canadianfoot Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 So I have been thinking about todays result against Martinique, was it bad, ugly, hilarious? We had an idea going into the tournament don't expect much, especially that we happen to have in our group Panama and Mexico. But at the same time we happen to have Martinique a lowly Ranked CONCACAF nation...(TOM as French would say but lets put that aside). Our JUNE 2013 Ranking by FIFA is 88th while CONCACAF it is currently 10th. Mexico Tops the list with 20FIFA/1CONCACAF, PANAMA is 51FIFA/4CONCACAF but Martinique? Where exactly are they? FIFA doesn't have them listed for obvious reasons, CONCACAF doesn't list them either but I would say somewhere along the bottom 3rd of the table. Don't get me wrong Upsets happen in football but today was a classless act by footballers who as soon as they play 1game at a higher level they consider themselves superstars. It could be our fault to the fans and media crave the wins and as soon as we do actually win we don't look at the picture that it was lady luck on our side or the Ref's red card that handed us our victory. Sure we have been f...ed over by Refs a number of occasions but we cannot blame a Ref forever. The coach? Yeah sure made mistakes, he's interim so doesn't give a ....or maybe he does and the players aren't good enough? Just because the player plays in MLS or Bundesliga 2 does it mean he's great? Our whole pyramid is BROKEN to fix it will need a Long time, some here have been following the national team 1year some 10 others 30years, some have given up others are still hoping..... I don't like the term minnow being used against a country because as we saw today we were outplayed. What does minnow mean anyway small country? Not a big footprint on the football map? Well they got a league at least....We might need to look at ourselves in the mirror and say forget about playing the BiG Countries, the Best ones are the ones you will learn from. In our case at least for the men's national team we need to play everyone, "minnow" or not. For starters forget European countries our region is CONCACAF with it's own style, play all the small "minnow" nations pick 4-5 Caribbean Nations and another 5central American ones play them till we sick to our stomachs, but play till we WIN Regularly. They won't command a big sum of money to organise the games. We play at BMO field? OK Toronto organizes the Caribbean festival then pay 5nations to attend. Do a mini tournament, the crowd won't be Pro Canadian in CANADA? If we can't organize ourselves but others can we have lots to work on. For starters I say pick in no particular order: Nicaragua Belize El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Panama Jamaica T & T Cuba oh wait that's our usual suspects...... I was even thinking of playing our MLS/NASL teams at full strength to cut down on fees. And the events could be fundraisers for local food banks or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackdude Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 I believe that Martinique is one of the most underrated team since they don't have a FIFA ranking. But their top players are better than our top players, IMO. Martinique is the 2nd best country in the Caribbean after Jamaica according to the Elo rankings, but they won't get the rep that a Trinidad or Haiti or even Guatemala get. They're a good CONCACAF squad and people say hey they're unranked by FIFA so they must really !$!%!%?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addona Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 I believe that Martinique is one of the most underrated team since they don't have a FIFA ranking. But their top players are better than our top players, IMO. Martinique is the 2nd best country in the Caribbean after Jamaica according to the Elo rankings, but they won't get the rep that a Trinidad or Haiti or even Guatemala get. They're a good CONCACAF squad and people say hey they're unranked by FIFA so they must really !$!%!%?. +1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 I don't know if minnow is the correct term, it is one that I would use - you may not like it and that is fine but I think it is fair to say that they are a team that we should be winning against. I'm not sure if there was some sort mistaken preparation or what but the play on display should have been better. I almost wonder if Miller set up a system designed to deal with Panama and Mexico and was using this game as preparation to familiarize the team with the system. In any event the result speaks for itself and I don't think that anyone can argue that the result didn't reflect the play on the pitch. We need to learn how to win the games we should be winning, yes upsets happen, but those are usually results that don't reflect the play, that can't be said here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmonte Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 I believe that Martinique is one of the most underrated team since they don't have a FIFA ranking. But their top players are better than our top players, IMO. Martinique is the 2nd best country in the Caribbean after Jamaica according to the Elo rankings, but they won't get the rep that a Trinidad or Haiti or even Guatemala get. They're a good CONCACAF squad and people say hey they're unranked by FIFA so they must really !