Steven Sandor's Blog, page 24

Two highlight-reel goals punctuate Canada’s Algarve Cup finale

The Canadian women’s national team finished their run at the Algarve Cup Wednesday with a 2-0 win over Japan — winners of the 2011 World Cup, finalists in 2015, but now on a downward trend.

Canada finished the tournament with its third straight win after losing the opener to Sweden by  a 3-1 count.

Both of Canada’s goals were absolute beauties.

Janine Beckie opened the scoring; coming in from the left side of the penalty area, the ball came back to her after her initial shot was blocked. If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again; that’s what they say, right? Well, Beckie put her foot through the ball, and her second effort screamed into the top corner.

Not to be outdone in the “one for the highlight reel” department, Ashley Lawrence made it 2-0 after she dashed in from the right wing to take a pass from Christine Sinclair, squeezed past one Japanese defender, then poked the ball to the middle of the area, then dashed and dove to beat another Japanese defender to the ball and, in the process, poked the ball across the goal line. I know that was a run-on sentence, but, dammit, Lawrence’s effort deserves a run-on sentence.

“We achieved one of the key goals we set out prior to this tournament: bring this team back together after a long break, build on the team’s foundation with some different tactics, and give more players high-level tournament experience,” said coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller in a release issued by Canada Soccer.  “We played all 23 players throughout the group stage, which shows the depths of this squad and we played a variety of styles during the tournament.”

How to understand Nations League qualifying in about 600 easy steps!

Canada now has its qualifying path set for the 2019 Gold Cup and the new CONCACAF Nations League.

The draw was held this morning, and includes all of the federations in the region, except for the six who made it the Hex in the previous World Cup qualifying cycle. Those six qualify directly for the Gold Cup and will be place in Tier A of the new Nations League.

Canada is CONCACAF’s highest ranked nation outside of the Hex.

The new process, which is meant to give the teams in the region more meaningful games, is about as simple as advance-level quantum physics. Really, if you can get the CONCACAF process down, shut down this website RIGHT NOW and go apply for a job at NASA.

OK, genius, what are you still doing here? Right… you’re like the 99.999999 per cent of us who need this broken down into easy-to-understand chunks.

First off, Canada has four qualifiers coming up. This September, the Canadians will face the British Virgin Islands (corrected: U.S. Virgin Islands, see comments below), the lowest ranked CONCACAF member. Then, Canada is home to Dominica in October, away to St. Kitts and Nevis in November. Then, in March 2019, Canada will host French Guiana.

Canada dispatched Dominica with relative ease in 2015, early in the World Cup qualifying process.

You’re saying to yourself — “wow, these are minnows.” Then I’ll remind you about that time in 2013 when Canada lost to Martinique, or in 2011, when Canada scraped by Guadeloupe.

So, what do these qualifiers mean? Well, they’ll influence CONCACAF’s ranking system. After these matches, 10 teams will join those from the Hex at the Gold Cup.

As well, the top six teams from qualifying will join those Hex teams in the A tier of the new Nations League. From there, those 12 teams will be divided into four groups of three. Four group winners go to the Championship Round, the bottom teams in each group get… drum roll please… relegated.

The B Tier will have 16 teams, four groups of four teams.

The C Tier has the rest.

So, the expectation will be that Canada blows through its qualifiers, goes to the Gold Cup and, well, joins the big boys in Tier A of the Nations League. And that’s where it will get interesting, with potential games against the likes of Mexico and/or the United States (wait, the U.S. didn’t qualify for the World Cup).

And, once that happens, we have the pleasure of trying to explain the Nations League  to all of our friends who aren’t soccer geeks like us. It will be “Nations League, not National League.”

Come on, once you explain the qualifying process, the tiers and the promotion-relegation ladders a few times, you’ll get it down.

And then you’ll be whisked away on an unmarked plane to work at a top-secret installation

To be evangelical CanPL boosters, we can’t be preaching to the choir

As a writer and editor, one of the most troubling things to rise out of the social-media share-share-share society is confirmation bias.

That is, through the way the average Joe makes friends and blocks people on social media, each person tends to become part of a group that has a lot of the same tastes and views as (s)he does. New Democrats friend other New Democrats. Soccer fans gravitate to other soccer fans. Pipeline supporters go to other pipeline supporters, anti-pipeline people go to other anti-pipeline people. Because we move to these matched groups, we’re often gratified by being told that we’re right, and get way too overly offended when, the odd occasion arises, we’re told that we’re wrong.

