Steven Sandor's Blog, page 109

It’s official: Calgary Foothills will play in PDL in 2015

The PDL has confirmed that Calgary Foothills will join the league for the 2015 season.

The club, which will hold tryouts in early January, will play in the PDL’s Northwest Division. The division features teams from along the Pacific Coast in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia — so the Calgary team will face some significant road trips, as will their rivals when they have to head east across the Rockies — and into the Mountain time zone.

The Vancouver Whitecaps won’t field a team in PDL this year, as it will focus on the new USL-PRO team that will play out of the University of British Columbia. But we can hope that a rivalry develops between Foothills and the Victoria Highlanders.

“This is an exciting opportunity for our club and the soccer community of Calgary to see high-profile soccer return to this great sporting city,” Calgary Foothills FC Technical Director and Head Coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. said in a release issued by the PDL. “Since being a part of USL in the early 2000s, it has always been a personal goal of mine to return to USL with another team from Calgary.



“This has taken a lot of hard work from a lot of great people within our organization, but I firmly believe that Calgary is a phenomenal city with some excellent sporting franchises, which until now has been missing a soccer franchise. I feel now with the growth of the game across North America, we want a talent hotbed such as Calgary to play its part in growing the game.”

Fury pulls the plug on its W-League program

In late July of 2012, after scoring late in regulation time to tie the championship game, the Ottawa Fury women’s side won the W-League title in the shootout.

Two years later, and the Fury’s W-League team is no more.

In a briefly worded statement, the Fury announced that it will no longer be fielding a team in the W-League.

“The Fury has been an elite W-League team for more than a decade and we are very proud of the incredible on-field success of our players and our teams,” said Fury FC President (and USL hall of famer) John Pugh in the release. “We thank the fans for their support and hope they enjoy watching the many players with Fury connections that will play in this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.”

The team said that cutting the women’s team was a “business decision”

Since 2000, the Fury have won the second-most games in the W-League and are perennially a contender to go the league’s final four. Coach Dominic Oliveri has done a wonderful job in creating what was arguably the best women’s soccer program in North America outside of NWSL.

The Fury has been home to many women’s national-team players, such as Marie-Eve Nault, Kelly Parker, Christina Julien, Diana Matheson and Rhian Wilkinson.

In 2014, notable Canadians Kadeisha Buchanan, Bryanna McCarthy, Christabel Oduro and Shelina Zadorsky spent time with the Fury.

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State of the MLS roundtable: Since there’s no movement on roster equality, now is the time for Canada to get tough

Don Garber began his roundtable with a group of five selected journalists with an overture intended for Canadian ears. He said that if Canada doesn’t qualify for a World Cup in his time as MLS commissioner, “It will be a mark I truly regret.”

He said he wanted to work with the Canadian Soccer Association, and that the United States, Canada and Mexico together could be soccer powerhouse.

The feel-good vibes lasted until it was time for RDS’s Patrick Leduc to ask his question. He asked the commissioner about the league’s stance on roster rules as they pertained to Canadians. In MLS, Canadians are recognized as domestics on Canadian teams, but as imports on American teams. But Americans are domestics in both countries. In July, Garber said “We are working on a new approach to our international player rules as they relate to Canada. Stay tuned.”

Well, at Tuesday’s roundtable, Garber confirmed that there isn’t going to be a new approach. When pressed by Leduc, Garber retreated back to the argument that U.S. labour law prevents Canadians from being domestics on American soil. He said a Canadians can’t be treated any differently than a Mexican, a Honduran or a Brit. So, Garber made it clear that the status quo will remain — and that roster equality will not become reality in MLS.



But, MLS is affiliated with USL-PRO; the two leagues work together. And USL-PRO has treated Canadians as domestics league-wide for years. If a Canadians plays for the Charleston Battery, he’s a domestic. But if he plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy, he’s a foreigner. It was a double standard before the leagues were affiliated. But it’s now all the more glaring when the leagues are working in concert with each other to develop players.

And, in an interview with me that featured in the fall issue of Plastic Pitch (CLICK HERE), NASL Commissioner Bill Peterson said that the issue of making Canadians domestics on U.S. teams was a “federation question, so I can’t ultimately say how that gets resolved.”

