So I apologize for that.

But all that said, I've never seen a coach so proficient at ensuring that we don't create any sort of chances from the run of play with the personnel, tactics and formation. The fact that we couldn't create anything against a minnow that had gaping holes in its defence is simply astonishingly poor. These players would do just as well coaching themselves or allowing Floro to coach-by-observation from the stands. And yes, some players didn't play well or are not yet ready to start (namely Piette) but the blame largely falls on the coach for not utilizing what he has to the best of his & the team's abilities.

What I really fail to understand is that they have this idea about how they want to play, they bring in Floro and say that represents the future.

Given this, how the hell does Colin Miller line up with everything else they say they are doing? It seems like they just want a warm body to step in and coach. Miller is pretty much the antithesis of everything they say they want to accomplish down the road.

[youllneverwalkalone]

^I agree and would add that Dos Santos could also have done this job. Presumably Marc would be more closely aligned to Floro's philosophy. I will say this though, Colin Miller has at least coached some professional clubs (Hamilton Academical, Derby, Whitecaps). We have so few guys that could actually step in and do this with any credibility, that I don't think we can be too critical of the CSA on this point. If they had brought Garzolla in as coach and we had lost, a bunch of people would be asking 'what about Colin Miller?'

[madmonte]

Martinique's no more a minnow than we are. Where the hell did this meme come from? They're not a great team, they're not Panama, that doesn't mean they're a minnow.

By world standards Martinique is a minnow. Germany and Spain do not tremble in fear at the mention of Belize or Haiti or Martinique. They also do not tremble in fear at Canada. Martinique is a solid team but anything they do past the group stage at this tournament is a pleasant surprise, in fact an upset, similar to Guadeloupe.

But I know what you are saying. By CONCACAF standards, they aren't that bad. For me, they looked a lot more imposing and dangerous than Cuba, or Puerto Rico by far. But that could just be the result, against an extremely sub par Canada team on the day. How poor we were combined with how well they played certainly made them look good, and all credit to them for helping us look poor.

There's no sugar coating this. It was horrid from us. We did very little right.

Panama has an absolutely stalwart defense when they are in form. They've been out of form in the hex a bit, but it sure seems their form is back... In Seattle, I would be surprised to see Martinique score against Panama, who are tough in the back. We shall see...if Martinique produces results against Mexico and Panama, we will find out very shortly just how good they actually are. I do not predict they get blown out, but I don't predict Martinique beats Panama or Mexico either. They leave this stage with 3 points, maybe 4 if they do well tightening up at the back against Panama who normally don't score a tonne either.

But Martinique could still EASILY leave all this with a GD of -5

[Ivan]

For my money, it wasn't about Tiebert's play as much as their incredibly weak and overwhelmed RB. If we had attacked him as often as they attacked Ledgerwood we might have faired a little better than we did. 2nd half not only did we fail to attack their RB enough, but we didn't find Tiebert with the ball either. We took ourselves straight out of the game.

As far as having physically imposing players goes, I'd say that's pretty much all we've ever had. It's not enough and it just plays right into the trap of trying to kick around the central americans who are more than willing to feign injury to take the physicality out of the game, which in concacaf usually works.

Yes ag, to be fair to Tiebert, Martinique probably played a lot more attention to him and we were not capable of finding him thereafter.

To your second paragraph, it is what we used to have - when we won on occasion with "ass-sprayers" (whatever that means) like Fenwick were on the team (see 2000 Gold Cup). What we need now is a blend of a couple hard physical players in the centre (spine) of the team, with speed and skill on the outside. we are starting to produce the skilled players like Tiebert, Osorio and Aleman - now we need some guys to protect them.

[canadianfoot]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a9WVoQBrdZ0#

[grigorio]

If it's at all comforting (probably not) bumped into Peter Montopoli on the street as I often do given he frequents my preferred coffee shop and the CSA headquarters are a block from my place. His face had the look of a genuinely frazzled man in pain.... but coulda been the heat.

[Admin]

If it's at all comforting (probably not) bumped into Peter Montopoli on the street as I often do given he frequents my preferred coffee shop and the CSA headquarters are a block from my place. His face had the look of a genuinely frazzled man in pain.... but coulda been the heat.

