Canada Pre-World Cup "friendlies" thread: news, gossip and speculation.

[Unnamed Trialist]

57 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

 

Only in Concacaf could you have a qualifying result where a team that gets a bye into the final round of qualifying goes winless in 14 games while other teams were eliminated in the first round going undefeated, winning 75% of their games with the joint-best goal differential in the group while not giving up a goal.  Which is exactly what happened as the latter stats belong to Guatemala.

The change in format didn't screw any team, but it still left certain teams screwed. El Salvadoran fans have nothing to complain about, if they truly think that "allowing teams better than we are to compete for the World Cup" is an example of them getting screwed.

Could you imagine if Europe did a tiered qualification system where only the top FIFA-ranked nations got to the final round of 8,  and then one of those teams (let's say Wales) won 0 of 14 games, but another team (say Austria) was eliminated in an earlier with a record of 3 wins, 1 draw 14 goals scored & 0 conceded or not even given a chance to play for an automatic spot? The format would be lambasted vociferously right across Europe, with even the South Americans joining in on the lambasting just to ridicule what Europe was doing. I remember a bit of mild grumbling on onesoccer and some harsher criticism from Shaka Hislop (who notably is from one of the countries that was to be screwed by the original format) who pointed out the qualifying system was designed to favour the "big" teams in Concacaf, but otherwise it was pretty mild criticism in this region.

I'm fine with the logic, really am. I also realise I am belabouring the point a bit, so will drop it, it's in the past.

But it is the sort of logic that may get hammered out in retrospect. You also seem to accept that good results in a previous round, with apparently weaker, more accessible teams, are objectively better than poor results in a final round where teams are much tougher. Plenty of teams in other sports roll through regular seasons and get booted out of playoffs immediately, happens all the time. But those sports aren't altering their system of competition.

I just happen to believe that if you establish the terms for a competition, altering them mid-stream is, in most circumstances, fraudulent. Like you bet for a team to win and the odds are very favourable if they do (against them) and then after, when the betting company sees the team was really quite good and rolled through the rivals, it changes the odds and pays you less. 

The fact that later facts end up justifying the fraus legis should not necessarily alter our evaluation of what happened. Though it could justify altering things for the future to avoid repetitions.

No one in Canada complained about the system that had been established, except after losing to the US in Nations League. And we were immensely relieved to the point of quiet laughter when they changed the system.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Unnamed Trialist

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

Important to remember. Whatever other motivations there were, there was no hope of finishing the old format given the varied COVID restrictions around the world.  

That is why it got changed. Legally lots of things were changed because of COVID.

59 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

No one in Canada complained about the system that had been established,

I wasn't in Canada but I certainly did.  It was silly. 

[narduch]

I complained about it. I fucking hated it.

Technically UT is correct in the sense that no one at the CSA said a peep about it

[TOcanadafan]

3 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

No one in Canada complained about the system that had been established, except after losing to the US in Nations League. And we were immensely relieved to the point of quiet laughter when they changed the system.

Do you mean CSA people who are told to tow the CONCACAF party line?  Just about everyone who cared about it (except for the few who thought the back door route was easier 🥺) was shouting from roof tops!

[Free kick]

I didnt read anything here that anyone was happy with the old system that was established.  It was beyond absurd becasue what it did was create an entirely new confederation.  It split Concacaf in two and put 80% of the teams into a new confereration akin to Oceania whereby you were given not only a half spot but in reality it was a quarter spot.   Because the winner would have had to play a home and away against the fourth place team to earn the right to go to the intercontinental home and away.   Therefore, 80% of the teams in concacaf were disallowed the opportunity to will an automatic berth via Concacaf qualifying. 
 

i remember typing here that “I was surprised or shocked that Montagliani had signed off this”.   I am also surprised that even FIFA allowed this, because you just cant create a new confederation.  
 

On an another unrelated point, yeah it has crossed my mind that we have a Canadian heading up the region and that we coincidentlly qualify for the WC, just as T&T managed to do so when Jack Warner was in charge.   But the setup of the qualifying process (before or after) is absolutely no evidence of this advantage.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Free kick

[Free kick]

3 hours ago, narduch said:

Technically UT is correct in the sense that no one at the CSA said a peep about it

This is probably because CSA were outnumbered in the region because that system worked well for everyone in concacaf except maybe 1-3 sides in the region.    Canada is one of those one or two sides. 
 

