June 6th friendly v Netherlands

[dyslexic nam]

I get the same thing with my Scottish/English ethnic heritage.  Frustrating.

[dyslexic nam]

(checks to see if he crossed a line...)

[Obinna]

1 hour ago, Bigandy said:

Theres likely to be a second friendly in europe if you listen to kevin. But why would we use a prep game for the copa to experiment. We also would likely lose credibility if we toy with the netherlands. They need to be facing our A team. If we bring in a A/B hybrid, then why would other big nations view us as a good choice for prep before major tournaments. 

This will be the same squad we bring to copa 100%

Fair point. 

Is there a possibility we play a NA friendly before the tournament? If so, we could probably call an A/B hybrid, just to take a look at some guys based in Europe, then do the same to look at some fringe guys from MLS, then pick the Copa team based on that. 

We may also fail to qualify, in which case we may as well dig into the depth a little bit. 

Either way, as long as we have a strong starting 11 it's kind of the same difference, no? The gap between Choniere/Ahmed and Colyn probably isn't very big anyway. 

[dyslexic nam]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

“Hey hon - remember when we talked about a trip to Europe…” 
 

Just to update, things aren't looking great for a June trip to Europe.

[TGAA_Star]

But this friendly is a litmus test not just for Copa America but for the build up towards 2026 when we co host with USA and Mexico...so yes I wanna face top teams of the world like Netherlands, Italy, Belgium again, France, Spain, Brazil, etc

[JamboAl]

1 hour ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

@JamboAl , OMG, how much do you have to put up with this when you are in Europe?

Not much really…I just say I’m Scottish, and then revert back to the accent of my childhood.  Aye, right!

[johnyb]

3 hours ago, JamboAl said:

FYI, Canada Soccer has also reached out to the Vs about ticketing and our needs.  They have already initiated contact with the KNVB.  More to come…

Wow! CSA is on the ball! You my boy Blue!!!!

 

Edited March 7 by johnyb

[SpursFlu]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I don't think we should be looking at European based players or Dutch-based especially like Colyn, Brym, if they are not going to Copa America, because their seasons will be over.

Well, perhaps De Graafschap will be in a promotion playoff, but otherwise.

The coincidence of place is a bit irrelevant. The costs will be covered by the Dutch and we have to take our Copa team, whatever that is meant to be. Just saying. Spain ends 10 days earlier like Italy, France another week earlier like Portugal, Championship ends a month earlier then there could be a promotion for PNE. Most European based players are on their offseason, have a rest, may be back in Canada already, then if we qualify for Copa will reengage for these friendlies and the competition.

But wouldn't that be your opportunity to find out who you're bringing to Copa America. You already know exactly what you have in just say a Piette, Cavallini Osorio or Miller. You need to to see a Colyn, Bair, POS, Luc mixed in with the core to make a decision of 1 over another 

[Stryker911]

2 hours ago, maplebanana said:

I asked a couple of Dutch people at work about this, and they basically said that's only the older generation. People under the age of 40 seem to not care about Canada or our role in WW2. 

I also would point out that Amsterdam is the first time I got the following conversation:

(Me, with 4 canadian flags sewn to my backpack)

"Are you Chinese or Korean?"

"I'm Canadian"

"But Chinese?"

"No, I was born and raised in Canada"

"But Chinese?"

"No, I am from Canada. I speak English and French only. I played hockey on frozen back yard rinks"

"But Chinese?"

".... (sigh) Yes."

In fairness, I get this exact conversation about 5x a day in China. 

Fair enough. But how old do you think the guys are that run the KNVB (Dutch Football) are? I guarantee these guys still care about Canada.

[Kingston]

I was at Varsity the first time we played them.  It was a lot of fun.

Can we do better than 0-3 this time?

Edited March 7 by Kingston

[Bigandy]

57 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Fair point. 

Is there a possibility we play a NA friendly before the tournament? If so, we could probably call an A/B hybrid, just to take a look at some guys based in Europe, then do the same to look at some fringe guys from MLS, then pick the Copa team based on that. 

We may also fail to qualify, in which case we may as well dig into the depth a little bit. 