Applying labour law to pro sports has always been a thorny issue, as we accept sports are naturally prejudicial. I’ve been told that by American lawyers when I have explored this issue in the past. If you want to apply strict labour laws, it would be hard to cut a veteran with 10 year’s experience so you can bring in a rookie who makes less. Apply labour law to that scenario.

The fact is, we don’t.

When Garber made the same labour-law statements to TSN’s Jason DeVos last year, MLS’s office then clarified the statements, saying that the league didn’t want to create a system where American teams could hold Canadian players for ransom, because our talent pool was so small. Basically, if Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver needed an elite Canadian player, the Portland Timbers could ask for a crazy return for Will Johnson.

What Garber said in the roundtable is that, down the road, the rules may be adjusted down the road so Canadian teams can focus on Canadian players as domestics. So, any rule change would pertain only to the Canadian teams.

“Canadian players aren’t good enough yet to allow their teams to be competitive,” Garber cautioned.

Garber said he understands that it’s an emotional issue. That he understands that there are complexities that come when an American organization comes in and sets up shop in Canada.

If labour law is the issue, dammit, maybe it’s time to lobby our soccer leaders. Since some claim it’s a “federation issue,” maybe it’s time the CSA demands Americans be seen as foreigners on our teams. Now. So be it if it hurts the won-loss records of our MLS and NASL teams. It’s better to be principled and do what’s best for our nation — because, after being teased by Garber in the summer that real change was going to take place, we now fall back to the status quo. Let’s see if Canada’s regulations can match up to the Americans. Maybe it’s time to see the day when Toronto FC, Montreal and Vancouver start teams with no Americans on the roster — because they had to give equal opportunity to Mexicans, Hondurans and Brits. The CSA was able to crack down on the three incoming USL-PRO teams, mandating that teams affilated with the Impact, TFC and the Whitecaps had to have six Canadian players on the field. Maybe it’s time to go after the bigger fish.

The status quo will lead us to not qualifying for World Cups. Maybe Don Garber won’t regret that black mark as much as he said he would.

Because, if it goes on, Canadian soccer fans will ask the toughest question of all — if the shared system continues to be prejudiced against us, maybe it’s time to ask for a divorce.

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Canadians need to applaud Akindele for his rookie-of-the-year award

Since he has only turned down a Canadian national team invite — and has yet to turn down the Canadian program entirely, it’s OK to applaud Tesho Akindele’s major MLS award win as a victory for soccer in this country.

Akindele, who was born in Calgary, but grew up in the United States, was named the MLS Rookie of the Year on Monday. Akindele scored seven goals and added three assists during the MLS regular season for FC Dallas, and scored a playoff goal against the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Between Akindele and the Columbus Crew’s Ethan Finlay, that’s 18 MLS regular-season goals out of players who, ahem, could be playing for Canada. National team coach Benito Floro has been tracking both players, but Akindele made headlines by turning down the invite to join the Canadian squad for its most recent friendly against Panama.

In the most recent issue of Plastic Pitch(CLICK HERE), Akindele told Martin MacMahon that he was gutted by Canada’s 8-1 loss to Honduras that eliminated his birth nation from the 2014 World Cup qualifying process. At that time, Akindele was keen on playing for Canada.



But, it serves no one to throw mud because a player (past or present) doesn’t accept an invitation to play for Canada. If anything, trying to shame guys who don’t play for Canada only helps drive away future prospects who may have options with other nations. The continuous vilification of Asmir Begovic or Teal Bunbury isn’t going to make a young player who may hold more than one passport that Canada is the place where he wants to play internationally.

So, for this reason, we need to applaud Akindele’s achievement. Even though he has yet to play for our national team, he is the first Canadian to ever win an MLS ROY award. If we want players like Akindele or Finlay to play for Canada, we need to use the carrot, not the stick. So it’s time for us to applaud.

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Canada 0, Panama 0: Why boring can be beautiful

If you were a neutral and stuck out all 94 minutes of Canada’s 0-0 draw at Panama, well either you really, really love soccer or you’re immune to boredom. You could sit through a Kenny G concert and be entertained.

