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Gold Cup 2013: Concluding Thoughts


Wingback6

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So an other Gold Cup ends, and we wait for the next friendly to satisfy our craving for Canadian national men's football.

What are people's general thoughts on the outcome of the tournament.

I for one, am happy. Relatively. As was discussed over beers at the Grove, some of the younger players showed well, in terms of the short game. We remain weak in the forward position, and in the attacking mid, but our ability to keep possession is greatly improved (IMHO). We were able to string together half a dozen, plus passes with ease, which was something we were not able to do with regularity last qualifying cycle. Conclusion:

We were very unlucky, but we showed well in general. Thoughts?

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I agree with most of that, I think it was a very good tournament to get some youngsters experience in CONCACAF and there was some promise for the future shown! Let's be honest here, before we kicked a ball this squad was going to be offensively challenged and that was before we lost Teibert, REB, Jackson and to some extent Johnson! There was potential to be blown out in the last two matches but that didn't happen! We never got a good performance from all in one match but over the 3 we saw some good potential, these are very young players for the most part! The new Gaffer would have seen first hand some of the players in the pool so that has to be good for him moving forward! There is obviously a lot of work to be done but time is on our side, we won't play another meaningful match for 2 years now!

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Main goal was to bring in young players and give them experience playing against CONCACAF teams in a competitive environment. They have accomplished that and we saw some players doing well while others shown they're not ready yet to play in men's national team.

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You're not from Toronto, there's always another low to reach in football, you can bet on it.

As long you got a person who knows what they're doing (in this case, CMNT does now) who's back with soccer savvy leader (which CSA has now) with a clear plan to fix our program (which I am assuming there's a plan in place), then it's hard not to be excited about future especially when we got talented young players coming up.

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As long you got a person who knows what they're doing (in this case, CMNT does now) who's back with soccer savvy leader (which CSA has now) with a clear plan to fix our program (which I am assuming there's a plan in place), then it's hard not to be excited about future especially when we got talented young players coming up.

Oh I'm very excited about the hire and where this might go, just pointing out that we have a domestic club who knows lower depths than the CMNT has ever reached. Don't ever think we've hit rock bottom, so it won't come as a surprise if we actually sink to a new low :)

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Would have been good to get another game in. That is what troubles me a bit. The other nations that qualify for quarter final and more get valuable matches to work on their game and assessing their squads in competitive matches.

Unfortunate that Johnson and Teibert had to miss 2 matches. They might of helped us get a win against that Panama b team. Should have avoided the last second loss to Martinique.

But after every disappointment it's always coulda, woulda, shoulda isn't it?

I didn't have high expectations going in so i guess they were met.

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Would have been good to get another game in. That is what troubles me a bit. The other nations that qualify for quarter final and more get valuable matches to work on their game and assessing their squads in competitive matches.

Unfortunate that Johnson and Teibert had to miss 2 matches. They might of helped us get a win against that Panama b team. Should have avoided the last second loss to Martinique.

But after every disappointment it's always coulda, woulda, shoulda isn't it?

I didn't have high expectations going in so i guess they were met.

My expectation was that we beat Martinique and get at least a draw against one of Panama/Mexico. Injuries were cruel to us but it's important to keep in mind that Teibert, Johnson (50/50) and Jackson were all available for the first match when the wheels fell off.

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Other than the obvious, I would have liked to seen Straith feature in one game. From what I recall he was confident with the ball at his feet when he was at Cottbus, which I find is the limiting factors with Henry and to a lesser extent Ledgerwood. Playing in this confederation playing defence to forward doesn't cut it which was glaring this tourney and I felt every time Henry got the ball he skipped the mids. Could be that they weren't showing but Edgar and De Jong didn't seem to have the problem as frequently.

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This is a very Canadian satisfied with the status-quo answer to give but honestly given the squad that went, outside of the Martinique game, this tournament was about what we should expect. A hard fought loss to Mexico that really should have only been 1-0 given the controversial penalty and a 0-0 draw with Panama. Obviously not ideal but it was a young team and there were some positives. Obviously the overwhelming negative is that this team still can't score.

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Disappointed. Losing to Martinique was just sad. I don't know how else to put it. A loss to Mexico 2-0 was expected and I was honestly expecting a worse beating than that. The draw against Panama was nice. Aleman getting cap tied for us was probably the highlight for me (how can you not like someone named Ale-Man?). Not seeing REB, Cavalini or Straith in action and Will / Russell getting injured and sick was very disappointing as I wanted to see a lot more of them.

That said we played better in the passing and as bad as I've seen in the offensive part. Our possession was good but the majority of it was in our half. When we can keep possession in the attacking half I'll be a lot more happy. Small steps for some of the players but all in all we are exactly where we were 6 months ago. I'm looking forward to the new era whole heartedly.

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