Either way, as long as we have a strong starting 11 it's kind of the same difference, no? The gap between Choniere/Ahmed and Colyn probably isn't very big anyway. 

This would be lovely and I hope we get the chance. The hybrid is perfect for nelson, colyn, corbeanu, ali and bombito to make a squad claim. 

I do think there are very few firm B players who are currently good enough to crack our A squad. Corbeanu, Ali and bombito, sirious, LDF, bair, brym are B+ ish in my mind. Guys like nelson, shaf, colyn, loturi are closer to a B and I think it will be hard for them to displace anyone. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

42 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

But wouldn't that be your opportunity to find out who you're bringing to Copa America. You already know exactly what you have in just say a Piette, Cavallini Osorio or Miller. You need to to see a Colyn, Bair, POS, Luc mixed in with the core to make a decision of 1 over another 

I think you need to prep for Argentina, to be honest, if we don't screw up vs. T&T.

I don't want to see anyone or try anything remotely experimental.

Go into Rotterdam and compete Netherlands like we are competing Argentina.

If we qualify, it will be our second most important tournament after the WC, and third most important in history, and a great opportunity to do something we haven't done in the WC: get out of our group. 

Obviously if we fail in a few weeks it matters a lot less and I am not even sure I'll be that keen about watching those buggers.

 

[Soro17]

3 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

An important little detail: that day is the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, Juno beach.

Funnily, a few months ago I was looking at this, thinking about possible trips there for the event.

Probably the last major anniversary that will include any participants.

A great place to visit. The Juno Beach Centre is really family friendly too and is much better than the museum at Vimy. A bit of a trek from Rotterdam, but doable with a car - especially for Canadians where six hours in the car is NBD. 

[Bigandy]

43 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

But wouldn't that be your opportunity to find out who you're bringing to Copa America. You already know exactly what you have in just say a Piette, Cavallini Osorio or Miller. You need to to see a Colyn, Bair, POS, Luc mixed in with the core to make a decision of 1 over another 

The 2 logics here are: 
1. Use the camp to prep for the tournament.
2. Use the camp to see what the unknowns bring. 

Using logic 2, we may learn that colyn is better than ali as the last guy off the bench but does that squad selection really improve the liklihood we advance. 

Or Does logic 1 allow our best team to gain experience against a top opponent, fine tune some tactical things, and build familiarity within the squad resulting in a much higher chance of success of advancing. 

Based on most pretournament friendly squads, I would say 99% of teams use logic 1. 

[SpursFlu]

But let's stop and think about this. We're not talking about who is playing against Argentina or the tournament for that matter. We all know who is going to play 95% of the minutes in Copa America. It's the guys from the 15-24 roster spots. We can all sit here and pick the starting 11 v Argentina. 

Copa America locks

Davies, David, Eustaquio, Kone, Buchanan, Millar, Johnston, Larin, Laryea, Miller, Cornelius, Adekugbe 

What do we have? 21 outfield players? There is 12 I'm pretty sure nobody will argue with and covers every position.

Who are the remaining 9? I think we need to give people an opportunity to make a case and a 1 off must win isn't the best time to do it

Edited March 7 by SpursFlu

[Kent]

If there are 2 or 3 players that the manager wants to look at, perhaps he can bring a bigger squad into camp to see them. Then it can be up to their performances in training to see if they get a sub appearance or something. But I think we absolutely want to take this friendly seriously, in particular if we beat T&T. If we don't beat T&T we probably still want to take it seriously, or else we might get a Croatian like "Are we a joke to you?" reaction and make it harder to book good friendlies in the future.

[Watchmen]

27 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I think you need to prep for Argentina, to be honest, if we don't screw up vs. T&T.

I don't want to see anyone or try anything remotely experimental.

Go into Rotterdam and compete Netherlands like we are competing Argentina.

If we qualify, it will be our second most important tournament after the WC, and third most important in history, and a great opportunity to do something we haven't done in the WC: get out of our group. 

Obviously if we fail in a few weeks it matters a lot less and I am not even sure I'll be that keen about watching those buggers.

