WCQ Canada-Mexico 25 March Postgame

[Califax]

I agree with all that UT, I just feel you have to give that yellow.

I hate early cards too, especially in debateable situations but I just kinda felt that was one you couldnt leave in your pocket. If the game goes that way, so be it. 

There is always a danger of a game shifting on a call, or on a non call.

Granted, I didnt feel that happened here.

[hamiltonfan]

Sitting in the Mexico City airport watching ESPN (mexico) and a promotional highlight for Tuesday match appears. Voyageurs are predominately featured. 

 

[Big_M]

Awful decisions in the starting 11 every time. Same mistakes over and over again. Stubbornness becomes idiocy when it's clear...There are plenty of coaches who have coached at lower levels who would put out a much better 11. It was time to fire him a year ago and it's still time now.

 

[Moldy9]

I'm watching the game on demand. 

Our back line was awful except de Jong. Henry out of place, looked lost made give aways. Straith got beat on many occasions. Our mids were neutralized. And our attack did not make most of their chances and there was never any danger just one or two red shirts in the box. 

Wake up Floro and son! Make some changes. You guys are a one trick pony! And you're putting in players that shouldn't be there or are having a deer in the headlights moments. If they don't change the lineup you'll see worse than 1-8 2012. 

 

[king1010]

In honduras id like to see arfield over ricketts. Edgar over straith. Ledgerwood over henry. 

Maybe vitoria over jakovic if the former is playing regularly. Would sure be nice to have cavillini sub in for larin too given that larin goes missing for canada let alone playing in latin america(something cavillini would be more used to). Not holding my breath for lucas tho. If he doesnt wanna be there so he it.

I'm not as concerned with the lineup in mexico because whoever we trought out will 99% result in a loss. We need to take points from honduras in september(or if everything goes our way just beat el salvador) 

[kingvikingstad]

After digesting the game for a couple days now and reading through, I have some thoughts.

I think the tactics of Mexico have been underrated in this thread. While they absolutely, unequivocally have the skill to beat us regardless of tactics, I thought Osorio got it right. We have almost no technical skill in our backline and are playing a possession game passing it on the ground out of the back. All it takes is a Mexican high press to force mistakes. And they're smart enough and read the game well enough to anticipate our lack of creativity. Furthermore as UT suggested, they forced our midfielders to turn on the ball to attack. Hutch didn't have a great game in this aspect, although him and JDG are usually not bad in this respect. I think the problem was that the Mexicans could see very early that the one-twos necessary to build out of midfield were only going to come from Atiba and Hoillett and as a result shut it down quickly.

On the Floro side, if you're starting Ricketts on a wing there's no excuse not to play direct - even if only down the right side. Especially with older Mexican CBs with little/no pace, Larin/Ricketts/Hoillett should have been running down balls all game. As we saw with one of Larin's chances, he had the pace to burn the Mexican defense. Instead we played our default mode of slowing the game to a crawl by keeping possession and trying to play on the ground out the back. It's mental against Mexico who have a dearth of quick, smart players to close down the ball. 

The worse part is, it's not even an effective attacking strategy because we can't get u-pfield quick enough to support Larin as he tries to hold up the ball and he's left on an island. We should be using our strength and athletic prowess and play to our strengths as opposed to pretending to play like Mexico with 1/10th of the technical skill and savvy.

Playing more direct - especially in Mexico on Tuesday - is an absolute no brainer in my eyes. I'm genuinely shocked we didn't play that way at home, but I hope to hell we don't try what we did at home again in Azteca, or we're going 3 down by halftime for sure.

[The Ref]

I thought I would never say this, but our men's team need a coach like Pellerud with a direct attack system he used to employ with our women.  Floro is just to chicken of a coach.

[jpg75]

19 minutes ago, The Ref said:

I thought I would never say this, but our men's team need a coach like Pellerud with a direct attack system he used to employ with our women.  Floro is just to chicken of a coach.

Please NO.

