GC: Canada vs Martinique - Sunday, July 11th, 6:30pm Eastern / 3:30pm Pacific Kansas City

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

Canada vs Martinique
Sunday, July 11th
6:30pm Eastern / 3:30pm Pacific
Broadcast on ONESoccer

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The match is in a week, so might as well start a thread.

The 23 players called are listed here:
https://canadasoccer.com/news/canada-soccer-announces-2021-concacaf-gold-cup-roster/

The MLS players are headed to camp and will not be with their clubs for Wednesday/Thursday/Friday's matches.
I don't think there are any new injuries since the roster was announced.

About Martinique:
- They haven't been in camp together since November 2019.
- Their coach mentioned that prior to the start of their camp most players were out of season. 
- Martinique played a friendly against Guadeloupe (in Martinique) and lost 1-2. (I think they were missing most of their pro players that are based in mainland France)
- They are already in camp together in the USA
- They will play another scrimmage/friendly against Sporting Kansas City

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

For this match, do you start Pasher? Akinola? Neither? Both?

I'd go with Pasher and Cavallini for this match.

I suspect Harry Paton won't start but will be a ~60 minute sub.

[El Diego]

I wonder if Pasher is seen as a left wing back in the 532 Herdman has been playing

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

7 minutes ago, El Diego said:

I wonder if Pasher is seen as a left wing back in the 532 Herdman has been playing

That would explain why Guti wasn't called.

Pasher as LWB and Akinola as one of the strikers in a front 2?

[Obinna]

--------Larin---Hoilett------

----Fraser--Eustaquio--Paton--

Davies-------------------Buchanan

---Kennedy--Vitoria--Henry---

-------------St. Clair--------

This gets the overseas guys going early, which is important because they are out of season:

- We don't have a right sided wingback playing abroad, so I went with Buchanan to get him more experience.

- We only have two abroad midfielders, so I gave the spot to Fraser for the same reason Buchanan gets in.

-Leutwiler is number 3 and doesn't need the experience.

Subs:

- Ayo 

- Miller 

- Johnston

- Pasher

- Corbeanu

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

7 minutes ago, Obinna said:

--------Larin---Hoilett------

Hoilett in that striker role seems unlikely to me. Wouldn't he be where you placed Paton?

Edited July 5, 2021 by Olympique_de_Marseille

[Obinna]

7 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

Hoilett in that striker role seems unlikely to me. Wouldn't he be where you placed Paton?

Nope. Hoilett is a forward in our 3-5-2. That's where he played against Haiti in the second leg. He also played forward against Aruba if I am not mistaken.

Not saying he couldn't play where Paton is (part of the middle 3), because I think his skillset allows for it, but based on what Herdman has done so far I would be surprised.

[TGAA_Star]

I predict Canada wins but it will be a close scoreline...either 2-0 or 3-0

[MM3/MM2/MM]

1 hour ago, TGAA_Star said:

I predict Canada wins but it will be a close scoreline...either 2-0 or 3-0

Nay, 6-0 Canada, this is the new Canada, no mercy.

[Yohan]

Important to win the first game. Put out the first team lineup, crush Martinique. 3-0 Reds

[Atlantic]

I know this discussion has popped up before about how much of minnow Martinique actually is but looking at their roster I still don’t think they’re that good. Better than Cayman Islands and Aruba for sure but they’re not exactly a massive threat.
 

They have one player in the Segunda Division (ESP 2nd tier), one player in the Serie B, one player playing amateur football in France (team was recently in the 8th tier) and two players in Ligue 2. That’s it, the rest of their roster is domestic so that’s 6 Martinique league players atleast they will have to play against us with. 
 

I think if we start a lot of the bench players we should still win 3-0, 4-0. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

I say we are here to prep for the WC qualifiers. We need a similar set up on the pitch, where the roles are defined as we will in September.

We should not put out any lineup that does not serve that. Best to have mostly starters, a strong squad with major players, and fill a few holes with some guys we want to see or give some minutes to. 

There is no point in calling up key pieces in the roster and not playing them. In any case, we still get 5 changes don't we?

[Obinna]

Canada 5 Martinique 0

[BearcatSA]

I wonder how the keeper situation will be handled.

[MM3/MM2/MM]

25 minutes ago, BearcatSA said:

I wonder how the keeper situation will be handled.

I think St. Clair will start the first game and the remainder of the games will be divided between Crepeau and St. Clair.