Confirmation bias is a scary, scary thing, because it shuts us off from debate — or gives us a false sense that the things we like are more popular than they really are.

“So what does this have to do with anything?” you wonder. Well, I worry that, as Canadian soccer supporters, we have created our own culture of confirmation bias, and we also have a very insulated social circle. But, as the Canadian Premier League prepares to launch in 2019, supporters are needed to be the evangelists to spread the new soccer gospel. But, are we only preaching to the converted?

The thing that strikes me about Toronto FC’s success is how much the team has crossed over into the mainstream sporting consciousness of those in Canada’s largest metro. But, that level of penetration doesn’t exist everywhere in Canada — and it’s those “other” markets which the CanPL will need so badly.

But I worry that supporters groups will gather in same soccer bars, talking to the same soccer people, about how excited they are for the dawn of the CanPL. They’ll encourage the same people who bought season tickets a week ago to, well, buy season tickets.

On Friday, I was at a mixer put on the YEG4CPL group. Sea Change, a local brewery, debuted its Rabbit Blonde Ale, made especially for the supporters who want to see FC Edmonton resurrected for the 2019 CanPL campaign. The supporters were enthusiastic, the atmosphere was great. There were many conversations at various tables about how the game could be built in the city.

There will be another YEG4CPL event this coming Friday.

But will the same people will come out the next event? And the event after that? And, if it’s going to take thousands of season-seat commitments to convince the Fath brothers to bring FC Edmonton back to life, I wonder if these events are reaching enough new people. Last week, when those at the bar were asked who had yet to make their season-seat commitments, only one person raised his hand.

We need to accept that the soccer community in Canada is very insular, gathering at the same pubs to watch Premiership on weekend mornings or MLS matches in the afternoon. The minor-soccer parents run in the same circle. And, because, within the group, we share excitement about the CanPL, are we not recognizing that we all have a lot more evangelical work to do?

Are we getting out to the suburbs? Are we finding the NHL fans? Are we finding the people who have the sort of disposable income to afford season tickets? Are we telling businesses that our buying choices might be influenced by who decides to sponsor a local club?

Basically, folks, it’s time to find the folks who made fun of you in high school, shake their hands and ask them, have you ever been to a soccer game?

It’s time to take these soccer gatherings and place them in bars where there’s not a scarf to be seen. It’s time to tell the businesses you support that you’re a soccer supporter, and your money matters.

Instead of being the smartass who has to go on Twitter to remind everyone that soccer is the world’s most popular sport and that the World Cup is way bigger than the Super Bowl, try to share your enthusiasm for other sports, and suggest that others give soccer a try in a totally non-snobby, non-passive-aggressive way. Come on, I know it’s hard. But you can do it!

Be nice. Be outgoing. It’s time to preach to a new church. Is that so difficult?

 

One dozen and counting; Sinclair’s double brings her closer to Wambach

171… 172… 12 more to go.

Christine Sinclair scored twice in Canada’s 3-0 win over South Korea Monday at the Algarve Cup. With the win, Canada finishes second in its group behind Sweden, who beat the Canadians to open the tourney.

But, come on, let’s face it — at this point, Canadian soccer supporters are putting team goals behind Sinclair’s chase of greatness. With 172 career international goals, she’s now just 12 behind Abby Wambach for the all-time lead in international goal-scoring. And, it needs to be pointed out that Sinclair has hit her goal-scoring total with a lot fewer home friendlies than Wambach has had — and fewer friendlies against lower ranked nations that seem almost designed to pad national-team statistics.

Well, at least, when Sinclair finally catches and passes Wambach, this is one honour that FIFA can’t find a way to give to Marta, instead.

Sinclair’s first goal came after South Korean keeper Young-Geul Yoon stopped the initial penalty kick; but the rebound came out at just the right angle for Sinclair to pounce on the ball and make no mistake on the second attempt.

After Jessie Fleming’s lob made it 2-0, Sinclair got goal No. 172 after a scramble in the Korean penalty area. The ball went off the post, caromed to Sinclair and she stuck the ball in the net.

With both goals coming off fortuitous rebounds, it’s clear that the soccer gods are telling Sinclair that she needs to catch Wambach. They won’t be satisfied till a natural order of things comes to pass.

Canada women’s national team coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller gave Jenna Hellstrom a spot in starting lineup, giving the Sudbury, Ont. native who plays her pro soccer in Sweden her first national-team cap.