All those minnows in the region dont want a long drawn out qualifying process becasue its expensive.  We saw this in past qualifying cycles whereby some of these tiny island nations had to have their arms twisted (ie. Or expenses coverred) to bother to show up for WCq because their budget for team travel and accomodations (for WCQ) was seriously strained.    As for the bigger nations like mexico, and the US, they just dont want to waste their time playing those kind of sides becasue it is a waste of time and money.  And i get that, but that process (the way it was designed) was not the way to address that problem. 
 

As i mentioned before, the number one problem with Concacaf in relation to other regions in the world is that 75% of the sides in this region are minnows.    Thats not meant to be disparaging,  its just a reality.   You need to be a certain size, populationwise,  to be realistically competitive.  Whereas in every other connfederation,  75% or more of teh sides are not minnows.  

Edited April 24, 2022 by Free kick

[CanadianSoccerFan]

There were merits to the type of tiered system that was proposed such as keeping all member associations active longer (not kicking them out years before the World Cup).  I think the real problem is where the line was drawn for the tiers.  There are 12 to 13 teams in CONCACAF with any realistic chance of contending for a berth.  If all of them were placed in a top tier then I don't think there would be a problem.  Limiting it to top 6 was just too extreme.  Panama qualified for the last World Cup so why the hell does the US get in ahead of them after failing in 2018, let alone El Salvador who never even made the final round in 2018.  

[Unnamed Trialist]

2 hours ago, TOcanadafan said:

Do you mean CSA people who are told to tow the CONCACAF party line?  Just about everyone who cared about it (except for the few who thought the back door route was easier 🥺) was shouting from roof tops!

Only after we lost away to the US in Nations League. Then folks began to bitch a bit, but mostly about the CSA being unable to do the numbers to swing more Fifa points than the 6th place team. I'm not going to dig for these comments, but they were widespread and in the form of the decades-long mockery we are well honed in.

Before that, we were like dumb cows just accepting we had this one card to play and maybe it would come up our way. The overall opinion was that we were not going to make the HEX and not classify for Qatar, it is all well documented. 

Now folks are just blowing it all off, but the fact is the CSA screwed up, Herdman was not on top of things, whatever Wheeler says now about they always aspiring for Qatar is total BS--but how could anyone looking at how we are handling the friendlies doubt that the general condition of the sport in Canada is a mess?

The only thing that saved us was the pretext of Covid, the Concacaf president and then us rising to the gifted 2nd chance.

[Unnamed Trialist]

3 hours ago, TOcanadafan said:

Do you mean CSA people who are told to tow the CONCACAF party line?  Just about everyone who cared about it (except for the few who thought the back door route was easier 🥺) was shouting from roof tops!

All 87 of us.

[Unnamed Trialist]

3 hours ago, Free kick said:

On an another unrelated point, yeah it has crossed my mind that we have a Canadian heading up the region and that we coincidentlly qualify for the WC, just as T&T managed to do so when Jack Warner was in charge.   But the setup of the qualifying process (before or after) is absolutely no evidence of this advantage.

Not after? Not sure about that.

[Unnamed Trialist]

I said I was going to drop it, but I know it sounds like we were gifted something and maybe do not deserve to be in Qatar. Not at all. In fact, I think we fell into a sequence of some of the oddest circumstances that looked nasty beforehand and we solved one after another.

We were out, then they redid the system. 

Then we were calculating the imported Dutch talent of Suriname. Who hit the woodwork early and only later in the 1st half could we even score.

Then we were worried Haiti might repeat what they did the in the previous Gold Cup, get our number and bury it. We even saw them almost tie the first leg. We were not allowed to play our home games at home--though were lucky rivals lost players to US visa and Covid rules.

We had a shitty first qualifying match and IMO were gifted a penalty to draw it.

And then, starting with US away, we started to click, mostly.

We overcame losing our starting keeper, and we lost our best player for almost half our matches. We went behind vs. big rivals and drew them. 

We lucked into having rivals make boner errors, like the Costa Rica keeper, and the games played in extreme weather, always a risk, did not come back to bite us. 

We were lucky not to have a penalty against in El Salvador and then got a goal in the tiniest percentile of weirdness. 

So we kept overcoming adversity, in a sort of fairytale manner, and this is what made the whole thing so much fun. I began to quietly feel there was destiny in the works, and feel it now, and that includes, I'd say, having the whole system revamped when it had already been approved, with us on the outside looking in.

Edit: I realise some prefer the narrative that we are cool and chill and always get what we deserve cause we are tough Canucks; I prefer the sort of hapless crew falling into success narrative. A far better storyline. To each their own.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Unnamed Trialist

[Gian-Luca]

7 hours ago, Free kick said:

This is probably because CSA were outnumbered in the region because that system worked well for everyone in concacaf except maybe 1-3 sides in the region.    Canada is one of those one or two sides.

