Gold Cup: Canada vs USA - Sunday, July 9th 7:30pm Eastern / 4:30pm Pacific - Cincinnati, OH (Match Thread)

[Gian-Luca]

1 hour ago, Gian-Luca said:

 

VAR hasn't been around very long but it is normally the practice that the VAR booth calls down during a stoppage in play. For the 2nd PK shout, they called down during the play and without waiting for a whistle to let the Ref know that there is such a blatant PK in the box that he needs to see it immediately - that's how incredibly 100% stone cold of a penalty it was. So what does the guy do? He looks at it and decides to give a foul for pushing that he chose to ignore the first time round. And if anyone argues that maybe he didn't see the shove the first time nor did he see the blatantly obvious PK, then it is grounds for asking what the fuck game he is actually watching. The guy missed three PKs on the field, two of them VAR had to catch for him. Even the one that we finally were awarded, no less than four Canadian players (some of whom were further away from the play than the Ref was) shouted immediately and simultaneously for a handball, while the Ref ignored it, and even after the ball went out of bounds he still wasn't planning to do anything about it even when Osorio ran up to him and told him to check for another handball he missed. Then in the last minute of injury time, Canada has an odd-man rush in our favour but one of our players (can't remember if it it was Brym or JRR), just to put the icing on the cake of shit officiating, is shoved off the ball from behind with a far more blatant two handed shove that what Bombito was called for, nullifying our break and sending the US the other way that ultimately gave them a dangerous last-minute free kick.

So yeah, not giving (what would have been a harsh) straight red to Cavallini notwithstanding, this Ref's undeniable inconsistency helped to thwart Canada. But what else is new when it comes to the Gold Cup matches against the US?

So I have to correct myself here, having just re-watched the highlights - it's actually five Canadian players who simultaneously shout for a handball PK claim (Osorio, Miller, McGraw, Brym and Laryea) and all five of them are actually further away from the play than the Ref. If you pause the screen at a certain moment (and deleted the ball from the screen grab like in one of those old NASL-era magazines "Spot the Ball" photos they used to do) you could be forgiven for thinking that the ball was in the net because it actually looks like our players are celebrating a goal with so many arms in the air. Heck, for all I know Dayne St. Clair could see it all the way from our own net and had his arm up too (he's not in shot). Furthermore, the Ref, who is closer to the play than any of these players and looking right at it, actually waves off the initial protests denying that there was a handball, before he gets further embarrassed by VAR once again. Whether it's incompetency or something worse, this ought to be (if Concacaf has any integrity) the final important match that he will officiate in his Concacaf career.

Now watch the man get rewarded with the final...

[Joe MacCarthy]

 

[Joe MacCarthy]

 

[TGAA_Star]

I mean I almost didn't even have to predict the scoreline either but Canada losing on penalties isn't so bad but then again I just knew what was coming...but now Canada has no more games after this unless you count 2023/24 Nations League or Copa America. May have to get rid of Herdman because he only can get you so far.

Edited July 10, 2023 by TGAA_Star

[Joe MacCarthy]

2 minutes ago, TGAA_Star said:

May have to get rid of Herdman because he only can get you so far.

How far is that?

[TGAA_Star]

31 minutes ago, Joe MacCarthy said:

How far is that?

At best he can't get you far in Gold Cups. He can't lead you to a Final. Can only get his teams to a quarter final or even a semi final. Plus it just may be time for a new coach, a new voice. Because clearly he isn't the answer anymore.

[king1010]

8 hours ago, Soccerpro2 said:

You also need at least one shot on net in 90 minutes to back up a claim of dominance.

Usa had 4

[king1010]

3 hours ago, TGAA_Star said:

At best he can't get you far in Gold Cups. He can't lead you to a Final. Can only get his teams to a quarter final or even a semi final. Plus it just may be time for a new coach, a new voice. Because clearly he isn't the answer anymore.

Time for you to delete your account

[king1010]

3 hours ago, TGAA_Star said:

I mean I almost didn't even have to predict the scoreline either but Canada losing on penalties isn't so bad but then again I just knew what was coming...but now Canada has no more games after this unless you count 2023/24 Nations League or Copa America. May have to get rid of Herdman because he only can get you so far.

I mean time to delete your account

[Kingston]

This has done nothing to reduce my hatred of penalty kicks as a way of settling games.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Solid scrap in the tunnel 

[InglewoodJack]

I think beyond anything it was just really nice to watch a competitive game for the first time in god knows how long- we either play games we're supposed to win or games we're supposed to lose, but I don't remember being this nervy for a Canada game in so long.

I wanted to win this one and have ourselves a little miracle run, but being that we treated this tournament as a B cycle, I think we accomplished our mission in basically treating this like a camp to get a good look at players. Not ready to start plucking guys off the A team, but at the very least, I think guys like Ahmed and McGraw are going to be in that convo, Bombito is probably going to be one of those Herdman favourites that gets surprising calls, but I do think there's something legit there, and I think Liam Millar put himself in a good spot to start getting called back in. I hope Jayden Nelson did enough for Canada to take him more seriously too.

