Gian-Luca

Canada drew 2-2 with Ukraine on a cool Friday evening in Kiev, which prompted the CSA to inform us in their game report that Canada is unbeaten on Friday nights in the past 11 years. This in turn prompts me to wonder if we might schedule all our World Cup Qualifying matches on Friday evenings in order to keep a good thing going.

An impressive, competent display all round, with Canada doing a better-than-usual job of maintaining possession once they were ...

Things which can be learnt from the two September friendlies Canada played against Peru and Honduras respectively (outside of the obvious "we still have a long ways to go" bit):

1. More attacking options need to be tried up front. We need to try Rob Friend alongside another striker to see if he can be more effective in a 4-4-2 with someone to play off, as it seems unlikely in the 4-5-1 that Coach Stephen Hart employs that an avalanche of goals ...

That was surreal.

Imagine if you will Canada trailing by a goal in 2nd half injury time against a South American opponent on their home turf, not having scored in nearly a year, and who do we have out there to end the drought and get an equalizer? The (comparatively speaking) grizzled veteran at age 25, Issey Nakajima-Farran - by far the most experienced international who was not in the back four - takes charge of a last-minute free kick, places ...

Canada's match today against Argentina sadly went as predicted. Argentina's World Cup team against a largely second string Canada squad in Buenos Aires was always going to be about how few goals Canada would concede. Canadian fans can rest easy that had Canada's first string squad played, the scoreline would likely only have been 4-0. The picture accompanying this blog entry was really the turning point in the game.

What has become frustrating, even if ...

The CSA confirmed today that Canada will be playing another five friendlies in 2010.

http://www.canadasoccer.com/news/vie...?Press_ID=4054

First up, whether Maradona likes it or not, is a match against Argentina in Argentina on May 24th. Coming on the Victoria Day weekend, hopefully this gets hyped up in the Canadian media and some good tv ratings - assuming we can get it on tv at all. For many Canadian players, this match is as ...