There is simply no doubt among all the CSA people I deal with that there is a genuine desire to do well and improve.

Losses like that are taken personally as people that care about the game, and professionally as it's their job.

There are of course a lot of people that work with the CSA across the country I don't know, but I would definitely put Peter in the category above.

[Guest Ed]

All I have to say about yesterday's match is thank goodness it was being shown only on Sportsnet World.

[Lord Bob]

By world standards Martinique is a minnow. Germany and Spain do not tremble in fear at the mention of Belize or Haiti or Martinique. They also do not tremble in fear at Canada.

By world standards every country in CONCACAF except Mexico in the United States is a minnow, so while you're right I'm not sure it's especially helpful. Martinique and Canada are on the same level, and that level is above the real no-hopers in the Surinam mold. Martinique may be unlikely to get out of this group (well, a lot less unlikely now) but it wouldn't be especially shocking if they did.

[madmonte]

By world standards every country in CONCACAF except Mexico in the United States is a minnow, so while you're right I'm not sure it's especially helpful. Martinique and Canada are on the same level, and that level is above the real no-hopers in the Surinam mold. Martinique may be unlikely to get out of this group (well, a lot less unlikely now) but it wouldn't be especially shocking if they did.

Yeah, I'm right, and yeah, it's not especially helpful. Seems to fit the mood today, doesn't it? Hey, their shot at getting out of this group is actually pretty good There are scenarios where this 3 points is all they need. A couple draws in a different group and boom, they are in! Our shot at getting out of this group is very low, lower because of the Panama result...had Panama lost to Mexico, at least we could have had a chance based on a win in Panama

Now we either have to rely on Martinique to come away with more than the 3 points they already have, OR we have to beat Mexico.

[Keegan]

There is simply no doubt among all the CSA people I deal with that there is a genuine desire to do well and improve.

Losses like that are taken personally as people that care about the game, and professionally as it's their job.

There are of course a lot of people that work with the CSA across the country I don't know, but I would definitely put Peter in the category above.

It just amazes me that on one hand you can hire an incredibly competent manager and seemingly great fit like Benito Floro. And then in the next breathe you say that the Gold Cup team is in "the good hands of Colin Miller". Uhhh clearly not?

We've played 4 matches under Colin Miller (1 Home, 1 Away, 2 Neutral) and we have ZERO goals. Hell, have we even had one good attacking sequence? So we have a coach coming in who is completely against the style Miller employed yesterday, yet the team is in good hands? Okay...

Is it not painfully obvious that the only "idea" Miller has is to have one of our defenders launch a ball over one of their full backs heads and hope that Ricketts/Teibert can outpace the guy... and even if he does then we have to PRAY that Ricketts has the technical skill to actually do something with the ball. I felt bad for Teibert out there, he clearly wanted to play football yesterday and no one else was having it. I'm sure he'll be a big part of Floro's plans.

Edit:

My sincerest apologies to Colin Miller. We did score a border line own goal against Ventura County SC.

[Addona]

It just amazes me that on one hand you can hire an incredibly competent manager and seemingly great fit like Benito Floro. And then in the next breathe you say that the Gold Cup team is in "the good hands of Colin Miller". Uhhh clearly not?

We've played 4 matches under Colin Miller (1 Home, 1 Away, 2 Neutral) and we have ZERO goals. Hell, have we even had one good attacking sequence? So we have a coach coming in who is completely against the style Miller employed yesterday, yet the team is in good hands? Okay...

Is it not painfully obvious that the only "idea" Miller has is to have one of our defenders launch a ball over one of their full backs heads and hope that Ricketts/Teibert can outpace the guy... and even if he does then we have to PRAY that Ricketts has the technical skill to actually do something with the ball. I felt bad for Teibert out there, he clearly wanted to play football yesterday and no one else was having it. I'm sure he'll be a big part of Floro's plans.

Edit:

My sincerest apologies to Colin Miller. We did score a border line own goal against Ventura County SC.

I just saw this interview with Miller:

Two things I don't understand from it:

1. How does a coach who only used 2 subs complain about fatigue in the 94 degree heat!!! WTF! You do, realize, Colin, that you could have thrown a pair of fresh legs out there, right?

