International Minutes - Team regulars

[baulderdash77]

We were looking in other threads about the minutes that our players are getting with their respective first teams; but that's mostly been an MLS thing.  Let's take a look at our "regular" players minutes in the most recently completed year.

 

Keepers:

Borjan - 360

Hirshfeld - 450

 

Grim

 

Defenders:

Edgar - 573

Hainault - 1078

Straith - 368

de Jong - 185

Ledgerwood - 1199

Jakovic - 1981

 

Also pretty grim.  Jakovic was the only regular last season outside MLS.  Edgar is at least getting regular minutes this season along with Hainault.

 

Midfielders:

de Guzman - 2179

Pacheco - 3207

Hutchinson -2626

 

Lots of minutes here.  So clearly the strength of the team in both quality and experience.  Our MLS side is also strong.

 

Forwards:

Haber  - 675

Ricketts - 1884

Jackson - 527

Edwini-Bonsu - 710

 

Ricketts has been the only first team regular of our internationals now.  No wonder he has the most minutes of anyone on the roster besides Borjan this year.

 

Overall it looks like we had 5 starters for their team last year along with another 6 more players getting regular minutes as substitutes but it's 15 players for 18,002 minutes last season.  Fairly comparable to the depth of our MLS players.

 

 

[shamrock]

Fact is, Canada's MNT is way behind other countries. Sometimes people here on these boards seem so overly optimistic, while for instance a soccer-mad country like Turkey has only been at a World Cup once (in 2002). The country of 76 million has been at the European Cup just 3 times. This is a country with professionals leagues, a large diaspora in Western Europe and lot's of players in foreign leagues.

 

Or compare with a country like Scotland. We all know it has 4 leagues, the Premier League isn't the strongest in Europe but what the heck. We're happy to see 1 (!) Canadian playing in that league. Scotland has a lot of WC appearances, but the last time was in 98. So it failed to qualify for the last 4 editions. It has qualified for the EC just 2 times in history (the last being in 96).

 

It's easy to see how far the Canadian pool is behind countries like Turkey and Scotland at the moment. Let alone the countries who actually qualify on a regular basis, which would be our opponents at such a tournament (France Brazil Netherlands Arentina Germany England, you know the list). We need more than an occasional starter in a semi-top league to be able to compete for real. 

 

Having 5 pro clubs (hopefully 8 in a few years) is obviously a major step in the right direction. But still a long way to go to bring the whole program up to speed, even compared with CONCACAF-nations like Costa Rica, Honduras or even Jamaica.  

[king1010]

The comparison with Scotland and Turkey is great. But has nothing to do with us. We don't have to compete against France, Netherlands, Germany, England, Belgium, Spain.

 

Let's worry about those teams if we ever make it to the  WC.

 

I dont think ppl in Scotland or Turkey are comparing their depth pool to Canada saying "jeeze if we were in Concacaf we would qualify"

[VWFC]

Those numbers are for all of 2014 right?

 

Straith and de Guzman haven't played competitively since May

[shamrock]

The comparison with Scotland and Turkey is great. But has nothing to do with us. We don't have to compete against France, Netherlands, Germany, England, Belgium, Spain.

 

Let's worry about those teams if we ever make it to the  WC.

 

I dont think ppl in Scotland or Turkey are comparing their depth pool to Canada saying "jeeze if we were in Concacaf we would qualify"

 

Wow, amazing how you completely missed the point. Why don't you do the same comparison then with say Panama or Guatemala and draw the same conclusion. Besides, the goal is to make it to the World Cup, but who would you think we'd be facing there anyway?

 

I think it's funny how there's a topic called Striker Problem, while in fact there is a Football Problem. Every nation at the World Cup, every single nation, has better players than we do. At every single position. That's the problem. Looking at the quality of the Canadian players, we'd be lucky to be mid-table in Concacaf (that is including the Island nations).

 

Baulderdash77's numbers show that the road ahead is extremely long, especially considering other nations (yes even in Concacaf) are improving as well. Floro is not a magician, even though he got a decent result parking the bus against a not so motivated Colombia. 

[king1010]

Wow, amazing how you completely missed the point. Why don't you do the same comparison then with say Panama or Guatemala and draw the same conclusion. Besides, the goal is to make it to the World Cup, but who would you think we'd be facing there anyway?

 

I think it's funny how there's a topic called Striker Problem, while in fact there is a Football Problem. Every nation at the World Cup, every single nation, has better players than we do. At every single position. That's the problem. Looking at the quality of the Canadian players, we'd be lucky to be mid-table in Concacaf (that is including the Island nations).

 

Baulderdash77's numbers show that the road ahead is extremely long, especially considering other nations (yes even in Concacaf) are improving as well. Floro is not a magician, even though he got a decent result parking the bus against a not so motivated Colombia. 