I think it depends on the definition of "experimental" here. If it's Crepeau over Borjan vs the Netherlands? It technically is, but it's also maybe the correct call and I don't think impacts them in this game either. And maybe you have a few kids on the bench too. I'm not saying start a bunch of new players, but a minor rotation/move on from a few of the veterans probably isn't going to hurt.

[StretchArmstrong]

This is a terrible idea. Bulletin board material for T&T. BLUE OUT!

[Watchmen]

What's the over/under on the number of times we see/hear about Jonathan de Guzman during this match?

[Bigandy]

15 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

But let's stop and think about this. We're not talking about who is playing against Argentina or the tournament for that matter. We all know who is going to play 95% of the minutes in Copa America. It's the guys from the 15-24 roster spots. We can all sit here and pick the starting 11 v Argentina. 

Copa America locks

Davies, David, Eustaquio, Kone, Buchanan, Millar, Johnston, Larin, Laryea, Miller, Cornelius, Adekugbe 

What do we have? 21 outfield players? There is 12 I'm pretty sure nobody will argue with and covers every position.

Who are the remaining 9? I think we need to give people an opportunity to make a case and a 1 off must win isn't the best time to do it

I get what you're saying, but lets say we field a B team vs netherlands. We get crushed. Did we actually learn much about who gets picked for the 12-23 spots? Is one game against the netherlands sufficient enough evidence to warrant selection or not? 

We surely need to give opportunities to players to make a case, but I would argue that 20ish spots are pretty confirmed if copa was today. Club form does much more justice to including a new guy in the squad than a one off game against holland.  

We've been screaming that our A team needs experience against top teams. Now that its here, we want our B team to get that experience? It makes no sense. 

[CanadaFan123]

Don’t be ridiculous. The regulars have wanted these types of matches and will be playing - we’re not the USA where these happen multiple times yearly. 

[Corazon]

I think the best option is to bring in a bit of an extended squad for the camp.  They all don't have to play in the friendlies but at least it will give the coach a couple weeks to look at some new players through training and see how the stack up with our stars.  Some may still be a bit out of their element and others may shine in training and be rewarded with an appearance off the bench. 

However, I do believe we need these games to prepare for Copa America (assuming we are going).  With extended subs, we can hopefully find some minutes later on for the fringe "B" players that have earned it through strong seasons this year and through strong training in the weeks leading up to the games.

Edit: Looks like @Kent had the same idea as me up above.

Edited March 7 by Corazon

[Bigandy]

8 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

I think it depends on the definition of "experimental" here. If it's Crepeau over Borjan vs the Netherlands? It technically is, but it's also maybe the correct call and I don't think impacts them in this game either. And maybe you have a few kids on the bench too. I'm not saying start a bunch of new players, but a minor rotation/move on from a few of the veterans probably isn't going to hurt.

Fine tuning the starting line up is 100% feasible. Crepeau vs borjan, millar vs corbeanu, oso vs ali vs choiniere, vitoria vs cornelius Johnston vs laryea etc. All great debates for who starts. 

I just dont think bringing in loturi, colyn, Kerr, JRR etc  to see if they are at the level makes any sense. While david, kone and millar sit on the bench in what would arguably be the best international opponent theyve faced. 

[Shway]

@Olympique_de_Marseille

do some work for the CSA, who else is available to play so we can have a two match window. 

[Bigandy]

1 minute ago, Corazon said:

I think the bets option is to bring in a bit of an extended squad for the camp.  They all don't have to play in the friendlies but at least it will give the coach a couple weeks to look at some new players through training and see how the stack up with our stars.  Some may still be a bit out of their element and others may shine in training and be rewarded with an appearance off the bench. 

However, I do believe we need these games to prepare for Copa America (assuming we are going).  With extended subs, we can hopefully find some minutes later on for the fringe "B" players that have earned it through strong seasons this year and through strong training in the weeks leading up to the games.

What does this do for squad prep though. Managers often have preferred squad sizes they like to work with so its manageable and they can be more focused. Do we bring in an extra 6 guys who sit on the sidelines and watch as we work on tactics? Sounds like an expensive solution that creates more problems than value.