Until someone solidifies themselves as the third midfielder with Kone & Eustaquio, I think having Ahmed, Bombito, and Nelson gives you a lot of options to get creative. Also a very good insurance policy for when Osorio isn't on his game.

It's a shame that we're about to enter a pretty extended dry spell. Assuming those friendlies don't happen (and if they do, it'll be against Oman & Uzbekistan in the US), I think we've got the two nations league games in November, then assuming we win, the other NL games in March '24, and then hopefully Copa America next summer?

[Sal333]

7 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

 

VAR hasn't been around very long but it is normally the practice that the VAR booth calls down during a stoppage in play. For the 2nd PK shout, they called down during the play and without waiting for a whistle to let the Ref know that there is such a blatant PK in the box that he needs to see it immediately - that's how incredibly 100% stone cold of a penalty it was. So what does the guy do? He looks at it and decides to give a foul for pushing that he chose to ignore the first time round. And if anyone argues that maybe he didn't see the shove the first time nor did he see the blatantly obvious PK, then it is grounds for asking what the fuck game he is actually watching. The guy missed three PKs on the field, two of them VAR had to catch for him. Even the one that we finally were awarded, no less than four Canadian players (some of whom were further away from the play than the Ref was) shouted immediately and simultaneously for a handball, while the Ref ignored it, and even after the ball went out of bounds he still wasn't planning to do anything about it even when Osorio ran up to him and told him to check for another handball he missed. Then in the last minute of injury time, Canada has an odd-man rush in our favour but one of our players (can't remember if it it was Brym or JRR), just to put the icing on the cake of shit officiating, is shoved off the ball from behind with a far more blatant two handed shove that what Bombito was called for, nullifying our break and sending the US the other way that ultimately gave them a dangerous last-minute free kick.

So yeah, not giving (what would have been a harsh) straight red to Cavallini notwithstanding, this Ref's undeniable inconsistency helped to thwart Canada. But what else is new when it comes to the Gold Cup matches against the US?

Although I'm 100% in agreement with you, I have to ask you to look at the crowd last night and check to see where the game was shown in the states and in Canada.

Keeping the USA as long as possible in the GC means millions to CONCACA. Keeping Canada means CONCACA loses those millions. If the officiating in last night's game doesn't convince you of that, then you need another FBI investigation into international soccer. Three blatant penalty calls in the box and only one was grudgingly called. 'Nuff said.

[Sal333]

4 hours ago, TGAA_Star said:

At best he can't get you far in Gold Cups. He can't lead you to a Final. Can only get his teams to a quarter final or even a semi final. Plus it just may be time for a new coach, a new voice. Because clearly he isn't the answer anymore.

What have you been smoking? He got the team to the final in Nation League play. In the GC he was managing with our lack of depth and if that quarter final game was reffed by the rules instead of economics, he would have dragged this team to the semi-finals. You really think another manager can do better? Where have you been the last 30-40 years?

[Soccerpro2]

1 hour ago, king1010 said:

Usa had 4

Yes. 4-0.

[Obinna]

4 hours ago, TGAA_Star said:

At best he can't get you far in Gold Cups. He can't lead you to a Final. Can only get his teams to a quarter final or even a semi final. Plus it just may be time for a new coach, a new voice. Because clearly he isn't the answer anymore.

What about the NL final?

[InglewoodJack]

18 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

What have you been smoking? He got the team to the final in Nation League play. In the GC he was managing with our lack of depth and if that quarter final game was reffed by the rules instead of economics, he would have dragged this team to the semi-finals. You really think another manager can do better? Where have you been the last 30-40 years?

I don't think Herdman is without fault, but I do wonder what exactly people expect his "improvement" to do given these lineups. Okay, a master tactician would've played Liam Fraser less and Victor Loturi more. Seriously? Your tournament hopes hinge on the difference between a player who almost got relegated out of the scottish first div and someone playing in the belgian second? The way people talk, it's like we get a new coach and all of a sudden the quality of our roster suddenly improves drastically.

So much of the armchair critiques about Herdman end up being like "this marginal player should've played over that marginal player for a few more minutes". Going into this torunanent, who was our best player? Steven Vitoria? Osorio? Cavallini? Pep Guardiola couldn't have taken these guys much farther than Herdman did.

*I guess Laryea was the best player on our team, but as great as he is, not really the guy you want as your team star...

Edited July 10, 2023 by InglewoodJack

[zeelaw]

Just want to say, shout out to the boys for shutting up all the haters in the comments of every socials post.

[TOcanadafan]

This loss is hurting more the morning after.