 

 

Inescapably Canadian Power Rankings: MLS Week 1

Six years ago, the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps clashed on MLS First Kick weekend. The script was that this was an “all-Canadian” matchup. On that day, the Whitecaps started zero Canadians. The Impact started one… Patrice Bernier.

The two teams met for the First Kick opener at BC Place this past weekend, and what a change. The teams combined to put a total of seven Canadians on the field. There was a goal and an assist from teenager Alphonso Davies.

So, as we begin yet another season of tracking the minutes played by Canadians in North America’s pro leagues, Davies’s first-ever MLS goal highlighted a day which saw the Whitecaps and Impact combine to give 523 combined minutes to Canadians.

As well, we shouldn’t forget that LAFC played its first-ever MLS regular-season match, and won in Seattle. Mark-Anthony Kaye started and got an assist on LAFC’s first-ever goal, and defender Dejan Jakovic played the full 90.

Here are the rankings after the first week of MLS play:

 

MLS MINUTES BY PLAYER, THE CANADIANS

Marcel de Jong, Vancouver, 90 (1)
Dejan Jakovic, LAFC, 90 (1)
Will Johnson, Orlando, 90 (1)
Mark-Anthony Kaye, LAFC, 90 (1)
Michael Petrasso, Montreal, 90 (1)
Samuel Piette, Montreal, 90 (1)
Russell Teibert, Vancouver, 90 (1)
Alphonso Davies, Vancouver, 81 (1)
Jonathan Osorio, TFC, 71 (1)
Raheem Edwards, Montreal, 70 (1)
Richie Laryea, Orlando, 24 (1)
David Choiniere, Montreal, 12 (1)

 

TEAM RANKINGS, MLS MINUTES PLAYED BY CANADIANS IN 201

Montreal, 262/1

Vancouver, 261/1

LAFC, 180/1

Orlando City, 114/1

Toronto FC, 71/1

 

Glorious Sinclair scores 170th goal as Heiner-Moller claims first victory

Today Portugal was scene of glorious first-ever victory for director of women’s national team, Kenneth Heiler-Moller, as our Canadians dispatched the Russians 1-0. The score did not reflect the grand superiority of Canadian attacking, as the thousands upon thousands who watched on the crystal-clear Russian stream were thrilled by yet another goal for the great Christine Sinclair.

Sinclair! Say her name as you look to the sky! As jet fighters scream overhead!

There are rumours abounding that Russian stream of Friday’s glorious Algarve Cup match was not functioning at an optimal level. That some did not see game at all. These are lies meant to distract you from great truth.

Sinclair, with goal scored from penalty strike, now has 170 such thunderbolts. She is now but 14 behind Great Satan Abby Wambach for the all-time lead in women’s international football.

The captain of fine Russian opponents, Anna Zozhnikova, was dismissed from match for her challenge on Canadian rising star Jordyn Huitema, and Sinclair, the great Sinclair, the mighty Sinclair, stepped to the spot and willed the ball into the goal with her mind.

Anyone who saw Russian stream of game knows that to be true. To simply slot the ball into the goal was not good enough for a scorer of Sinclair’s mettle.  

Many will claim they tuned into stream and saw only advertisement for cell-phone conglomerate, Dejero, repeating over and over. This is work of propagandists.

“Russia played a very defensive style, which was as expected,” said Heiner-Møller after the match, in a release provided by glorious Canada Soccer regime.  “We kept to our game plan, moving the ball wide and working our way through their block so we are happy with that, but I think the praise should go to their goalkeeper (Elvira Todua) who made some world-class saves tonight.”

But, if Russian authorities are to be believed, we understand that goalkeeper Erin McLeod, returning after long struggles with injury, performed miracles late in game.

From official Russian site, translated to English:

What a moment our team has! Akimova gives a free kick, and the goalkeeper only miraculously manages the first on the ball! 84 ‘

And

A good moment for our team! After the combination, the ball gets Fedorov in the penalty area, but it does not turn out to turn around. Immediately followed by a quick attack on our goal, as a result of which the ball flies next to the bar!

 

Heiner-Moller era begins with a loss

Canada’s opening match of the Algarve Cup deserved a little more scrutiny than a non-televised national-team match would normally generate; that’s because the error-filled 3-1 loss to Sweden Wednesday marked the beginning of the Kenneth Heiner-Moller era.

Heiner-Moller was named the new head coach of the women’s national team in January, after John Herdman moved from the women’s program to replace Octavio Zambrano as the coach of the men’s team.