In any case, I wouldn't expect the CSA to publicly whine about how the qualifying system was set up, since to me that often comes across as teams making excuses before a single ball is kicked, and IMO never is a good sign of the mentality heading into competitions.

It's the fans job to publicly whine (I should know, I do it all the time) and especially, the media. The media here didn't seem to whine very much, I seem to recall them saying that still had a great chance as probably the best of the teams excluded from being allowed to qualify directly. But then many of the same members of the media largely congratulated he-who-shall-not-be-named for turning his back on Canada and instead playing for England, which shows that we are still too much in the way of "nice guys" when it comes to soccer journalism here. Herdman says Canada is a footballing nation but I'm not sure the media here has quite risen to that level.

[gigi riva]

We are in new territory now and I guess trying to get some fixtures before Qatar will be a bit of a challange ,I am sure he CSA will get a decent opponant and people here will still whine about something,

[Buchta]

(based on google translate)

More news on a potential friendly with Iran. This article seems to suggest that it is likely Iran will play Canada in September.

https://footballi.net/news/r/715178/فدراسیون-فوتبال-به-دنبال-سه-بازی-دوستانه-در-فیفادی-های-خرداد

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Buchta

[Sal333]

1 hour ago, Buchta said:

(based on google translate)

More news on a potential friendly with Iran. This article seems to suggest that it is likely Iran will play Canada in September.

https://footballi.net/news/r/715178/فدراسیون-فوتبال-به-دنبال-سه-بازی-دوستانه-در-فیفادی-های-خرداد

 

It sounds like the friendly with Iran is a done deal

[narduch]

2 hours ago, Buchta said:

(based on google translate)

More news on a potential friendly with Iran. This article seems to suggest that it is likely Iran will play Canada in September.

https://footballi.net/news/r/715178/فدراسیون-فوتبال-به-دنبال-سه-بازی-دوستانه-در-فیفادی-های-خرداد

 

Finally a rumour.

As far as I can tell it doesn't say where

[Shway]

One would have to assume that won’t be in Canada right? 

[Kadenge]

2 hours ago, narduch said:

Finally a rumour.

As far as I can tell it doesn't say where

The sad reality of being a Canada soccer fan

 

[RS]

There have been several rumours already. None of them have turned out to be more than a rumour yet.

[narduch]

1 minute ago, RS said:

There have been several rumours already. None of them have turned out to be more than a rumour yet.

Sure. But it feels Ike it's been weeks since the last.

[Buchta]

The possible game against Iran could be played in Canada.

"Iran to prepare the team that will reach the World Cup after 36 years, and of course, their condition for this friendly match is the visit of Dragan Skucic's students to Canada"

https://footballi.net/news/r/713485/شرط-بازی-ایران-با-کانادا-و-نیوزیلند-یک-گام-تا-قطعی-شدن-بازی-شاگردان-اسکوچیچ-با-برزیل-یا-آرژانتین

Edited April 26, 2022 by Buchta

[Obinna]

9 hours ago, Buchta said:

(based on google translate)

More news on a potential friendly with Iran. This article seems to suggest that it is likely Iran will play Canada in September.

https://footballi.net/news/r/715178/فدراسیون-فوتبال-به-دنبال-سه-بازی-دوستانه-در-فیفادی-های-خرداد

 

Will be a good test. Shame we have to wait until September for it, but I'll still take it. We need to start filling out that calendar of ours.

Wonder if they'll bill it as 1st place CONCACAF vs 1st place AFC

[Approve My Account Pls]

9 hours ago, Buchta said:

The possible game against Iran could be played in Canada.

"Iran to prepare the team that will reach the World Cup after 36 years, and of course, their condition for this friendly match is the visit of Dragan Skucic's students to Canada"

https://footballi.net/news/r/713485/شرط-بازی-ایران-با-کانادا-و-نیوزیلند-یک-گام-تا-قطعی-شدن-بازی-شاگردان-اسکوچیچ-با-برزیل-یا-آرژانتین

I wonder if this could take place in Qatar in September like Nick Bontis had alluded to being possible when he was last on Northern Futbol

[mrstepp817]

Long rumored USA vs Uruguay friendly is official

 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

I referred earlier to a Perú-Morocco friendly in Barcelona, June 5th; now I see they have changed that.

Morocco still rumoured for the States. And New Zealand steps in and takes their place vs Perú, makes sense as they prep for the playoffs.

But will reduce the crowd considerably, and not sure I'd go without our group rival playing.