[PopePouri]

We have to play our best lineup and get points on the board. 

[archer21]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I say we are here to prep for the WC qualifiers. We need a similar set up on the pitch, where the roles are defined as we will in September.

We should not put out any lineup that does not serve that. Best to have mostly starters, a strong squad with major players, and fill a few holes with some guys we want to see or give some minutes to. 

There is no point in calling up key pieces in the roster and not playing them. In any case, we still get 5 changes don't we?

I think we’ll play mostly our strongest lineup in this tournament, but I’m not sure the Martinique game is the one to do it. We’ll want to get the majority of the players some games, and this is the easiest game to see some rotation. We’ll get much better prep for WCQ in the matches against USA/Haiti/knockout rounds.

[Obinna]

Just now, PopePouri said:

We have to play our best lineup and get points on the board. 

This was my thinking initially, but then I considered the rotation we saw for Aruba.

I know, Martinique are not Aruba, but we needed to get points on the board on that occasion too.

If there was a match to play our reserves in, it's probably this one. 

The line up I proposed is not completely weakened and we'd start Larin, Davies, Hoilett, Kennedy, Vitoria, Henry and Eustaquio.

That would be more than enough to get the job done, plus it would get the non-MLS guys in game rhythm. 

[SpursFlu]

Are we already arguing about the lineup? Cool.. here goes

              Cavallini 

    Davies  Hoilett  Larin

         MAK  Eustaquio 

Laryea Kennedy Henry Johnston

              Crepeau  

Edited July 5, 2021 by SpursFlu

[grigorio]

Quote

 

If there was a match to play our reserves in, it's probably this one. 

The line up I proposed is not completely weakened and we'd start Larin, Davies, Hoilett, Kennedy, Vitoria, Henry and Eustaquio.

That would be more than enough to get the job done, plus it would get the non-MLS guys in game rhythm. 

 

^ still probably stronger than that 3d chess lineup we rolled out against Mexico... 

Edited July 5, 2021 by grigorio

[jtpc]

I don't mind seeing some squad rotation for this one. This is definitely the match to do it in.

Goal difference is the first tiebreaker, so we need to have the same drive and ruthlessness for goals that we had during the last round of WCQ. I'm confident we will. New CanMNT, new mentality. 😀

If a scenario played out where we both defeated Martinique (CanMNT and the US), both defeated Haiti or Bermuda, and then drew each other, the team with the better goal difference wins the group. Win the group and you get the knockout round path that avoids a semi-final with the winner of Group A (most likely Mexico), so goal difference needs to be in the back of our minds as we play the group stage.

Edited July 5, 2021 by jtpc

[archer21]

1 hour ago, jtpc said:

I don't mind seeing some squad rotation for this one. This is definitely the match to do it in.

Goal difference is the first tiebreaker, so we need to have the same drive and ruthlessness for goals that we had during the last round of WCQ. I'm confident we will. New CanMNT, new mentality. 😀

If a scenario played out where we both defeated Martinique (CanMNT and the US), both defeated Haiti or Bermuda, and then drew each other, the team with the better goal difference wins the group. Win the group and you get the knockout round path that avoids a semi-final with the winner of Group A (most likely Mexico), so goal difference needs to be in the back of our minds as we play the group stage.

That is a good point, and may be a reason we see a stronger lineup vs Martinique that we wouldn’t otherwise. I hadn’t really thought about the Goal Difference angle, but that is a fairly likely scenario. Will be interesting to see what Herdman decides to do.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

14 hours ago, Obinna said:

Nope. Hoilett is a forward in our 3-5-2. That's where he played against Haiti in the second leg. He also played forward against Aruba if I am not mistaken.

Not saying he couldn't play where Paton is (part of the middle 3), because I think his skillset allows for it, but based on what Herdman has done so far I would be surprised.

That's true, Hoilett was in an advanced role when he was subbed into that match. I don't recall him playing in such an advanced role in the first match though.

[Obinna]

1 hour ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

That's true, Hoilett was in an advanced role when he was subbed into that match. I don't recall him playing in such an advanced role in the first match though.

He was actually playing as a wide forward in the first match, but that was a 4-3-3, so probably not relevant. 

Hoilett also played in a front two against the States in both legs of nations league. 

[Markoaleks]

This is a really important game and I hope Canada plays hard and wins

#TGAA_Star