 

No need to get worked up. We're all pulling for the same team here.

 

Im just worried about making it to the world cup. Not about who we would be facing there. Also chances are highly unlikely we'd be faciing Guatamala or Panama. We wouldn't be drawn in the same group as them. And chances of one, let alone both of us getting out of our group are slim to none.

 

And if you're asking me to compare ourselves to Panama and Guatamala right now I'd say our future talent level looks better than both. Mid table among Concacaf including the Islands? Have you not seen our U20 pool. They have a good shot of qualifying for the WC top 3 in Concacaf. Not sure why you think our talent level is mid table concacaf.

 

Of course most teams in the World Cup have better players than us. What do you expect? Us to get to the World Cup and be power houses? Our first goal should be to simply qualify for the World Cup, anything else is gravy. Once we have qualified for the World Cup the next cycle we should focus on moving past the group stage. It's not going to happen over night.

 

Once again, I am more worried about oursleves and getting to the world cup as opposed to how we compare to other teams who are regularly at the World Cup.

[kingvikingstad]

Fact is, Canada's MNT is way behind other countries. Sometimes people here on these boards seem so overly optimistic, while for instance a soccer-mad country like Turkey has only been at a World Cup once (in 2002). The country of 76 million has been at the European Cup just 3 times. This is a country with professionals leagues, a large diaspora in Western Europe and lot's of players in foreign leagues.

 

Or compare with a country like Scotland. We all know it has 4 leagues, the Premier League isn't the strongest in Europe but what the heck. We're happy to see 1 (!) Canadian playing in that league. Scotland has a lot of WC appearances, but the last time was in 98. So it failed to qualify for the last 4 editions. It has qualified for the EC just 2 times in history (the last being in 96).

 

It's easy to see how far the Canadian pool is behind countries like Turkey and Scotland at the moment. Let alone the countries who actually qualify on a regular basis, which would be our opponents at such a tournament (France Brazil Netherlands Arentina Germany England, you know the list). We need more than an occasional starter in a semi-top league to be able to compete for real. 

 

Having 5 pro clubs (hopefully 8 in a few years) is obviously a major step in the right direction. But still a long way to go to bring the whole program up to speed, even compared with CONCACAF-nations like Costa Rica, Honduras or even Jamaica.  

 

Our road to the world cup is far easier than Turkey and Scotland and that in itself has everything to do with why we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to those teams. There's a reason that many people argue that the Euro is actually harder to win than the world cup. We should be comparing ourselves to our competition within CONCACAF because that's all that matters and all that stands between us and a world cup appearance.

I don't think anyone is looking ahead to who we play at the world cup and how badly we will likely get beat because it's so outside the purview of what's realistic right now. If we make the World Cup in 2018 I will be the happiest man on the planet, and if we lose all three games I will still be the happiest man on the planet because we achieved our goal. Afterwards we can discuss how to sustain the results, make another world cup and improve. Ultimately, we should always be stabilizing our infrastructure so that we can make many more (something a world cup will help with in getting funding/sponsorship to do).

[king1010]

AMEN ^^^^^

 

Similar to my view/ opinion

[shamrock]

Our road to the world cup is far easier than Turkey and Scotland and that in itself has everything to do with why we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to those teams. There's a reason that many people argue that the Euro is actually harder to win than the world cup. We should be comparing ourselves to our competition within CONCACAF because that's all that matters and all that stands between us and a world cup appearance.

I don't think anyone is looking ahead to who we play at the world cup and how badly we will likely get beat because it's so outside the purview of what's realistic right now. If we make the World Cup in 2018 I will be the happiest man on the planet, and if we lose all three games I will still be the happiest man on the planet because we achieved our goal. Afterwards we can discuss how to sustain the results, make another world cup and improve. Ultimately, we should always be stabilizing our infrastructure so that we can make many more (something a world cup will help with in getting funding/sponsorship to do).

 

I made that point about Concacaf some time ago, and got scoffed about it on this forum. Glad that we agree on that point though.

 

Secondly, my argument is that we need that level of players to get to the Cup. There's a reason the level of competition there is so high, these are the nations that have beat a lot of other nations to get there. 

 

I'm optimistic as the next guy, but 2018 to me seems highly unrealistic.

[king1010]

I made that point about Concacaf some time ago, and got scoffed about it on this forum. Glad that we agree on that point though.

 

Secondly, my argument is that we need that level of players to get to the Cup. There's a reason the level of competition there is so high, these are the nations that have beat a lot of other nations to get there. 

 

I'm optimistic as the next guy, but 2018 to me seems highly unrealistic.

 

New Zealand was recently in the world cup as well as some other not so good nations, I dont think their level of play is that much higher than Canada's. Id argue that Euro's has a much higher level of competion than the World Cup.