[Dave]

how to make the hex (very negative and a long shot, but maybe our best chance at this point):

1.  game 4 in Mex:  park the bus, play anti-football and try to minimize the scoreline (ie lose by 0-1 or 0-2)  -  while hoping ES can only lose by 1 or 2 in Honduras.

say Mex  2 - Can 0, Hond 2 ES 1

2 GAME 5 in HOND: Park the bus and try for a 0-0 draw, otherwise limit the losing scoreline as much as possible.

say HOND 1 CAN 0, ES 1 MEX 3

3 game 6, home vs ES (ES are now eliminated and demoralized after losing at home vs Mex, their team is filled with dissension)

Canada plays all out attacking creative football, knowing they need to run up the scoreline.  ES players don't really care. Meanwhile at Azteca, El Tri are loose and relaxed while Honduras are watching the scoreboard.

Mex 4 Hond 1

Can 2 ES 0

 

final standings

mex 18 pts

can 7 pts  3 gf, 6 ga (-3)

hond 7 pts  6 gf, 10 ga (-4)

es 2 pts

 

 

 

[aloyol]

1 hour ago, kingvikingstad said:

After digesting the game for a couple days now and reading through, I have some thoughts.

I think the tactics of Mexico have been underrated in this thread. While they absolutely, unequivocally have the skill to beat us regardless of tactics, I thought Osorio got it right. We have almost no technical skill in our backline and are playing a possession game passing it on the ground out of the back. All it takes is a Mexican high press to force mistakes. And they're smart enough and read the game well enough to anticipate our lack of creativity. Furthermore as UT suggested, they forced our midfielders to turn on the ball to attack. Hutch didn't have a great game in this aspect, although him and JDG are usually not bad in this respect. I think the problem was that the Mexicans could see very early that the one-twos necessary to build out of midfield were only going to come from Atiba and Hoillett and as a result shut it down quickly.

On the Floro side, if you're starting Ricketts on a wing there's no excuse not to play direct - even if only down the right side. Especially with older Mexican CBs with little/no pace, Larin/Ricketts/Hoillett should have been running down balls all game. As we saw with one of Larin's chances, he had the pace to burn the Mexican defense. Instead we played our default mode of slowing the game to a crawl by keeping possession and trying to play on the ground out the back. It's mental against Mexico who have a dearth of quick, smart players to close down the ball. 

The worse part is, it's not even an effective attacking strategy because we can't get u-pfield quick enough to support Larin as he tries to hold up the ball and he's left on an island. We should be using our strength and athletic prowess and play to our strengths as opposed to pretending to play like Mexico with 1/10th of the technical skill and savvy.

Playing more direct - especially in Mexico on Tuesday - is an absolute no brainer in my eyes. I'm genuinely shocked we didn't play that way at home, but I hope to hell we don't try what we did at home again in Azteca, or we're going 3 down by halftime for sure.

I notice this during the game against Honduras where we made some really bad passes from the back that almost cost us on turnovers. It's like we are trying to play short passes with our midfield but aren't good enough to do so, so everything is kind of slow and ackward and it's easy for a team like Mexico to put pressure on us and make us pay. 

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to build from the back but what surprised me is that even when Mexico (or Honduras) players are high, for example on a goal quick, we still try to play it out with our fullbacks or CB's. 

There are some opponents you need to play differently and Mexico is one of them. Instead of being more cautious in our approach, knowing they are better than anyone else in CONCACAF to benefit from our mistakes, we opened up really early on (yes we got a couple of good chances but still we are Canada) and they scored 2 quick goal.

[Moldy9]

31 minutes ago, Dave said:

 

Canada plays all out attacking creative football, knowing they need to run up the scoreline.  ES players don't really care. 

 

 

 

What's attacking football? This tactic doesn't exist in the Floro repertoire. If anything I foresee the following:

game 4

Mex 4 Can 0

Hon 2 Esv 1

game 5

Hon 3 Can 0 

Esv 0 Mex 2

game 6

Can 1 Esv 0

Mex 3 Hon 0

----

Mex 18pts

Hon 7pts

Can 7pts gf 2 ga 10: -8

Esv 2pts

 

[Crunchie]

Impressive entrance....

[jpg75]

Did anyone else notice the time Borjan played a goal kick short to Doneil Henry who then under pressure passed it right back to Borjan who then under intense pressure from a Mexican forward had to boot it up field aimlessly? Seriously, what was the point of that?

[marcemarc]

1 hour ago, kingvikingstad said:

I think the tactics of Mexico have been underrated in this thread. While they absolutely, unequivocally have the skill to beat us regardless of tactics, I thought Osorio got it right. We have almost no technical skill in our backline and are playing a possession game passing it on the ground out of the back. All it takes is a Mexican high press to force mistakes. And they're smart enough and read the game well enough to anticipate our lack of creativity.