Tuesday night’s game certainly wasn’t a masterpiece. It was a foul-filled, choppy affair, with really only two scoring chances of note. In the first half, Canadian keeper Milan Borjan leapt to stop a dipping left-footed volley from Anibal Godoy; in the second half, Borjan made an outstanding point-blank stop of a headed effort from Panama’s Luis Tejada. The Tejada chance came after Canada was caught defending too deep on a free kick into the box.

But, with 33 fouls called in the game — 20 of them called against the Panamanians — the game stuttered. Even though Godoy saw his second yellow in the 69th minute, the best Canada could do was an injury-time snatched shot from Tosaint Ricketts that went so far wide of goal, it’s a stretch to refer to it as a legitimate scoring chance.



Yes, the match was ugly. But, for Canadian soccer followers, they have to look at the silver linings. The fact is, when it comes time to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, a scrappy, ugly, boring 0-0 draw in Panama would be seen as a very good result for the Canadian national team. Heck, it’s a good result for anyone in CONCACAF. The secret to moving onto the hex, and qualifying out of the hex, is to scratch out points on the road — draws are fine — and take care of business at home.

Canada beat Jamaica in its most recent friendly on Canadian soil. After a 1-0 loss to Colombia in New Jersey, the Canadians got a draw in a Central American environment that’s usually a tough place to play.

Did Canada threaten the Panamanian goal at all? No. But it’s better to play the scrappy, tactical game rather than risk opening up the match, where the percentages favour the home team. This is important to remember: If you want to be entertained, watch club football. International football is about results — and the ends justify the means. Coach Benito Floro has said over and over that he’s hammering the tactical side of the game home. He’s smart enough to know that a coach who regularly can get 0-0 draws on the road in Central America is a coach who will get his contract extended.

And, as Canada’s form improves under Floro, we can all look to what looks to be a very special U-20 group to provide the offence needs in the future. The U-20s just finished a tour of Europe which saw them tie England, beat Russia and, on Tuesday, beat the Americans, 1-0. The likes of Jordan Hamilton and Hanson Boakai look to be legitimate offensive weapons for the future.

Despite the dastardly dull nature of the game, the Canada-Panama encounter offered lessons for the players and reminders for the long-suffering Canadian supporters. Playing ugly on the road is absolutely fine.

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Canada-Panama sort-of preview: Talking about the players who aren’t there

A Canadian men’s national team press conference just wouldn’t be a men’s national team press conference if there weren’t questions about players who aren’t with the program.

So, in keeping with what’s become a Canadian soccer tradition, we start off our coverage of Benito Floro’s conference call with updates on forwards Ethan Finlay, Lucas Cavallini and Tesho Akindele, none of whom are with the national team ahead of its friendly on Tuesday in Panama.

Floro said he is tracking the progress of Finlay, the Columbus Crew forward who scored 11 times this season. Finlay was born in the United States, but his dad is Canadian. Floro said he would need to see what Finlay can do in a camp, but he has been paying attention to the player.

As for Akindele, the Calgary-born FC Dallas rookie who turned down an invitation to join Canada for the Panama game, Floro was diplomatic: “He has a tough decision to make (between the American and Canadian programs). And, playing in MLS puts him closer to the U.S. national team.” But Floro was clear that Akindele still has time to make that decision.



Floro, though, was not as diplomatic about Cavallini. He was the offensive cog in Canada’s U-23 team during the most recent Olympic qualifying cycle. The striker, who plays in Uruguay, has continually turned down invites to play with the national side, and it’s clear that Floro has had enough of it.

“It’s been three, four or five times he has been invited to come, and he always has different reasons why he cannot come,” said Floro.

And he said that Cavallini shouldn’t be expecting more invites. He said that Cavallini must now wait while he assesses “the other strikers who show up.”

Floro was more bullish about the prospects of youngsters like Russell Teibert, Maxim Tissot and Karl Ouimette, who are all part of the squad for the Panama game. He said that, because they are continuing to get looks, they are all players who could be a part of the 23-man roster for Canada’s first qualifier for the 2018 World Cup cycle. And, he said he’s been keeping an eye on the U-20 team, which has earned a 2-2 draw with England and a 2-1 triumph over Russia in its current European tour. But, while he looked at U-20 prospects in previous senior camps, now is the time to let the best U-20 players focus on that team.