$!%!%?. Oh don't get me wrong, I always did rate them. But no, not as high as T&T. Probably as high as Haiti though. Haiti's high FIFA ranking is misleading. But it's still a team Canada should beat. Except that we are a minnow too. Their high ELO ranking is based on recent results to qualify for this tournament, which is fair. As for setting up tournaments at BMO...when? Believe it or not, CSA has been putting a check mark, in the last year, we've had a friendly at basically every date. For the CMNT to do something like that requires a big window. Maybe during the world cup, but then who would watch? And then it becomes a big expense that doesn't pay for itself. Just regular friendlies against these countries are definitely something to do though. Martinique...it will become very clear just how good they actually are within the next week. I do remember that Guadeloupe had some good showings though, and they are VERY comparable nations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munseahawk Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Martinique doesn't have a FIFA ranking as they are not a FIFA member. It's amazing that someone like Kurt Larson didn't pick up on that last night when he tweeted about the impact the loss would have on Canada's FIFA ranking. In looking at the FIFA rankings of some of the teams around them in the ELO and those they faced in the Caribbean Championship, I figure they would be around 95-100 if they were ranked. Canada keeps playing teams ranked ahead of them but no results. That's going to hurt the ranking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Crampton Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Mostly hilarious. Mostly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addona Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Martinique doesn't have a FIFA ranking as they are not a FIFA member. It's amazing that someone like Kurt Larson didn't pick up on that last night when he tweeted about the impact the loss would have on Canada's FIFA ranking. In looking at the FIFA rankings of some of the teams around them in the ELO and those they faced in the Caribbean Championship, I figure they would be around 95-100 if they were ranked. Canada keeps playing teams ranked ahead of them but no results. That's going to hurt the ranking. Yeah, people generally don't understand the rankings and they figure if a country doesn't have a FIFA ranking then they must really suck. The reality is that Martinique is way better than Puerto Rico and St. Kitts and Nevis, who both drew with us in WCQ. Not to mention that when Martinique made the GC quarters, we only beat them on penalties. Add to this that we were playing with a very young B squad and they were surely playing with their best available, and the result doesn't seem that surprising. It's not the result that bothered me so much as the way it seemed like we had absolutely no plan of what we should be doing when we got the ball, and literally would just kick the ball as far up the field as possible on many possessions. That is frustrating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchteveTown Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 On the upside, I think Canada participated in the first ever Gold Cup match where that shaving foam stuff was used to mark the 9.15 metres for free kicks. That's history. They can't take that away from us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeta Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 On the upside, I think Canada participated in the first ever Gold Cup match where that shaving foam stuff was used to mark the 9.15 metres for free kicks. That's history. They can't take that away from us. My, some one is feeling generous this evening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheKottonmouthed1555362307 Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 MTQ is definitely not as bad as most people judge them, but on that note if we are ever to get respect for ourselves amongst FIFA members. We HAVE to beat non-FIFA members regardless of their perceived and actual skill levels. Canada has a lot of work to do, yet somehow our match vs MEX will still mean something if we can somehow get 4 points out of the MEX and PAN games (plus the help of MTQ vs PAN and MEX) we could still get out of our group. Bottom line is though we are nowhere near where we want to be at the National level. Floro better be the next Hiddink at the INT level for us to get back on track for 2018. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoalieGrey Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Okay, so, who is better...the Martinique squad we just lost to, or the Guadeloupe team we lost to in 2007? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearcatSA Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Okay, so, who is better...the Martinique squad we just lost to, or the Guadeloupe team we lost to in 2007? Guadeloupe, like us, reached the semis that year (QF win over Honduras, then 0-1 to Mexico). So right now, I'd go with Guadeloupe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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