So, with a match against one of Europe’s top sides to open the Algarve Cup, we were fascinated to see how the Canadian women’s team would respond with the new boss at the helm. And, well, they presented Sweden with goals on silver platters.

The Swedes opened the scoring with three minutes left in the first half. A poor pass from Rebecca Quinn was picked off in Canadian territory by the Swedes; the ball was played to the left side, and Quinn dashed backed to a spot in front of goal to block the coming cross. She blocked it, all right — and basically left the ball sitting wonderfully in the penalty area for Mimmi Larsson to hammer home.

Canada equalized early in the second half. Nichelle Prince had a couple of chances to put the ball in, both were saved, but a final attempt glanced off Janine Beckie in front of the Swedish net and into the goal. Beckie didn’t know all that much about it, but a goal’s a goal.

The Swedes got the lead back in the 51st. The Swedes pressed the Canadian back line after a back pass from Kadeisha Buchanan to keeper Stephanie Labbe wasn’t delivered perfectly. Because Labbe had to chase the ball, the Swedes came at the Canadians in droves, taking away passing options. The ball was worked to fullback Allysha Chapman, but she had no passing options and tried to ease the danger by dribbling the ball up the middle of the field. She was surrounded by yellow jerseys as if they were a zombie horde, and within seconds Fridolina Rolfo had given the Swedes their lead back.

Prince got behind the Swedish defence and thought she’d equalized, but was flagged for offside.

Stina Blackstenius got the Swedish insurance goal thanks to a back-pass attempt from Shelina Zadorsky that fell far short of the keeper. Blackstenius received the gift and finished the chance.

Colorado huffs and puffs, but brutal attack never troubles TFC

It was the second leg of a CONCACAF Champions League round-of-16 tie, but Tuesday’s 0-0 result between Toronto FC and the Colorado Rapids showed what is sure to be a growing issue for MLS.

The Rapids played probably as well as they could at BMO Field, Toronto FC was as indifferent as it could be. Still, the Reds had little difficulty protecting the 2-0 advantage it held from the first leg. TFC will move on to face Mexican powerhouse Tigres in the quarter-finals.

The Rapids were consistently able to get the ball wide down the right side, and were able to swamp the midfield, win balls and get shooting opportunities from the top of the box.

But the quality of the Rapids’ finishing… well “finishing” is a poor choice of a word, isn’t it? “Finish” suggests that there was some sort of indication that somebody on the Rapids could put a ball across the goal line.  And the deliveries on crosses were, gulp, worse. Deklan Wynne, who was previously with the Whitecaps’ USL affiliate, continued to get into good spots on the wing and regularly delivered lead-footed crosses that a forward would need to be an 11-foot-tall colossus to handle.

It’s simple. The Rapids simply don’t have the talent up front to make up the gulf between itself and a DP-laden club like TFC.

In the MLS of 2018, TFC leads a true first division of clubs that are spending and pushing the envelope. Atlanta United, NYCFC and Seattle are members of this group, among others. Colorado, though, is part of the MLS old guard (we see you, New England Revolution), hoping that having decent players throughout the squad will obscure the fact that there are no gamebreakers to be found. Teams built like the Rapids used to be able to limp along, make the playoffs and then go on a run. But those days look to be over. There is a clear arms race underway in MLS, and owners looking to just get by are going to find that you can no longer get away with “meh.”

Scuffs and misses

Dominique Badji blasted a shot off the post in the 40th minute, but he also put some tame efforts right into the hands of TFC keeper Alex Bono. Enzo Martinez, a USL and NASL veteran, had a great chance in the 55th, but put the ball right at Bono. Colorado forward Jack McBean had a chance from the top of the box, but scuffed it.

Toronto defender Drew Moor had a great chance to score a late cherry-on-top goal for the Reds, but his header was palmed away by Zac Macmath, playing in the Rapids goal ahead of Designated Player Tim Howard.

Colorado simply didn’t have the quality in its attack to be able to put a shot towards the roof of the goal, or into the corners. Each time a player set up to shoot, it was a clear casehit and hope.

That’s not first-division soccer.

Teams like TFC are trying to push the level of MLS forward, but it’s clear that not every team is coming along for the ride.

Canada Soccer creates new U-23 director position for Biello to fill

If you’re here to look for more dirt on the dismissal of former men’s national team coach Octavio Zambrano, if you’re here looking for specifics about certain players in the men’s national-team program, well, you’re going to be disappointed.