For all the good the team did as a whole throughout the first 110 or so minutes, you CANNOT blow a lead like that.  And it didn’t come from any brilliant shot… just another collective ‘switch off’.  So disappointing.  Gotta be better.

[jonovision]

7 hours ago, BearcatSA said:

^Bombito, as you say, does eat up ground in that d-mid role but his play in possession is not that instinctive and he is still prone to turnovers when under modest pressure.  He's needs tutoring from Patrice Bernier in how to protect the ball and/or draw fouls in those situations.  The thing is:  he probably needs to play one position (CB or d-mid) consistently in order to develop in one of them properly.

That may have been true in earlier matches, but yesterday it was defensively where he was having problems (USA were constantly running through or threading passes through his space). He was good in possession.

[Gian-Luca]

7 hours ago, BearcatSA said:

Russell-Rowe?  Didn't really see enough of him here to make a determination of what we've got.  I think he needs to solidify himself as a regular starter and scorer in Nancy's Crew and then we can go from there.

I like his movement and game-intelligence on the field. I don't think he was given an assist on the Shaffelburg goal but he should have been since he did a nice little one-touch flick-on from Fraser's pass to set up Shaffelburg perfectly to make that run. But on the chance that Russell-Rowe (barely) missed, I like his connection play with two fellow subs to generate the chance that ultimately fell to him along with his understanding of moving into space to get the chance in the first place. These sorts of little details for me put him ahead of the likes of Brym who is 4 or 5 years older but I don't really recall making the shrewd or cunning plays so much.

Incidentally, while mentioning three ex-TFC players in the above paragraph, while it may be great that two of them have moved on to American teams and are doing well there (even if limited minutes thus far early in JRR's pro career), every time I see Fraser play well for Canada (which is pretty much every single game he plays), I feel a pang of frustration from a TFC fan perspective that he's playing in 2nd division Belgium when he could be playing for TFC. His ability to play a quick, decisive and accurate forward pass (as he did on the Shaff goal) seems simple enough but we don't have that many Canadian mids who do that regularly enough and TFC certainly doesn't. If there is anyone who seriously thinks he couldn't help the current edition of TFC, they need to seek professional medical help immediately.

[Obinna]

As disappointing as it was to be right there and let it slip out of our hands, we need to keep some things in perspective:

1) We played away

2) We took the lead in extra time (have never seen that from us)

3) We fought to the end

4) We built some depth

Again, it got to be better. It feels like the Belgium match where a better team was there for the taking and we let them off the hook. That said, Ahmed, Bombito, Schaffleburg, JRR and Nelson got some valuable experience. 4 of those 5 got to play in a knockout match against the hosts. Each of them put out good showings. That points to a bright future. 

Now what's needed is for these guys to go back to club and keep growing. At least a few of them will end up filling out the tail end of our A selection very soon. For me Schaffleburg has to be a top that list, followed closely by Ahmed.

[gator]

It is certainly disappointing this morning thinking of what might have been, it would have been epic if we saw the match out in extra time or won the penalty lottery not just to put one over on our rival but to get at least another match with this exciting squad! I thought early on we were in this match, all of the usual American hype turned out to be just that, we competed very well in a road match officiated by a ref who was incompetent and perhaps corrupt! The Americans have the very good athletic players as usual but I think we played with more flair, I loved the back heels and little tricks we displayed, IMO they have no one in their squad like Ahmed and Nelson sadly didn't get on the pitch in this one, the future is bright!

Edited July 10, 2023 by gator

[Shway]

Some people's assessments are interesting. 

Since we play a 352...I implore you to think about the depth chart, and how some players did in this tournament.

The reality is guys like Ahmed, and Bombito could likely replace the vets in the middle like Kaye and Piette permanently. I think Fraser did well, for not being meant to be there but he needs to get his club future sorted. I like him.

In the back Kennedy is moving down the chart in favour of McGraw moving up. The key is him being a right footed CB (which we are thin on), and the coaching  staff seem to think this as well. Also not factoring in the potential return of Cornelius. With Johnston being in the squad, I'm interested to see McGraw in the middle of the 3.

In the wingback positions Laryea is solid, and is already the number 2 behind a healthy Tajon. Nobody else really got the chance to display themselves. On the left side, Shaffelburg showed best here in the limited minutes he played. His explosiveness, and directness could be a 3rd option behind Davies, and Adekugbe. 

Up top...Larin and David have these position locked down. So who's the depth options? To be honest it's all determined by how well a guy is currently doing. None of JRR, Millar (did really well as forward), Brym, Ugbo, and Cavallini staked their claim this tournament, and the only guy who's club future/status is sorted out is JRR, and he's a super sub at Columbus.

Outside of Vitoria, Laryea, and Borjan...I think we'll continue to see McGraw, Ahmed, and Bombito...the rest are a toss up.
 

[RS]

1 hour ago, Obinna said:

What about the NL final?

You can't expect him to remember three whole weeks ago.