He said, with a U-20 World Cup (and qualifying before that) on the horizon, this is “an important time” for the U-20s and this isn’t the time to be raiding that team’s roster. But, he said that a large number of those U-20s could be national teamers within three or four years.

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Marcina’s Soccer Bowl win caps off a great season for Canadians in NASL

In the midst of the 2013 season, Surrey, B.C. native Alen Marcina was asked to take over the San Antonio Scorpions on an interim basis. The team was in the NASL basement at the time. But, Marcina did well enough with what he had to convince the Scorpions brass that he deserved to have the interim tag removed.

Now, Marcina can add “Soccer Bowl” to his coaching résumé. Two superb goals — a bicycle kick from Rafa Castillo and a great run and finish by Billy Forbes — gave the Scorpions a 2-1 win Saturday night in the NASL Championship game.

It caps off what has to be termed as a very good year for Canadians in the NASL.

Of the 10 NASL teams, three were coached by Canadians. One won a title. Another, Colin Miller, received a three-year extension from his club, FC Edmonton. A Canadian, John Smits, won the Golden Glove award, which goes to the keeper with the lowest goals-against average in the league — with enough minutes played to qualify. A Canadian team, the Ottawa Fury, set a modern-day NASL attendance record in its TD Place opener. FCE’s Hanson Boakai got an invite to a senior national-team — at the age of 17.



Oh, and three members of FCE, Boakai, Sadi Jalali and Marko Aleksic, are part of the Canadian U-20 squad that went to England and got a 2-2 draw and then beat Russia’s U-21s by a 2-1 count.

Maybe the only spoiler was that Adrian Cann, the Scorpions’ Canadian captain, wasn’t able to play in the championship game due to a knee injury. As Cann told us in the fall (current) issue of Plastic Pitch, Marcina asked him to come to San Antonio. Marcina and Cann played together with the Whitecaps and, after taking a year away from soccer, Cann decided the Scorpions were the right fit.

“I thought it would be a great fit for me to go down there, to re-establish myself, playing wise, and eventually win a championship. It was appealing to me.”

Cann certainly had the “winning a championship” part right.

Within a year, Marcina has gone from a great coaching unknown to being seen as one of the best in NASL. And, while San Antonio certainly brought it a number of high-profile players this season, the cynics felt that the large number of egos and bad eggs on the team would be hard to manage. Instead, Marcina showed that he was right when he told us that “a lot of these guys have been misinterpreted. They are still winners. They want to win. I knew, collectively, if we all came together and stayed focused on our goals, we’d experience some success.”

In the future, if we’re talking about MLS coaching vacancies, Marcina should be part of discussions. And he’s certainly become one of the brightest stories in Canadian soccer.

Gloves of gold: NASL confirms FC Edmonton’s Smits as winner of top keeper honour

John Smits isn’t just the best Canadian keeper in NASL. He can now lay claim to the title of best keeper in the league. Period.

By finishing the NASL season with the lowest goals against average of any keeper in the league with enough minutes played to qualify, the University of Toronto grad has been awarded the league’s Golden Glove award. The league announced the award on Thursday.

Smits arrived in San Antonio on Thursday. At halftime of Saturday’s Soccer Bowl — where Canadian coach Alen Marcina hopes to lead his Scorpions to their first NASL title — Smits will be honoured alongside league-leading scorer Christian Ramirez.

Smits finished the season with a 0.90 GAA. Smits, who had been the understudy to former MLS keeper Lance Parker over the past two seasons, got the lion’s share of the time in goal for FC Edmonton in 2014. A series of finger and shoulder injuries kept Parker out of the goal — and Smits took the opportunity and proved that he was capable to not only be the Eddies’ full-time No. 1 keeper, but one of the elite keepers in the league.

At the end of the season, FC Edmonton announced that Parker was one of six players who won’t be back in 2015 — which paves the way for Smits to be the unquestioned No. 1, with Tyson Farago as the understudy.

“When it comes to other players and their contracts, that’s none of my business,” said Smits. “But he sent me a great text message after his exit interview. He was a great starter. I’ve learned so much from him. He’s the most professional player I’ve ever met, from the way he takes care of himself to his nutrition to how he trains.”