This is a great assessment of how Mexico was able to easily win back possession, and speaks to another issue that will be difficult for the MNT to overcome in this qualifying cycle, and beyond: lack of familiarity and reps amongst/within the squad. 

The best national teams have a depth of familiarity amongst the players that is way beyond the reach of the CanMNT (and to a lesser extent, the USMNT). Best examples of this are the Spanish and German national teams. The majority of their players come from only a couple clubs (Spain: Barca & RM, Germany: Bayern & Dortmund), and so you have players that play and practice with each other day in, day out for years. In addition, they've collectively played together within the country's youth system since they've been 15, even earlier. Bringing this back to CONCACAF, we see a lot of the same: familiarity from playing together at the country level in the U-## ranks, and most players coming through their top club teams. In Mexico, it is Chivas/America, in Costa Rica, it is Saprissa/Alajuelense in Honduras it is Olimpia/Marathon.

With Canada (and again, the US) relying on dual nationals for their most skilled and experienced players, you are making a sizable trade-off on familiarity and reps. Coupled with the fact that the academies of TFC, VWFC and IMFC are really in their infancy, and the national development program is not exactly churning out talent, we're well behind the rest of the region.

How do we overcome? Well, the hope is that dual nationals come into the fold earlier, and that we start to see skill of the made-and-developed-in-Canada players rise to the extent that they make up the majority of the squad. With that, we'll have more of the familiarity that just doesn't exist in today's squad.

 

 

[red card]

benito's post game presser with a clueless translator starting at about 20:45. Osorio at about 30 min. Mix of spanish & english.

 

 

[red card]

3 hours ago, hamiltonfan said:

Sitting in the Mexico City airport watching ESPN (mexico) and a promotional highlight for Tuesday match appears. Voyageurs are predominately featured. 

 

unimas had good coverage of the march while tsn just showed some generic scenes of mexican and then canadian fans walking towards stadium. 

At least tsn showed the anthems this time but they missed out on capturing the atmosphere - very few crowd shots even when the pitch invaders were out.

[Bully]

Just saying what I saw here, from the stands. It looked like Floro and Ledgerwood had an argument of some sort after the final whistle. But maybe they were just discussing something else! Who knows. 

[rightback]

1 hour ago, jpg75 said:

Did anyone else notice the time Borjan played a goal kick short to Doneil Henry who then under pressure passed it right back to Borjan who then under intense pressure from a Mexican forward had to boot it up field aimlessly? Seriously, what was the point of that?

The alternative being booting it up field aimlessly in the first place? What's the point of that? 

[Unnamed Trialist]

3 hours ago, The Ref said:

I thought I would never say this, but our men's team need a coach like Pellerud with a direct attack system he used to employ with our women.  Floro is just to chicken of a coach.

We had four chances, two Hoillet, Larin breaking free, a penalty not called vs. Hutch. Enough to have gotten one at least and kept it close, maybe lose 1-3. Or 1-2. 

Pellerud, don't make me puke. Even Larin does not play in that system at Orlando, he has frigging Kaká behind him. And at the back, what are you saying, if the other team has the ball you cannot boot it away, unless you are suggesting giving the defense their own ball just for fun.

Pellerud-ball was frankly sickening, it has given us absolutely nothing and never will. Once you have gotten rid of that better not go back and try to lap it up as a dog would.

[Big_M]

His answers in the post game conference just confirm further that he's completely off and has no idea on some things such as the right back situation.

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, marcemarc said:

The best national teams have a depth of familiarity amongst the players that is way beyond the reach of the CanMNT (and to a lesser extent, the USMNT). Best examples of this are the Spanish and German national teams. The majority of their players come from only a couple clubs (Spain: Barca & RM, Germany: Bayern & Dortmund), and so you have players that play and practice with each other day in, day out for years. In addition, they've collectively played together within the country's youth system since they've been 15, even earlier. Bringing this back to CONCACAF, we see a lot of the same: familiarity from playing together at the country level in the U-## ranks, and most players coming through their top club teams. In Mexico, it is Chivas/America, in Costa Rica, it is Saprissa/Alajuelense in Honduras it is Olimpia/Marathon.

