GC: Canada vs Costa Rica - Sunday, July 25th, 7pm Eastern / 4pm Pacific - Arlington TX

[The Beaver 2.0]

So, have we done enough in this tournament to catch the attention of any of the young turks still deciding if they want to suit up for us? 

[Lansdude]

Is it possible? Are we a swinging dick team now? I think we are. We're styling and profiling.

[dyslexic nam]

5 minutes ago, The Beaver 2.0 said:

So, have we done enough in this tournament to catch the attention of any of the young turks still deciding if they want to suit up for us? 

I more look forward to the inevitable Tomori 2.0 discussions if we start to rack up a few wins in the Ocho.  

[youllneverwalkalone]

24 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I wonder if that is Tenllado, but I am not sure how many assistents we are allowed on the bench. We have like 4-5?

Knew nothing about this guy. From Espanyol? What was his role there? Did Media Pro send over a tactical genius to sell off the CMNT for a few billion in TV rights lol.

[toontownman]

14 minutes ago, Lansdude said:

Is it possible? Are we a swinging dick team now? I think we are. We're styling and profiling.

Plenty of jet flying and we know Herdman is a wheelin dealin son of a gun. 

Injuries aside, this tournament has been everything we hoped and needed it to be for our squad. Big tests, great experience. We likely bow out on Thursday but we get another chance to measure up and experience our toughest Ocho opponent. Full credit to Herdman and the team. Eustaquio is immense.

Bring on the Mexicans.

Edited July 26, 2021 by toontownman

[The Beaver 2.0]

Seems evident that Mexico is the undisputed #1 in the region. Maybe Honduras had a bad match last night, but Mexico looks to be at another level entirely.

Then there is the next tier, which includes the USA, Honduras, Jamaica, Costa Rica, maybe Panama and El Salvador.

And, based on this tournament so far, and everything we've learned in the past year or so, it appears we are firmly in that second tier. Firmly.  Yeah, there's much yet to do, but we've got a young, fast, and skilled team. The manager and his staff are damned organized, smart, and well-led.  We just trounced Costa Rica, and we did it without several starters.

Enjoying the process. Nice to see the results.

[prairiecanuck]

18 minutes ago, DavemTFC said:

I think this was probably more due to CR being bad than us being good...but we WERE good. Utterly dominant performance

Eustaquio is staking a legit claim for best midfielder in concacaf

His agent must be happy.  You have to think there are a few teams watching this tournament and liking what they are seeing.  Costa Rica is a step up in competition over the first 2 matches he played.  I'm sure they are eagerly anticipating watching the Mexico semi.  It will be interesting to see where he moves.  I think he'll move on from Pacos.

[costarg]

I did not expect THAT.  We just manhandled a 3-4 concacaf team. 

Yes, they're getting up there in years however that does not take away their talent and experience.  It's not that Costa Rica faded or got tired, we dominated the game.  This was without Double D's, Hutch, Kennedy and Arfield.  I need to think about this, not sure how I feel about this new Canada......

[trc2014]

Starting to set in that no Vitoria and Cav in the final is going to hurt.  The atmosphere in Houston will be madness and I think that would suit Cav better than Akindele.  With the exception of the Haiti game, Vitoria has had a great tournament. 

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

14 minutes ago, The Beaver 2.0 said:

So, have we done enough in this tournament to catch the attention of any of the young turks still deciding if they want to suit up for us? 

Turks. Plural?

[prairiecanuck]

I wish Corbeanu would have got 15 more minutes.  He comes on for such a short amount of time.  It's like.  Man that looked like some good pace, that might have been a good bit of quality, but I'm not 100% sure!  I need to see him play!

[The Beaver 2.0]

Just now, prairiecanuck said:

His agent must be happy.  You have to think there are a few teams watching this tournament and liking what they are seeing.  Costa Rica is a step up in competition over the first 2 matches he played.  I'm sure they are eagerly anticipating watching the Mexico semi.  It will be interesting to see where he moves.  I think he'll move on from Pacos.

One would think that Tajon, Hoillet and Eustachio will have all improved their chances of moving on to new (and better) clubs.  Has Kaye done enough to garner quality interest in Europe?

[toontownman]

33 minutes ago, BearcatSA said:

We won virtually every loose ball.  They were always a step behind us in reacting.  We owned them.

The way we closed down and hunted in packs was fantastic. If one didn't get the ball the 2nd or 3rd picked up the loose ball. We might get caught out with better teams on the break like that but it worked to perfection today, especially from about the 55th on. Great team play.

[The Beaver 2.0]

2 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

Turks. Plural?

Aren't there a handful still deciding? Isn't that always the case? 

[jonovision]

Watching this game I struggled to come up with a single notable thing that Johnston did, yet I can't say he put a foot wrong either. There are a few guys out there just doing their job without taking much of the spotlight.

