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Belal Halbouni


CanadaFan123

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I don't think he's walking away from the national team. Part of me feels like he's taking advantage of the fact that friendlies are non-committal. With his lack of playing time with Magdeburg's first team, this could be a way to get some high level competition and showcase himself to out himself in a position to get first team minutes. Then he can always switch later. 

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Yeah it is hard to blame him.  Even though our depth in defence is thin, he is still a long ways from getting any call up to the senior team.  Getting exposed to another level of play via non-commital international games elsewhere seems like a pretty reasonable decision from his perspective.  Not much different than Jebbison or Akinola playing youth footy elsewhere - provided he doesn’t take the steps that close the door on Canada.  

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3 hours ago, rydermike said:

I don't think he's walking away from the national team. Part of me feels like he's taking advantage of the fact that friendlies are non-committal. With his lack of playing time with Magdeburg's first team, this could be a way to get some high level competition and showcase himself to out himself in a position to get first team minutes. Then he can always switch later. 

Fair ball!

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3 hours ago, dyslexic nam said:

Yeah it is hard to blame him.  Even though our depth in defence is thin, he is still a long ways from getting any call up to the senior team.  Getting exposed to another level of play via non-commital international games elsewhere seems like a pretty reasonable decision from his perspective.  Not much different than Jebbison or Akinola playing youth footy elsewhere - provided he doesn’t take the steps that close the door on Canada.  

Fair ball!

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To be completely honest, I dug into watching him a bit several months ago, and not that I consider myself a serious internet sleuth, but I am a late-stage millennial who literally spends the vast majority of my waking life online (I work in tech) and I spent an afternoon Earning A Fair Wage learning more about our boy Halbouni, and to completely honest, I wasn't really impressed. I exhausted all (free) available resources seeing what he had on offer, and all I can say is that he failed the eye test. I understand and appreciate that he captained WB2 and earned a move — and good on him for that — but he honestly looks a like a bit of an awkward defender. Kinda hunchbacked and just not someone who looks like a potential top tier defender from my own personal eye-test. I was never surprised when his upward movement stalled, from my own limited observation.

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15 minutes ago, frmr said:

To be completely honest, I dug into watching him a bit several months ago, and not that I consider myself a serious internet sleuth, but I am a late-stage millennial who literally spends the vast majority of my waking life online (I work in tech) and I spent an afternoon Earning A Fair Wage learning more about our boy Halbouni, and to completely honest, I wasn't really impressed. I exhausted all (free) available resources seeing what he had on offer, and all I can say is that he failed the eye test. I understand and appreciate that he captained WB2 and earned a move — and good on him for that — but he honestly looks a like a bit of an awkward defender. Kinda hunchbacked and just not someone who looks like a potential top tier defender from my own personal eye-test. I was never surprised when his upward movement stalled, from my own limited observation.

Well I guess that’s just OMO.

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4 minutes ago, jordan said:

Maybe he is back with the first team now, though I struggle with German sites. Looks like he didn’t play with the B team today, though he wasn’t part of the friendly on the 21’st. 

https://www.fupa.net/match/sv-eintracht-emseloh-m1-1-fc-magdeburg-m2-220924/lineup

image.thumb.png.585005fd6ab2186b1192ea8c5d9b5bf2.png

How could he play with the Magdeburg B team today if he played for Syria yesterday?

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5 hours ago, frmr said:

To be completely honest, I dug into watching him a bit several months ago, and not that I consider myself a serious internet sleuth, but I am a late-stage millennial who literally spends the vast majority of my waking life online (I work in tech) and I spent an afternoon Earning A Fair Wage learning more about our boy Halbouni, and to completely honest, I wasn't really impressed. I exhausted all (free) available resources seeing what he had on offer, and all I can say is that he failed the eye test. I understand and appreciate that he captained WB2 and earned a move — and good on him for that — but he honestly looks a like a bit of an awkward defender. Kinda hunchbacked and just not someone who looks like a potential top tier defender from my own personal eye-test. I was never surprised when his upward movement stalled, from my own limited observation.

Basically this. Like, even a fairly optismtic (for Halbouni) prediction of what your CB's depth would look like say post-next Gold Cup, where he manage to hang on in Magdeburg, Magdeburg hang on to Bundesliga 2, Yaoh take at least sometimes to develop after he his called back to MTL and both Vitoria and Henry are no longer in the picture it would still probably look something like this:

I. Miller

II. Waterman

III./IV. McNaughton/Cornelius (the exact ranking depend on who you ask)

V. Kennedy

VI. Halbouni

Basically, as we get better we will are gonna start loosing dual nationals no only to teams who are still comparable to or above us in the food chains but now also to team who are below us in the food chain because they can offer a more important role in their teams to some players. Sure, its disapointing when it happen but its honestly a sign of progress IMO.

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12 minutes ago, MauditYvon said:

Kennedy is WAY ahead of Cornelius and MacNaughton. James is also ahead of Halbouni and Smith (think you forgot the last one). Johnston can also play CB in a 3-5-2.

Agree to disagree on Kennedy since I haven't been overly impressed with him and for me Smith is likely to get into the picture a bit later then 2023 if that make sense? I also haven't included Johnton since IMO they'll keep him in the wings as he is more efficient for Canada there.

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49 minutes ago, phil03 said:

Agree to disagree on Kennedy since I haven't been overly impressed with him and for me Smith is likely to get into the picture a bit later then 2023 if that make sense? I also haven't included Johnton since IMO they'll keep him in the wings as he is more efficient for Canada there.

Smith needs to actually play a pro game before we start putting him on the depth chart.

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7 hours ago, frmr said:

To be completely honest, I dug into watching him a bit several months ago, and not that I consider myself a serious internet sleuth, but I am a late-stage millennial who literally spends the vast majority of my waking life online (I work in tech) and I spent an afternoon Earning A Fair Wage learning more about our boy Halbouni, and to completely honest, I wasn't really impressed. I exhausted all (free) available resources seeing what he had on offer, and all I can say is that he failed the eye test. I understand and appreciate that he captained WB2 and earned a move — and good on him for that — but he honestly looks a like a bit of an awkward defender. Kinda hunchbacked and just not someone who looks like a potential top tier defender from my own personal eye-test. I was never surprised when his upward movement stalled, from my own limited observation.

That was a really drunken post, but I don't disagree with myself. I probably would have worded it differently though.

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Highlights of the game. Looks like he got injured around 71 minutes. Don't think he was in the video after that (only other time I saw him was around 70 minutes going for a cross, so might've been a sub and quick injury). He's #12 in white (note there's a #5 in white with long hair playing CB that's not him)

 

Edited by rydermike
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12 hours ago, MauditYvon said:

Kennedy is WAY ahead of Cornelius and MacNaughton. James is also ahead of Halbouni and Smith (think you forgot the last one). Johnston can also play CB in a 3-5-2.

I don't think Kennedy is ahead of Cornelius at all, let alone WAY ahead!  According to Fotmob, Corenlius is worth almost 200k more in value.  Also, Kennedy is having a bad season

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I also note the wording - “childhood dream of playing football at an international level”.  It is a pretty conspicuous absence to not mention the country of that is a specific part of the dream.  Most guys would say how they dreamed of representing Syria - if that in fact was the dream.  The way he said it makes me think he was really just being pragmatic about his international options at this point in his career.   

All that aside, I definitely hope for a full and speedy recovery.   

Edited by dyslexic nam
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