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Canadian Dual Nationals 2.0 Edition, Chase for the 5 stars


Dominic94

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3 hours ago, Corazon said:

This may be true.  However, there are some great midfielders currently in the Portugal Senior squad, players that are likely to be play a role in the senior team for the next 5 to 10 years.  The way Portugal is currently producing players, it would be foolish to believe that they aren't going to be producing more world class midfielders in the next 5 years as well.

Maybe he's one of them...And then again he might be capped once and then disappear from their radar. We all know if they call him he'll accept. 

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I feel like we're looking at Dual Nationals all wrong. I am certain there are dual nationals who are very passionate about their country and would value throwing on their national team jersey for just 1 friendly game than having long international careers with their 2nd or 3rd eligible nation. 

Also it doesn't really matter if someone like Tomori is behind 10 or 15 other CB and it looks like he'll never get a sniff at being a meaningful part of the national team in the next 10 years. All it takes is some injuries/squad rotation, a less important international game, and an accepted call up and a player can be Christane'd.

Also we shouldn't assume that a player will only come to us when he is rejected by the other country. Tabla taught us we don't necessarily need to wait until 23/24 years old. 

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16 minutes ago, BrennanFan said:

This is a direct quote from Eustaquio: "canada e opcao se convocatoria de portugal demorar".  Translates to something like: Canada is an option if a Portugal call up is delayed.  

I don't know if this is good or bad for us, but at least he is being honest.

 

From how I see it he’s saying that he won’t wait too long to chose if a Portugal call doesn’t come. 

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4 minutes ago, BenFisk'sBiggestFan said:

I see it as empty threats to try and leverage a Portugal call... 

I don't think it works like this and can't imagine him realistically assuming it would work. 

It's the same situation as Tabla, he might have gotten a chance with IC at some time, but he could participate with Canada right away.

For me, this statement is a positive (but also acknowledging IF he does make a transfer to a big club, he's on the Portgal radar and a call-up will be likely). 

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I don’t think you can construe that quote as good or bad.  At least he didn’t bad mouth us like Cavallini thinking it would never reach English readers. 

He would be a crucial piece to our midfield but I don’t think we’ll see him commit for a while.  This one is especially frustrating and shows how much our scouting is lacking.. this kid didn’t just pop overnight and if we had adequate scouting he would have been called to the Gold Cup last year and capped.  In typical Canadian fashion though we need to wait for someone else to tell us he’s good. 

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39 minutes ago, Keegan said:

I don’t think you can construe that quote as good or bad.  At least he didn’t bad mouth us like Cavallini thinking it would never reach English readers. 

He would be a crucial piece to our midfield but I don’t think we’ll see him commit for a while.  This one is especially frustrating and shows how much our scouting is lacking.. this kid didn’t just pop overnight and if we had adequate scouting he would have been called to the Gold Cup last year and capped.  In typical Canadian fashion though we need to wait for someone else to tell us he’s good. 

To be fair at the time of the last Gold Cup he had just finished a season in the third tier of Portuguese football. Probably not the level of play we should be calling up to the Gold Cup.

 

On another note I think he is as good as gone for us. He is currently playing quite well and getting a lot of attention from some pretty big clubs. I have to imagine that Fernando Santos has taken notice of him as well. I get that Portugal has some pretty good midfielders but if he ends up starting at Sporting he is going to be looking prime for a Portugal callup

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33 minutes ago, Fullback said:

To be fair at the time of the last Gold Cup he had just finished a season in the third tier of Portuguese football. Probably not the level of play we should be calling up to the Gold Cup.

 

On another note I think he is as good as gone for us. He is currently playing quite well and getting a lot of attention from some pretty big clubs. I have to imagine that Fernando Santos has taken notice of him as well. I get that Portugal has some pretty good midfielders but if he ends up starting at Sporting he is going to be looking prime for a Portugal callup

Okay but Piette was playing 3rd division Spain.. Kaye was in USL.  This is why you have scouting.. for a program that only played 4 matches this past year there should be more time for scouting than anything.

We had a friendly against Scotland and a u23 camp prior to the Gold Cup where he should have been called.. there’s really no argument to be had.  We were short handed v Scotland and if someone with an eye had a look I’m very confident that he would have been spotted. 