With Canada (and again, the US) relying on dual nationals for their most skilled and experienced players, you are making a sizable trade-off on familiarity and reps. Coupled with the fact that the academies of TFC, VWFC and IMFC are really in their infancy, and the national development program is not exactly churning out talent, we're well behind the rest of the region

It is not about playing together, and anyways, what you are saying is not really true. First, because Spain and Germany are struggling lately (see latest), and second, because the players do not come from the same teams, not anymore (Spain has maybe four from Barça and that is it, and maybe 1 to 3 from Real Madrid). Tonight Spain started with players from 7 teams.

What is important is to have an idea of how you want to play as a national team, and then implement it. This has to be decided on the basis of the players you have. This is what Floro is trying to do, with only moderate success, so far. If we make the HEX we'll say with success, if not, then a fail and he'll be fired. Thing is, the Floro idea is basically this: you have to keep your defensive shape and not get caught out because you can then be countered and hurt. YOu have to take your offensive chances because you'll have few. This pretty well explains our game vs Mexico, so the analysis is right.

As for our playing possession and being burned by it, well in fact that is not Floro's system, strictly speaking. He has always spoken about finding a striker in advantage if you can. That is why I was surprised our central mids did not look for those balls to Larin or up the wings. I just think he feels you are not going to get that advantage by a long ball from the keeper or 25 yards in front of him. Here I would have liked to have seen Hutch connecting forwards. As for players, the only real difference starting would have been Arfield, and he was apparently injured and new to the system; you can argue all you want about the rest but none of those choices were game-breakers.

[nolbertos]

1 hour ago, red card said:

benito's post game presser with a clueless translator starting at about 20:45. Osorio at about 30 min. Mix of spanish & english.

 

 

Alright so what I got from that initially is the Mexican press were hearing how Canada had improved, that Benito Floro was making improvements and the artificial turf and in the end, Canada lost 3-0 and could've scored 3 more. And the Fox media stating Mexico will cakewalk through to the World Cup 2018.

So according to the Spanish translation

a) Benito Floro states "Mexico took us seriously and pressed us throughout the game, showing their quality and not permitting Canada to play well.  

The Fox media stated that Benito Floro has no scientific explanation of his tactics, seems some of them though he was doing good, but the Mexicans commentators state that he didn't put the best tactics on the pitch against Mexico.

Is Benito's translator an intern or something?? She sucked translating from English to Spanish and had to get help from the media.

[Symp_Res]

I am back in Regina after a few incredible days in Vancouver. 

Just want to say...thank you to all Canadian supporters and to the Voyageurs specifically!  You guys made my first experience with the National team a very memorable one.  I met some fantastic people at Doolins and thought the march to the stadium was incredible.  I have never been a part of a group of people that had that much unadulterated passion and love for a Team that you all showed for our Canadian boys on Friday.  Major Props!

The crowd inside BC Place was incredible and I am so proud to have been part of it.  I have much to say about the game itself, but I will restrain for the time being.  Just know that we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

Please keep working hard to provide the Canadians with the home field advantage that they need and deserve.

 

 

 

[1996]

While I'm happy that these qualifiers are on TV It's too bad we did not get more of a pregame, I mean TSN basically went straight into the national anthems and then basically the game no real pregame considering the significance of the game and the sold out crowd, a half hour pregame would have been nice but hardly anything lol. TSN could have made something of the great atmosphere maybe show the rest of Canada more of the incredible atmosphere outside the stadium before the match, maybe show all the Canadian fans and Mexican ones at the different bars and pubs getting reading for the game. Maybe show some of the supporters march instead of the 20 seconds they showed. TSN really captured hardly anything of the atmosphere outside and even outside the stadium, however, if this atmosphere had happened in any of the other more mainstream sports here in Canada I'm sure TSN would have shown it and had stories upon stories of it and would have had a nice pregame show . However, I understand it's soccer here in Canada so I guess we should just be happy they showed the game I guess lol.

[jpg75]

3 hours ago, rightback said:

The alternative being booting it up field aimlessly in the first place? What's the point of that? 

Not having the threat of a poor back pass, slip or mishit turning into a goal for starters. Then when you boot the ball "aimlessly" from the spot you're actually not under pressure and can pick out who/where you're kicking it.