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Olympic Qualifying U24 Tournament - Guadalajara Mexico - March 18 to 30 2021


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The other thing I am curious about is whether any of our top players get pulled into senior duty. 

I want to assume they'll all be with Olympic team, because otherwise why list them? You'd think they'd have been omitted like Miller and Johnston. This may show that we are confident about getting our European players for march WCQ. 

Technically though, St. Clair or Buchanan could be left off the final roster for senior duty. When must the squads be finalized?

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7 minutes ago, Obinna said:

The other thing I am curious about is whether any of our top players get pulled into senior duty. 

I want to assume they'll all be with Olympic team, because otherwise why list them? You'd think they'd have been omitted like Miller and Johnston. This may show that we are confident about getting our European players for march WCQ. 

Technically though, St. Clair or Buchanan could be left off the final roster for senior duty. When must the squads be finalized?

Yea i think there's some tactical planning going on that I hoped for.

ZBG will be the undisputed starter at RB. Where Johnston can be a backup to Laryea/ learning. Because as long as Laryea is healthy, I don't see him being moved out of that spot. 

With Bassong, and Guttierrez listed, I'll assume Adekugbe has his spot locked at LB or the guy we don't want to see at LB in Davies

Halbouni....he must of not impressed which was the reason for him being left of this team. OR he greatly impressed last month and will be with the seniors.

Corneilius will be the undisputed started at LCB. Has had many senior caps, however with the likes of Henry, Vitoria, Kennedy, James, Ferreira all potential callups for March, it makes sense to send him to the U23s. Herdman seems to rate Miller over him aswell, and I'll assume Miller and Kennedy will be the LCB.

Nelson will be the key guy in attack for this team, he wouldn't have much to any opportunities with the plethora of attacking options who are ahead of him in the senior team (David, Larin, Millar, Davies, Hoilett) .

Edited by Shway
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13 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I know our roster doesn't seem so strong at first glance, but it's a preliminary roster right? The final roster will have plenty of MLS regulars (Buchanan, Brault-Guillard, Cornelius, St. Clair, etc.) and perhaps a sprinkling of some of the top CanPL players (Farsi, Abzi, etc.). A lot of our depth is weaker compared to the USA and Mexico, but they won't make the final cut, so we should focus on the upper half of the list.

Also, I expect our goal keeping will amongst the best in the tournament with St. Clair and Hasal. Solid goal keeping should not be overlooked.

If we make any noise in this qualifying I won’t be surprised if St.Clair is one of the reasons why, after watching him with Minnesota last year this kid can almost win you a game on his own. If I’m a Canadian defender and look back and see him behind me my confidence level goes up by a lot , if he brings his game we will be in good hands back there.

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15 minutes ago, Obinna said:

The other thing I am curious about is whether any of our top players get pulled into senior duty. 

I want to assume they'll all be with Olympic team, because otherwise why list them? You'd think they'd have been omitted like Miller and Johnston. This may show that we are confident about getting our European players for march WCQ. 

Technically though, St. Clair or Buchanan could be left off the final roster for senior duty. When must the squads be finalized?

March 8th

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Just now, lenny said:

Where is this and the "wonderkid" information coming from?

All I can see is that he's played about 500 minutes of U23 soccer in Portugal and was on the bench for a Portugal U16 game once.  

Maybe not wonderkid in terms of world talent but he’s supposed to be very good and could have repped Portugal. I read a few articles on him and have seen some Twitter comments/hype.

the consensus on him being in the squad is that it’s an interesting one if he plays.

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Just now, Shway said:

It's speaking it into existence. We'll revisit this in two weeks 🤣

In all seriousness, Ayo wouldn't have had anything to lose as he wouldn't have been cap-tied by playing for the USA, right?

So the fact he's not listed for either nation is a good sign as I see it. 