[prairiecanuck]

1 minute ago, trc2014 said:

Starting to set in that no Vitoria and Cav in the final is going to hurt.  The atmosphere in Houston will be madness and I think that would suit Cav better than Akindele.  With the exception of the Haiti game, Vitoria has had a great tournament. 

It's certainly a shame, but I'm not going to get too concerned with what happens against Mexico.  Costa Rica won their group with Jamaica.  I didn't expect the match to go like it did tonight.  I'm super excited for the qualifiers now.  I have to hold back my expectations after what I witnessed tonight.

[An Observer]

Great match for Canada. Throughly dominated them. The first 30 minutes, I have never seen Canada dominated a top Concacaf side like that.  So excited to watch us during qualifying in Octo. Whether we qualify or not, it’s going to be an enjoyable 7 month period.  Finally, a Canadian side that plays football! I honestly think that very few concacaf sides will be able to handle Davies on the left andBuchanan on the right with David and Larin running onto their balls and crosses. In Midfield, we will need Hutch and hopefully Atfield to come in and spill off Osorio, Kaye, Piette and Eustaquio some of the time so we keep a fresh midfield with Hoilett and possibly Millar and/or Corbeanu spelling off Davies and Buchanan to keep them fresh. The good thing is Eustaquio, Davies, David and Buchanan have great engines so they should be able to log a lot of minutes in qualifying and they are our best 4 players with Larin.

I was impressed with our back 3 as they got tight when they needed against Costa Rica and I don’t think they had a shot on goal. Vitoria and Johnson can both play the ball out of the back.  Add Kennedy and he can as well. Miller and Henry are decent subs. There is a case to be made Crepeau to start as well. 
 

The depth we showed here we are going to need as the matches are fast and furious in qualifying.  

[Metro]

Following this national team for as long as I have, it is indeed a rare good feeling to watch Canada in such an important match and not be too worried of the result for most of it. :-) 

Not much to add than what has been written by you fine people other than I think props also has to go to Herdman for going with what was essentially a 3-4-3 formation and inserting a press that Costa Rica completely did not expect.

The only negative for me was TSN not televising the match, as I guarantee there would have been a lot of clueless casuals thinking this was an Olympic match and ratings would have automatically been 1.5 mil. 😄

Edited July 26, 2021 by Metro

[ag futbol]

6 minutes ago, costarg said:

I did not expect THAT.  We just manhandled a 3-4 concacaf team. 

They were 3-4, heck you could argue higher during their WC run. But it was a great performance from Canada today all the same. 
 

Let’s be honest we’ve never made a win against a team of that quality look as easy as it did today.

Edited July 26, 2021 by ag futbol

[Metro]

6 minutes ago, trc2014 said:

Starting to set in that no Vitoria and Cav in the final is going to hurt.  The atmosphere in Houston will be madness and I think that would suit Cav better than Akindele.  With the exception of the Haiti game, Vitoria has had a great tournament. 

Yes, and I think Vitoria's absence will hurt more than Cavallini's.  KJ in the post-game show mentioned that Henry has played well against Mexico before which I completely believe, but if someone can remind me which match that exactly was, it would make my heart feel better. 😄 

[Bdog]

I was happy we got this matchup but didn't expect us to dominate so much. Oso and Kaye stepped it up tonight and Eustaquio did big things like usual.

I haven't watched Mexico at all this tourney but it's gonna be a fun game even with us missing players. If we play like this again I think we can pull off an upset. Also go Jamaica!

[Joe MacCarthy]

12 minutes ago, costarg said:

This was without Double D's, Hutch, Kennedy and Arfield.

Larin, Akinola, Borjan, Millar, James, Adekugbe

[El Hombre]

12 minutes ago, The Beaver 2.0 said:

Aren't there a handful still deciding? Isn't that always the case? 

There is one specific "Turk" who sometimes thinks he's Dutch but will soon realize that, deep down, he's Canuck.  I think that's what @Olympique_de_Marseille was referring to.

[toontownman]

7 minutes ago, Metro said:

Yes, and I think Vitoria's absence will hurt more than Cavallini's.  KJ in the post-game show mentioned that Henry has played well against Mexico before which I completely believe, but if someone can remind me which match that exactly was, it would make my heart feel better. 😄 

KJ is a known clairvoyant, he gets muddled. The game he meant is this Thursday.

[SthMelbRed]

18 minutes ago, trc2014 said:

Starting to set in that no Vitoria and Cav in the final is going to hurt.  The atmosphere in Houston will be madness and I think that would suit Cav better than Akindele.  With the exception of the Haiti game, Vitoria has had a great tournament. 

Just to clarify...Vitoria and Cav will play in the final. They'll just have to sit out the win against Mexico in the semi-final first. 😉