2. He says about Aleman something to the effect, in a game like that, it's not the time to be throwing an 18 year-old kid out there. But, it's ok to start Piette. I'm very confused. His BS answers are not even consistent with his own actions.

[DigzTFC]

http://canadasoccer.com/miller-we-need-to-regroup--p154474

Here's what really pisses me off. Colin Miller: "I don't think its fair to put Kevin Aleman or other young players in that game where it could go either way. We have to honest about where we are right. Some guys aren't ready to play at this level"

IF THEY'RE NOT READY DON'T CALL THEM.

He basically said that Kevin Aleman won't be playing despite the teams already apparent tank.

If he starts Ricketts over Jackson again....

Nice guy. He's got the voice for commentating. He should start applying to Sportsnet.

I'll watch to see what he does for the rest of the tournament. He's very lucky most analyst in this country know him personally.

[Guest Ed]

I just saw this interview with Miller:

Two things I don't understand from it:

1. How does a coach who only used 2 subs complain about fatigue in the 94 degree heat!!! WTF! You do, realize, Colin, that you could have thrown a pair of fresh legs out there, right?

2. He says about Aleman something to the effect, in a game like that, it's not the time to be throwing an 18 year-old kid out there. But, it's ok to start Piette. I'm very confused. His BS answers are not even consistent with his own actions.

I really am underwhelmed by Piette. He doesn't have a pro game to his name in Germany. I wish the press would start looking at what the players have actually done before trotting out the 'plays for Fortuna Dusseldorf'. He has 0 minutes with Fortuna Dusseldorf and a grand total of 65 minutes with the 4th tier Fortuna Dusseldorf amateurs. There is no way on earth he should be starting ahead of Pachecho among others at this or any other tournament.

[Wingback6]

I really am underwhelmed by Piette. He doesn't have a pro game to his name in Germany. I wish the press would start looking at what the players have actually done before trotting out the 'plays for Fortuna Dusseldorf'. He has 0 minutes with Fortuna Dusseldorf and a grand total of 65 minutes with the 4th tier Fortuna Dusseldorf amateurs. There is no way on earth he should be starting ahead of Pachecho among others at this or any other tournament.

I couldn't agree more. If I was Pacheco I would stop answering the call. At this point, putting a player like Piette ahead of him is an insult, to someone who is the Captain of his club. The only thing Piette seems to do consistently is foul attackers in the box. Moreover, I doubt he will be able to keep an athletes body index much later than 21, and will probably go the way of Peters, and retire before he's 25.

[ag futbol]

I really am underwhelmed by Piette. He doesn't have a pro game to his name in Germany. I wish the press would start looking at what the players have actually done before trotting out the 'plays for Fortuna Dusseldorf'. He has 0 minutes with Fortuna Dusseldorf and a grand total of 65 minutes with the 4th tier Fortuna Dusseldorf amateurs. There is no way on earth he should be starting ahead of Pachecho among others at this or any other tournament.

I agree with this completely. It's nice to look to the future, but you can only be so speculative and you have to realize there is a line in terms of how much experience someone needs before giving them a national team cap. I would have thought that would be at least a handful of games at the pro level.

Throwing someone on the field doesn't always lead to the type of progression you would hope for, especially in a national team format where we barely play any games.

[Trillium]

^I agree and would add that Dos Santos could also have done this job. Presumably Marc would be more closely aligned to Floro's philosophy. I will say this though, Colin Miller has at least coached some professional clubs (Hamilton Academical, Coached in Scottish second division winning relegation to the third division with a record of 10 wins, 14 ties and 12 losses, not exactly stellar DerbyAssistant in year the team was relegated downwards... from Premier ship seems a pattern forming, Whitecaps assitant coach and academy coach over two years then let go to go to Fraser Valley Cascades... ). We have so few guys that could actually step in and do this with any credibility, that I don't think we can be too critical of the CSA on this point. If they had brought Garzolla in as coach and we had lost, a bunch of people would be asking 'what about Colin Miller?'

So not a very stellar professional club coaching resume.. and yes I have left out the National team stints.

We should be very critical of the CSA on failing to develop and aid development of a domestic coaching cadre.