 

Its all about what region your coming and qualifying from.

[Keegan]

New Zealand was recently in the world cup as well as some other not so good nations, I dont think their level of play is that much higher than Canada's. Id argue that Euro's has a much higher level of competion than the World Cup.

 

Its all about what region your coming and qualifying from.

 

I don't know you only need to look at recent results to see that probably isn't the case.  20 years ago? Maybe, but today that is a tougher argument. 

 

Uruguay, Costa Rica, Italy and England... who advanced? 0 Euro teams.  EUROs are probably equal to the World Cup in terms of average talent but I don't think you can say definitively that the EUROs are tougher when they are missing teams like Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and even the USA.  Not to mention teams like Ghana, Japan, Ivory Coast etc. who have real talent in their ranks.

[Grizzly]

New Zealand was recently in the world cup as well as some other not so good nations, I dont think their level of play is that much higher than Canada's. Id argue that Euro's has a much higher level of competion than the World Cup.

 

Its all about what region your coming and qualifying from.

 

The World Cup is a much higher level competition than the EURO even though it has the odd weak team. There are weak teams that qualify for the EURO as well and I seem to remember a very mediocre team winning it not too long ago that never would have won the WC. And the don't forget that while UEFA consistently sends some of the better teams to the World Cup it also consistently has some of the worst teams in the World Cup. To be fair sometimes there are better European teams not qualified than some of the ones they send because of their inability to come up with a fair qualification process. Whether it is harder to qualify out of Europe than CONCACAF is wholly dependent on what group a team gets, some teams have a very easy road and others a very difficult one. For the most part Europe has a small number of really good teams and then where they differ from the other regions is the large number of decent but mediocre teams. And yes that level of decent but mediocre level team is still above our current level.

[baulderdash77]

To crystalize the discussion.  I'm going to post Costa Rica starting players as a contrast to ours:

 

There's simply no comparison to the level of play that we're getting compared to them.  We have maybe a couple players that get a sniff on that team. 

 

GK - Keylor Navas - Real Madrid

DF -Junior Diaz - Mainz (B1)

DF - Roy Miller - NYRB (MLS)

DF - Giancarlo Gomez - Palermo (Series A)

DF - Cristian Gonzalez - West Brom Albion (EPL)

MF - Celso Borges - AIK (Sweden)

MF - Yeltsin Tejada - Evian (Ligue 1 France)

MF - Jose Cubero - Blackpool (Championship)

FW - Alvaro Saborio - Real Salt Lake (MLS)

FW - Bryan Ruiz - Fulham (EPL)

FW - Joel Cambell - Arsenal (EPL)

[baulderdash77]

I guess my point is that it's not just the minutes our players are getting; it's the level.  I do think that the 9 or so MLS players that we have as regulars in the league do constitute international quality level.

 

Outside of our MLS player pool the only guys who are playing at an international quality level for us are Hutchinson, Borjan, De Jong and MAYBE Edgar and Ricketts. 

[Soccerpro]

To crystalize the discussion.  I'm going to post Costa Rica starting players as a contrast to ours:

 

There's simply no comparison to the level of play that we're getting compared to them.  We have maybe a couple players that get a sniff on that team. 

 

GK - Keylor Navas - Real Madrid

DF -Junior Diaz - Mainz (B1)

DF - Roy Miller - NYRB (MLS)

DF - Giancarlo Gomez - Palermo (Series A)

DF - Cristian Gonzalez - West Brom Albion (EPL)

MF - Celso Borges - AIK (Sweden)

MF - Yeltsin Tejada - Evian (Ligue 1 France)

MF - Jose Cubero - Blackpool (Championship)

FW - Alvaro Saborio - Real Salt Lake (MLS)

FW - Bryan Ruiz - Fulham (EPL)

FW - Joel Cambell - Arsenal (EPL)

This ^

[IceCreamMan]

 

 

To crystalize the discussion.  I'm going to post Costa Rica starting players as a contrast to ours:

 

There's simply no comparison to the level of play that we're getting compared to them.  We have maybe a couple players that get a sniff on that team. 

 

GK - Keylor Navas - Real Madrid

DF -Junior Diaz - Mainz (B1)

DF - Roy Miller - NYRB (MLS)

DF - Giancarlo Gomez - Palermo (Series A)

DF - Cristian Gonzalez - West Brom Albion (EPL)

MF - Celso Borges - AIK (Sweden)

MF - Yeltsin Tejada - Evian (Ligue 1 France)

MF - Jose Cubero - Blackpool (Championship)

FW - Alvaro Saborio - Real Salt Lake (MLS)

FW - Bryan Ruiz - Fulham (EPL)

FW - Joel Cambell - Arsenal (EPL)

This makes me sad. 