On Monday, new men’s national-team coach John Herdman and his newly hired assistant, Mauro Biello, were talking about systems and structure.

Biello, the former head coach of the Montreal Impact and holder of four men’s national-team caps, is also the new director of the men’s EXCEL U-23 program. It’s a newly created position which basically puts Biello in charge of Canadian soccer youth development.

This system is far different than Zambrano’s vision — where he would have controlled all aspects of the senior and youth programs.

Herdman said the new EXCEL U-23 director position had to be created because “the infrastructure needs to match the strategy to move the game forward here.”

The men’s youth teams in Canada didn’t do much in terms of holding camps during Zambrano’s brief stay as the men’s coach, a stay which was brought to an abrupt end early in 2018. His end came right before an U-23 camp in January. Biello said that, to get the program back on track, “we have prioritized certain things in the short term” and that “I’m ready to execute whatever John is ready to put forward for me.”

Herdman said that the decision to hire Biello came down to the fact that he wanted not only a coach, but a leader.

“I am ready to give back to the game which has given me so much over the last 25 years,” said Biello.

But what will this new job entail, other than the stewardship of the youth national teams? With the Canadian Premier League on the horizon, and three Canadian MLS teams (and academies) in place, Herdman said that the national program needs to have people in clear and defined roles. He said there has to be point people for MLS clubs and CanPL clubs to talk to about the development of players.

Basically, Herdman said it has to be clear that “all roads end up leading to the men’s national team.”

And he suggested that the Canadian soccer program has to be more proactive in dealing with clubs. If a Canadian is developing and not getting minutes, he said there needs to be a dialogue about “when the player potentially needs to move on.”

Herdman said there needs to be alignment amongst the pro teams when it comes to the needs to the Canadian program and its players. He also spoke about the need to “advocate” for Canadian players, about suggesting to clubs when a player has indeed “graduated” from the academy level and needs pro minutes… somewhere.

Of course, that brings in the debate about the clubs’ interests vs. what a national program wants them to do. On the Canadian Premier League side, it’s easy to see how that moral imperative works. Do what’s best for the Canadian program. Easy. But when it comes to MLS — which is, by all intents and purposes, an American first-division league with a minority of Canadian teams — or other foreign leagues, what’s good for the Canadian national program doesn’t always come ahead of wins and losses… and asset management.

But, at least we have something resembling a vision from Canada Soccer, after several months of waiting for Zambrano’s plan to be unveiled, then ultimately rejected.

Canada Soccer: World Cup and Olympic bids for 2026 would be “complementary”

In the eyes of Canada Soccer, the United Bid to host the men’s  2026 World Cup and Calgary’s interest in hosting the Winter Olympics in the same year aren’t competing with one another.

In fact, bidding on both events for the same year is a plus, said Canada Soccer General Secretary Peter Montopoli.

He said that, 14 months ago, Canada Soccer officials met with Sport Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee.

“We are reached a point where we decided that it was not a competitive landscape,” said Montopoli. “In fact, it’s complementary.

“It’s not a conflict and (the Calgary Olympic process) is not a concern for Canada Soccer.”

Calgary is still mulling whether or not the city will bid for the 2026 Games. The United bid for the World Cup, which would see the United States hosting the majority of the games and Canada and Mexico getting 10 matches each, will be submitted to FIFA by the March 16 deadline.

Montopoli said there is no conflict between Olympics and World Cup because the financial commitments aren’t comparable. Preliminary budgets for a Calgary Olympics are in the billions — but, with existing infrastructure in place, the World Cup host cities were each predicting budgets of less than $75 million each to host games.

“We see the World Cup as sustainable and affordable because we only have a piece of the competition,” said Montopoli.

Morocco is also planning a World Cup bid, emphasizing that games held in the North African nation would in a time zone friendly to the coveted European TV audience, and that the stadiums would be closely connected by high-speed rail connections.

Montopoli’s public pronouncement that a Calgary bid doesn’t conflict with the United World Cup process is a necessary one. The issue of a conflict came up in Edmonton, one of this country’s four finalist host-city candidates. Edmonton City Council was presented a risk-assessment report from administration which identified a potential Calgary Olympics as the biggest threat to a World Cup host city.

Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are the other three Canadian host-city candidates. All four cities have affirmed their commitments to host World Cup matches in 2026. If the United bid is successful, FIFA will select the host cities based on what’s best for the tournament. When the City of Vancouver discussed going forward with being a potential host city, its documents indicated that there was an obligation to have games in both Eastern and Western Canada.