This wasn’t a slam dunk, but it’s still a ball dropped.  Lack of friendlies don’t help either.

Just shows you how quickly things move even for guys who are 22+.  Piette, Kaye and Eustaquio were all playing 3rd division in 2017 in Spain, USA and Portugal respectively ... one year on and they’re all among the best young mids in the USA/Canada and Portugal.

Edited by Keegan
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2 minutes ago, Keegan said:

Okay but Piette was playing 3rd division Spain.. Kaye was in USL.  This is why you have scouting.. for a program that only played 4 matches this past year there should be more time for scouting than anything.

We had a friendly against Scotland and a u23 camp prior to the Gold Cup where he should have been called.. there’s really no argument to be had.  We were short handed v Scotland and if someone with an eye had a look I’m very confident that he would have been spotted. 

This wasn’t a slam dunk, but it’s still a ball dropped.  Lack of friendlies don’t help either.

We have no idea what communications, or lack thereof, the CSA has had with Stephen over the last few years.  Why assume the worst?

The CSA knew about him given his brother recently played for our youth teams.  Perhaps he turned down a call up? 

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7 minutes ago, BrennanFan said:

We have no idea what communications, or lack thereof, the CSA has had with Stephen over the last few years.  Why assume the worst?

The CSA knew about him given his brother recently played for our youth teams.  Perhaps he turned down a call up? 

So I should assume he turned down a call while playing 3rd division in Portugal?  That would be quite the leap.  

I’m just going off the timeline of events and not making any assumptions for better or worse.  

Edited by Keegan
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3 minutes ago, Keegan said:

So I should assume he turned down a call while playing 3rd division in Portugal?  That would be quite the leap.  

I’m just going off the timeline of events and not making any assumptions.  

If we are going to speculate, I'd say there is a high likelihood the CSA probably approached him about playing on a youth team.  I doubt the senior team would have been offered until recently.  Edwards, Davies and Kaye was plently of new blood for the last GC, and they were also trying hard to get Ballou on board then, so I won't blame the CSA - although I do happen to believe that proactively capping at least one young player should be a thing we try to do regularly on every official roster.

He's definitely in contact with the CSA now, so given our recent track record of getting guys on board, perhaps we should be a tiny bit more confident than usual. 

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17 minutes ago, BrennanFan said:

If we are going to speculate, I'd say there is a high likelihood the CSA probably approached him about playing on a youth team.

As in called him? Id say no chance they did or he would have been in a camp.  His brother has been capped at the u20 and u23 level and he was in the 3rd division.  I think we can safely surmise this didn’t happen.  

Did they talk to him at some point? I’d say that’s probable but then again with the amount of players (at higher levels) saying “I’ve never heard from the CSA” I have serious doubts. 

Either way it’s irrelevant to the discussion. We didn’t properly identify our pool and we’ve lost a player.. simple.  Obviously this was a standout player at the 3rd division level not just a guy who caught a couple breaks and one year later is going to a big club.  Players can slip through massive pools but for us we have no excuse.  We used calls on the “same old same old” (look at our call ups against Scotland) including a guy who isn’t even playing the game, Ben Fisk, Tissot, Ledgerwood, Trafford, Bustos etc guys who will never play for Canada and we missed a guy who is the best young midfielder eligible for Canada. 

We need to scout better, period.  This board scouts better than the CSA.

Edited by Keegan
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He was called up to the u17s in 2012 when he was playing for the Leiria youth team: https://canadasoccer.com/?pid=5005&t=profile&

I don't think most (if any?) of the people on this board had heard of him at that point.

The Scotland friendly was in March, 2017. Stephen made his Portugal u21 debut in November, 2017. I don't think it's crazy to think that, had he been called up in March, that he could have rejected based on thinking he had a shot with Portugal. 

I'm not saying that's what happened, and I by no means am a CSA apologist, but based on the little info we have on Stephen's situation I don't think we can necessarily jump down the CSA's throats for this guy (although I do understand the CSA doesn't get the benefit of the doubt).

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On 10/10/2018 at 10:26 AM, toontownman said:

Odunze called up again to US u17's again   https://www.whitecapsfc.com/youth/post/2018/10/09/odunze-called-us-2018-u-17-international-youth-tournament 

I read he can't rep Canada yet as he is still working on citizenship. I take it you didn't need that to take part in the u15 Canada identification camp he did in 2017?  