If I want to take a pessimistic look at it, I would perhaps say the USA want Ayo but are just moving forward without him until he sorts it out, because even the preliminary spots for the USA are valuable, considering their depth. Perhaps they don't want to burn a spot on a guy who's lukewarm about representing them.

However, even then you'd think such an approach would naturally push him toward us. Hard not to be optimistic from a Canadian perspective.

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Looks like a pretty deep pool. The cpl players will have difficulty cracking that lineup with many players already having senior experience. I imagine that none of these players will be called up for the senior team in the summer as it will be important in there development to get age group experience.

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4 minutes ago, Obinna said:

In all seriousness, Ayo wouldn't have had anything to lose as he wouldn't have been cap-tied by playing for the USA, right?

So the fact he's not listed for either nation is a good sign as I see it. 

If I want to take a pessimistic look at it, I would perhaps say the USA want Ayo but are just moving forward without him until he sorts it out, because even the preliminary spots for the USA are valuable, considering their depth. Perhaps they don't want to burn a spot on a guy who's lukewarm about representing them.

However, even then you'd think such an approach would naturally push him toward us. Hard not to be optimistic from a Canadian perspective.

In all seriousness, I think he's made his decision and this is a clear sign. Him not being listed at all on their roster is a clear indication. I obviously could be pathetically wrong, but again it doesn't make any sense as to why they would leave him off. 

They barely have any real number 9s on their team. Only one I see is Soto, and Pepe - who I believe Akinola is better than. Somethings up.

Edited by Shway
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Couple of important tidbits regarding duals:

this tournament isn’t going to cap tie anyone who is a dual and has already played for nation A, so Akinola and Alvarez could play for USA and Mexico and not be cap tied. It’s no an official fifa competition, but the FIFA dual rules make it so that you can still switch if you don’t do it now, you just can’t go back and forth if you want to play here. 
 

if a player has played for A but wants to play for B, he must file his one time switch thus cap tying him to B.

my understanding is unless Dias has not played in a relatively official (not sure if it’s uefa at that level, I’d imagine) competition for Portugal, he has filed a one time switch to play for us or he intends to. 
 

im basing this on what I read regarding the Akinola and Alvarez situations.

 

I would imagine that Akinola is seriously considering us if he’s not going, because he could play for USA and still switch to us after.

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16 minutes ago, Shway said:

Yea i think there's some tactical planning going on that I hoped for.

ZBG will be the undisputed starter at RB. Where Johnston can be a backup to Laryea/ learning. Because as long as Laryea is healthy, I don't see him being moved out of that spot. 

With Bassong, and Guttierrez listed, I'll assume Adekugbe has his spot locked at LB or the guy we don't want to see at LB in Davies

Halbouni....he must of not impressed which was the reason for him being left of this team. OR he greatly impressed last month and will be with the seniors.

Corneilius will be the undisputed started at LCB. Has had many senior caps, however with the likes of Henry, Vitoria, Kennedy, James, Ferreira all potential callups for March, it makes sense to send him to the U23s. Herdman seems to rate Miller over him aswell, and I'll assume Miller and Kennedy will be the LCB.

Nelson will be the key guy in attack for this team, he wouldn't have much to any opportunities with the plethora of attacking options who are ahead of him in the senior team (David, Larin, Millar, Davies, Hoilett) .

Agree with this take. My read on Halbouni is that he probably has some developing to do. I liked what I saw in some clips, but he only recently started playing reserve ball with Bremen. That he even got a senior call was kind of a surprise to me, but that's what it's all about, seeing where guys are in their development. It is good for him that he got a look, but he never seemed to prominently feature in the very limited clips of camp we saw. If I had to bet, I would say he will not be with the senior team, and is better served staying at Bremen and learning instead of heading to the Olympic team. 

My very short comment on Cornelius is that with 13 senior caps the coaching staff may see this as an opportunity to grow his leadership and give the young group his relatively big international experience. That and the fact that Miller is probably slightly ahead of him now when it comes to the senior picture. 

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