Smits, who hails from Mississauga and played on the same Erin Mills junior team as Junior Hoilett, went to the University of Toronto, and is currently the most successful CIS grad playing in North American pro leagues.

He hopes his success is an inspiration to other CIS players.

“I remember the first interview I did with you, after my first win in this league, and I said I wanted to show that CIS players can play. Now I think we can be successful in the top leagues, in North America, especially.”

But he doesn’t want to dwell too much on where he came from.

“To be honest, my focus is on what’s coming up rather than what I’ve done in the past.”

Earlier Thursday, FCE midfielder Lance Laing was named to the league’s Best XI, a move which had been widely expected. He becomes the fourth Eddie in history to be named to the season-ending all-star teams; he joins Shaun Saiko, Paul Hamilton and Albert Watson.

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Eddies sign El Salvadoran midfielder Tomas Granitto

FC Edmonton has reached an agreement to bring El Salvadoran midfielder Tomas Granitto to the club.

The Eddies made the announcement Wednesday.

“We’re very excited that Tomas has shown interest in us and that we’ve come to an agreement,” said FC Edmonton head coach Colin Miller in a release issued by the club. “We’ve been very impressed with what we’ve seen from him. Tomas is a terrific passer of the ball and I think he’s a player that will keep us in possession of the ball in the upcoming season.”



Granitto represented El Salvador at the 2013 U-20 World Cup in Turkey. He scored a goal in that tournament. He has also played for El Salvadoran club, Club Deportivo Luis Ángel Firpo, in the CONCACAF Champions League.

The signing of Granitto does not bring the Eddies to the NASL roster maximum of seven international players. The club has confirmed that Granitto, who played at Florida Gulf Coast University, has his required American paperwork and is considered a domestic. Last week, midfielder Horace James was one of six players released by the Eddies — and that opened up an international spot that the Eddies can still fill.

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Round one to the CSA: Human Rights Tribunal co-chair won’t rush the turfgate case

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has rejected a plea to expedite its hearing of the grass vs. turf case.

A group of women’s players, including Americans Alex Morgan and Abby Wambach, Germany’s Nadine Angerer and Japan’s Yuki Ogimi had petitioned the HRTO to hear their plea against the use of artificial turf fields at the 2015 Women’s World Cup. The Canadian Soccer Association and FIFA have defended the use of the artificial-turf fields, while the women’s players named in the suit (a total of 15 on the document) wanted to speed the case forward in hopes of getting a ruling in favour of grass in time for it to have an impact on the WWC.

The CSA’s lawyers have stated that they doesn’t feel the HRTO has the jurisdiction to rule on a Women’s World Cup, as five of the six venues being used in the tournament are located outside of the province of Ontario.

On Friday, HRTO co-chair Jo-Anne Pickel rejected the players’ plea to expedite the case, basically killing any chance to have it heard in time to have a meaningful impact on the WWC.

She wrote that, as expedited cases put all other matters before the HRTO on the back burner, it would be unfair to all the other applicants. It would be unfair of the HRTO to delay other cases of racial, workplace and/or gender discrimination to accommodate the players.



And, Pickel said it would be even harder to expedite the case, when the players themselves waited till 2014 to file, even though the World Cup was awarded to Canada in 2011 — and it was common knowledge turf would be used.

“Another key factor weighing against the applicants’ request is their failure to proceed expeditiously in filing their application once they became aware of the alleged breach of the Code,” Pickel wrote.

Basically — if you take your sweet time to bring it to the tribunal, why should the tribunal then rush itself for you?

“As significant as this case may be for the applicants, I do not find it appropriate to expedite an application where the applicants have not themselves acted expeditiously. I do not find it appropriate to expedite an application where the applicants did not file their application until 18 months or more after they reasonably would have been aware of the fact that gave rise to the application.”

Pickel has now given the CSA and the applicants seven days to confirm or deny that they want to go into an early mediation process. According to Pickel’s paperwork, the CSA and the applicants agreed to take part in mediation. Now, the question is, would they take part in early mediation? (These look to be two separate things).

The applicants have applied for an “interim remedy” – think of it as an injunction — and the HRTO says it will rule on that in the coming weeks.

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