[Blackdude]

The thing with Costa Rica is that players got a great World Cup run and 6 of the players named were at a smaller club before WC. Let's see where they are in 1.5 years. It could be a bubble that will burst.

[IceCreamMan]

The thing with Costa Rica is that players got a great World Cup run and 6 of the players named were at a smaller club before WC. Let's see where they are in 1.5 years. It could be a bubble that will burst.

Good point although you could make a counter argument that the increased competition and level of training will actually further increase the quality they have. I think I tend to side with your perspective but either way it sure would be nice to have some more players at that level. 

[shamrock]

Yes but their smaller clubs were bigger than the clubs our players play at right now. 

[Barthez-Battalion]

When you look at the current crop of call ups, we have three keepers who are all on the bench for their clubs. We have had three this season who have seen regular minutes. Monslave, Smits and Roberts. Of those three Smits deserves a call up and there is no reason he can't get a shot as our starter since he actually plays games. Our defenders are hit or miss. One is unnattached, and one is still in the development system. Tissot is an alright shout since he plays a lot for Montreal but Ouimette has fallen out of favour with Klopas it seems and so doesn't play much. Attakora is a write off, as is Morgan. Henry also is a regular although to the end Vanney didn't play him because he doesn't rate him. the only other "regular" is Edgar. Ledgerwood is a good soldier, but 3. Liga doesn't compare much, and he's also a bench player most of the time. JDG is unnattached. Bernier is a regular, Issey isn't. Bekker isn't either. Osorio and Teibert are regulars for their teams although I expect Teibert to get rooted to the bench next season since Robbo's preferred midfield two is Laba and Koffie. And let's face it: no one knows where Teibert's best position is. Is it DM? Is it on the wing? Should he be played in a diamond? He's the midfield Clint Demspey/David Luiz. Alderson's last name isn't Aldez so he doesn't get any time at all for Vancouver. Atiba is the only one playing at a really high level week in and week out with Besiktas. And then our strikers. De Ro is 36, and not a real factor for TFC his season. Tosaint is a sub for Haifa and Marcus Haber is also a sub in League One. We simply can't compare ourselves to the other clubs in CONCACAF. CR, Honduras, they're players all player at a higher average level than we do. De Jong doesn't get time at Augsburg, and Hainault plays for the bottom bolted team in Aalen. REB is in the 3. liga, Jackson in in League one. I don't know how we can compare ourselves to them when our players are mostly in lower divisions, and some aren't even starters! Right now we are more on the level to a El Salvador or maybe a a bit below a Panama. It looks like we are going to be one of those teams, under Floro, that will punch above their weight. Who knows how long it will last. Although if things go well, our crop of youngsters could potentially be good players and get us to be decent enough to stop calling up third division/low second division players.

[canucklefan]

Great post Barthez. Overall we can say that our players have less playing time than players from other CONCACAF nations and also the level is lower. That's why I mentioned we won't qualify to the next WC, especially when Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver don't have 11 Canadian regulars together. We need them to hope for a real chance to qualify but results aren't good enough so far.

[Keegan]

The Floro factor trumps the fact that we don't have as many players playing at high levels as the past 2 cycles IMO and I feel better about our chances.

 

Don't forget that man for man the roster we put out against Honduras October 16th, 2012 was arguably playing at higher/equal levels to that Honduras team and we all know what happened.  There are no bad teams at this level and to win you need to be an organized unit that works together not a team of your most talented 11 on the pitch. 

 

I agree that players need to be playing and at a good level, that is just common sense.  But I'm going to be more optimistic with the XI Floro selects, featuring possible players at lower levels than I was in 2008 or 2012 with more talented squads. 

[king1010]

The Floro factor trumps the fact that we don't have as many players playing at high levels as the past 2 cycles IMO and I feel better about our chances.

 

Don't forget that man for man the roster we put out against Honduras October 16th, 2012 was arguably playing at higher/equal levels to that Honduras team and we all know what happened.  There are no bad teams at this level and to win you need to be an organized unit that works together not a team of your most talented 11 on the pitch. 

 

I agree that players need to be playing and at a good level, that is just common sense.  But I'm going to be more optimistic with the XI Floro selects, featuring possible players at lower levels than I was in 2008 or 2012 with more talented squads. 

 

This. 

 

Our 2010 WCQ team was better on paper than 2014 but we were better results wise in 2014. 

 

We could have the best players in the world but if the system aint there and structure falls apart we aren't going anywhere. Case in point brazil 2014 wc semis. 

[Barthez-Battalion]

This. 

 

Our 2010 WCQ team was better on paper than 2014 but we were better results wise in 2014. 

 

We could have the best players in the world but if the system aint there and structure falls apart we aren't going anywhere. Case in point brazil 2014 wc semis. 

Tells you about the CSA during the mid 2000s when our first really good coach who changes the system is Floro.