One to watch given his height. 6'7 and he only turns 16 on Sunday! 

Another call up for Odunze:
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/youth/post/2018/11/26/chituru-odunze-called-us-u-17-national-team-nike-international-friendlies

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1 hour ago, Keegan said:

Okay but Piette was playing 3rd division Spain.. Kaye was in USL.  This is why you have scouting.. for a program that only played 4 matches this past year there should be more time for scouting than anything.

The years you're referring to don't line up. Piette (3rd div. Spain) and Kaye (USL) were called up for Gold Cup 2017, and the year we only played 4 matches was 2018.

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1 hour ago, RS said:

The years you're referring to don't line up. Piette (3rd div. Spain) and Kaye (USL) were called up for Gold Cup 2017, and the year we only played 4 matches was 2018.

This past year = 2018 as we have finished our footy calendar year. 

2 hours ago, El Diego said:

He was called up to the u17s in 2012 when he was playing for the Leiria youth team: https://canadasoccer.com/?pid=5005&t=profile&

I don't think most (if any?) of the people on this board had heard of him at that point.

The Scotland friendly was in March, 2017. Stephen made his Portugal u21 debut in November, 2017. I don't think it's crazy to think that, had he been called up in March, that he could have rejected based on thinking he had a shot with Portugal. 

I'm not saying that's what happened, and I by no means am a CSA apologist, but based on the little info we have on Stephen's situation I don't think we can necessarily jump down the CSA's throats for this guy (although I do understand the CSA doesn't get the benefit of the doubt).

As I said, it’s tough.. it wasn’t a slam dunk BUT at the end of the day the CSA is our national body and it’s their job to identify players for our national team.  They didn’t here. Most of us probably wouldn’t have scouted 3rd division Portugal or thought a player would be worthy of a call from there but that’s why we do this as a hobby and not as professionals. 

The CSA are supposed to be professionals.  A guy who is called up to Portugal u21 was good enough to be a CMNT call up before he developed to that point.  This is the point here.  Eustáquio progressed from a Canada u20 snub to a Portugal u21 player... we clearly missed a few stops along the way.  This doesn’t magically happen.. our scouts as they have done many times screwed up that isn’t hard to believe.

And I don’t think Eustáquio would be turning down calls while he was in D3.  He had everything to gain at that point and I really doubt he would hold out for Portugal u21 at that point.. let’s be real he wasn’t on their radar until he moved to D2.

This is a player we’ve had Voyageurs rating for at least a couple years.  And what a joke when all the while we were chasing around Cristante and Ferreira.. maybe time to be a bit more strategic with “scouting” and call ups.

Instead of giving calls to guys with no CMNT future we should have tossed out a call at a project.  Hindsight is 20/20 but even then we knew some of the call ups weren’t going to be around long.  

Edited by Keegan
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4 hours ago, masster said:

For Odunze's previous callup, the USA U17s played a tournament in England against Brazil, England, and Russia. Odunze got the start against Russia and played well, according to the Twitter account of the club hosting the match.

I think Odunze is very much one to watch for Canada. He obviously has the physical tools, and the US U17 #1 Damian Las is very highly regarded in the US system otherwise Odunze could have been the #1 in a normal cycle. Also, even though their field players have looked poor recently, the US senior team has three keepers age 23 or younger who look truly promising in Zack Steffen (seven saves against France, now transferring to Man City and reportedly loan to Girona), Ethan Horvath (seven saves against Italy, starts for Club Brugge and recently shut out Monaco in Champions League), and Jonathan Klinsmann (made his Europa League debut for Hertha Berlin), so Odunze has to be keeping that in mind. The US senior team seems to have a lot of question marks at the moment but promising keeper talent is not one of them.

I believe he has to get Canadian citizenship fairly soon, though, if he doesn't yet have it. I assume he will be the US backup keeper at the CONCACAF U17 Championship early next year. If he plays even one match, say after the US wins their group in the group stage, then he will be ineligible for Canada if he doesn't yet have citizenship. He has to have Canadian citizenship at the time of the provisional cap-tie.

Edited by ChuckMe92
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  • Dominic94 changed the title to Canadian Dual Nationals 2.0 Edition, Chase for the 5 stars

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