The 2016 Rio Olympics thread: August 3rd to 19th

[Joe MacCarthy]

4 hours ago, A_Gagne said:

Huge win! Labbe is the real deal. The addition of Beckie and Fleming make this team much more dynamic on attack than they've been in years, but both lack a little in experience/poise, as evident by the penalty and breakaway misses by both respectively. Lawrence is a boss! Plays with Buchanan-esque composure.

You hit the nail on the head.  They are all cool customers, I disagree on one point, we've never had that kind of skill and poise in our young players aside from Sinc.

Good points I saw:

1.  Although I didn't think Beckie should take the penalty, she quickly forgot her blown opportunity and went right back to business, I really like that quality in her.  A real striker is able to forget quickly, she does and has some swagger as well.

2  Even a guy like me can see the quality in Fleming, cool as a cucumber.  I'm not going to blame her for missing that opportunity because she was on a bad angle (first touch bad?) and she did pretty well to get as good a shot as she did.  Nobody on the broadcast seemed to mention the brilliant pass to Sinc for the second goal.  Another bad angle, she had a quick look up and was able to turn and fire a perfect pass top Sinc who was way up the field.

3 Labbe is definitely a disciple of Erin, she looks like she is having fun out there and not a bundle of nerves.  Notice when she quickly went to console Zadorsky, real leadership.

[Trillium]

Great result for Canada.. and one I frankly thought before the game was not going to happen, glad to see the young one's stepping up and leading the transistion for this team.

I have never been a "Sinclair" fan and today elements of her game and the on field decision regarding the penalty kick again tell me her day is done...that said she slotted a goal that lots of others would shank over the net, and yes she set up a perfect goal so props to her and if this is her swang song keep it up and get us to a chance at Gold and certain silver.

Labbe does look tentative, she does not dominate in the net, her body movements do not transmit confidence, there must be others in the talent pool in Canada who are better keepers then her, but she is the coach selection, let us see what he does for the game versus Kudakwshe Basopo and her Mighty Warriors from Zimbabwe.

Hopefully Herdman will go over the Germany vs Zimbabwe game video and ensure our players are fully prepared for what the Africans will do.

[Joe MacCarthy]

I don't know what it is about this team that makes me so proud.  Like vs USA and France, you just couldn't ask any more of them and they were actually coming on in the second half.

Note to Nigel, don't call a game over with ten minutes left, not a good thing to do.

All I could think of after Sinc scored that goal was the quote from the great documentary Brooklyn Dodgers Ghosts Of Flatbush (timed to quote) when the Yankees had bad karma or made a bonehead error instead of it usually being the Dodgers "That's the things that happen to us"

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

4 minutes ago, Trillium said:

Labbe does look tentative, she does not dominate in the net, her body movements do not transmit confidence, there must be others in the talent pool in Canada who are better keepers then her, but she is the coach selection...

Even in the her halftime commercials for Always (I was watching on Radio-Canada; I assume they were on CBC too) she doesn't look confident despite the narritive. She was far from stellar but in the second half looked better and seemed to be gaining confidence. This game she was not total rubbish but she didn't inspire either.

Remember Australia hit the post twice this game!

 

[Admin]

4 hours ago, A_Gagne said:

SSRI? 

(Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors)

Meh.

Often shortened when I hear it in speech. 

 

[Joe MacCarthy]

9 minutes ago, Trillium said:

Hopefully Herdman will go over the Germany vs Zimbabwe game video and ensure our players are fully prepared for what the Africans will do.

Don't really care for how the commentators were dismissing Zimbabwe, they'll be tough. 

Another great thing by Canada today was how they survived the first half and were able to rework the game plan totally and execute well when the game plan they had prepared for was blown to bits.  A super effort.

[Joe MacCarthy]

4 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

She was far from stellar but in the second half looked better and seemed to be gaining confidence. This game she was not total rubbish but she didn't inspire either.

She did get better as the game went on and she did inspire confidence.  Remember the people in front of her weren't the same people she was prepared for.  Also the back passing put extra pressure on her but did improve (less back passing) in the second half.

I think she may have had a problem hanging on to the ball because it was wet.  They watered the field at half time as well and when players went down you could see the water on them and it wasn't sweat.

[red card]

You could see this performance coming based on their last 2 pre-Olympic matches. As I said after the France match, this team is actually the first Canadian team (men or women) that plays like a real football team. I almost well up everytime I think about this.

The overall team performance was very good. Only question mark going forward is Labbe's judgement in coming for crosses and then keeping a clean grip on the ball. This isn't new for her either as we saw this most recently against Brasil in June in TO when the weather was sunny and hot and at the Pan Ams last year.

I only wish now the handful of people who regularly post their some level of venom at Herdman would say something nice.

[Joe MacCarthy]

2 minutes ago, red card said:

I only wish now the handful of people who regularly post their some level of venom at Herdman would say something nice.

Something was definitely said/done at the half

[rob.notenboom]

12 minutes ago, red card said:

You could see this performance coming based on their last 2 pre-Olympic matches. As I said after the France match, this team is actually the first Canadian team (men or women) that plays like a real football team. I almost well up everytime I think about this.

The overall team performance was very good. Only question mark going forward is Labbe's judgement in coming for crosses and then keeping a clean grip on the ball. This isn't new for her either as we saw this most recently against Brasil in June in TO when the weather was sunny and hot and at the Pan Ams last year.

I only wish now the handful of people who regularly post their some level of venom at Herdman would say something nice.

Several excellent points here IMHO. Especially the last point. And as for playing like a real football team, they are much more calm on the ball (sometimes too much) and have periods where they play possession quite well. It shocks me every time they do it as I'm still not used to it. But it is such a positive sign.

[rkomar]

I'm just watching the France vs Colombia game on demand, and Abily scored a carbon copy of the free kick goal she scored against us a couple of weeks ago.  I guess the Colombians didn't watch the game.  It also shows that the goal was no fluke.

[mtlfan]

It seemed Australia were having an easy time getting behind the Canadian defence up until the time of the red card. Canada being forced to change tactics ended that threat. I hope they fix this problem before their next match.

[Joe MacCarthy]

14 minutes ago, mtlfan said:

It seemed Australia were having an easy time getting behind the Canadian defence up until the time of the red card. Canada being forced to change tactics ended that threat.

Canada packed two lines of four and Australia couldn't penetrate.  I think they kept trying though, I didn't sense too much frustration from them but they've got a big job ahead of them now.  "That's the things that happen to us"  

[rob.notenboom]

1 hour ago, mtlfan said:

It seemed Australia were having an easy time getting behind the Canadian defence up until the time of the red card. Canada being forced to change tactics ended that threat. I hope they fix this problem before their next match.

The shift to Lawrence on the right helped as well. That's where a lot of the danger was coming from, but Lawrence's skill and speed was shutting pretty much everything down out there. 

[Blackdude]

Just wondering if Canada will go with a 2-4-4 today

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

D'Angelo gets the start!

 

[The Ref]

35 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

D'Angelo gets the start!

 

Has Herdman seen the light?

[paul-collins]

Belanger starting too.

[Joe MacCarthy]

1 minute ago, paul-collins said:

Belanger starting too.

And Quinn and Schmidt...

[Yohan]

i don't suppose anyone have a working stream?

 

[Joe MacCarthy]

http://olympics.cbc.ca/video/live/soccer-aug-women-first-round-can-zim.html

[dyslexic nam]

I guess "so far so good" is stating the obvious.

 

Love watching Beckie. There was always a danger that our over-reliance on Sinclair would make future success a challenge, but she looks like a killer up front. And with the young age of the team, things look good in the years to come. 

 

And I love seeing Sinclair still having such an impact so far this tourney You could argue that she has earned the right to be on the field even if she wasn't the absolute best option among those playing her position. But she is still clearly hungry, and has a lot to contribute. 

 

And don't even get me started on Beast Buchanan. 

 

Great 1st half. 

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

After watching the first game on Radio-Canada, this time I'm watching on CBC. Either Nigel Reed and Clare Rustad are very good actors or completely ignorant of the fact that we want 6 points with a worse goal difference than Germany so we can work our way into second in the group and have no intention of trying to beat Germany in the 3rd game.

EDIT: Also , is it DAN-GELO or DEE-AN-GELO ?

[mtlfan]

Canada no longer a player down as Tancredi is substituted. 

[rkomar]

I'm seeing lots of Canadians having a bad game.  Schmidt and Belanger can't seem to make a pass.