Whitecaps Internationalists Talk 2014 World Cup

Football fans around the world were glued to their televisions today to watch the draw for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

It was a mixed draw for me.

Scotland have a really tough road ahead of them if they are going to make it to Brazil. We do perform best when our backs are against the wall, but at this stage it looks like our best hope of qualification could be a new Balkans war breaking out.

Canada seem to have a great chance of making it to the final ‘hex’ stage and then everything is up for grabs.

I’m still living in the hope that I can head down to Rio to watch at least one of my teams taking part in the tournament, twenty years after I went to my first World Cup finals in the US.

It’s not just football fans around the globe that are getting excited at what lies ahead. The players are too and that includes Vancouver Whitecaps’ internationalists.

AFTN caught up with a few of our international stars after the LA Galaxy game and talked to them about something a bit cheerier than that game – the road to Brazil.

Kiwi defender Michael Boxall, and the Oceania qualification path, was the first stop on our world tour.

Boxall had represented New Zealand at youth, U-20, U-23 and A levels before this year, including at the 2007 U-20 World Cup in Canada and the 2008 Olympics in China.

March 25th saw him earn his first full international cap, playing the second half of a friendly against China, and he has earned two more international Caps in recent months.

Drawn against Papua New Guinea, the Soloman Islands and Fiji, we asked him how he saw New Zealand’s qualifying campaign progressing:

“It’s quite a way away. It’s not going to be until June before we actually start the qualifying. We’ve just got to take it one step at a time.

We know there’s not exactly powerhouses in our confederation, but there are still teams that you have to show up and beat. Take it one step at a time and see how everything unfolds after that.”

Last qualifying campaign, AFTN’s adopted Oceanic faves, New Caledonia, ran the Kiwis closest (although not really that close if truth be told). Does Michael see that being the same situation again?

“I don’t know too much about any of the island teams right now. We have to be confident in ourselves to be able to overcome anything that the island nations can throw at us and then move on past that”

Moving on past that is never easy for New Zealand. If/when they wrap up the Oceania champions spot, they will face a two legged playoff with the fourth place CONCACAF nation, a route which pleased Michael:

“I’m pretty glad that we managed to avoid the South Americans”

And how would he feel if that playoff game was against Canada?

“That would be pretty exciting and obviously not a very long flight if I had to play in Canada.”

We expressed our concerns that he has to face Papua New Guinea and joked with him about him being on the wrong end of cannibalism and not returning to MLS, before wishing him well in the forthcoming campaign.

With four African nations being represented by the current Caps squad, continental rivalries will soon start to come to the fore.

None more so than the potential group clash between Mustapha Jarju’s Gambian side and Nizar Khalfan’s Tanzania (assuming the latter take care of Chad in the preliminaries).

We asked Mustapha about this possible match-up and what he felt about the Gambia’s chances:

“(laughs) Yeah, my team-mate is going to be excited because he’s in a very good team.

For us, we are a very young team and I hope we get the chance to go and play against the very good teams. There is a chance.”

Before even thinking that far ahead, Mustapha is concentrating on his country’s African Nations Cup qualifying campaign, which is delicately balanced:

“We have two games coming up, one home and one away, and if we get good results, we qualify for the African Cup of Nations and then we can prepare for the qualification games for the World Cup.”

One African country which is familiar to fans around the world is Ghana and the Black Stars have qualified for the last two World Cup Finals. For U-20 internationalist Gershon Koffie, what does he hope for the Ghanaian qualifying campaign?

“I just want to keep working hard and hopefully get a call up.

It doesn’t matter what group we end up in, we just have to keep working hard and things will fall into place.”

I’m sure there will be a few Vancouverite’s taking more interest in African qualifiers over the next few years.

We wish all of our internationalists well. Maybe not so much Atiba Harris, whose St Kitts & Nevis side face Canada in the first round CONCACAF qualifying group, but to the rest, most certainly!

Yes it will mean that we’ll lose some of our top players for international duty but you can’t not want our Caps to go and try and get their countries World Cup glory.

And if we can see some of them grace the Brazilian pitches in front of a global audience in 2014, then all the better.

Whitecaps Under 17 World Cup Dreams Over

For the quintet of Vancouver Whitecaps representing Canada at the FIFA Under 17 World Cup in Mexico, their World Cup dreams are over.

It was the first time in 16 years that Canada had made it to the finals and after a 3-0 loss to Uruguay and a well-deserved 2-2 draw with England, the young Canadians went crashing out of the tournament in disappointing fashion following a scoreless draw with Rwanda this afternoon.

Five members of the Whitecaps Residency were in Mexico: Bryce Alderson, Yassin Essa, Matteo Pasquotti, Adam Polakiewicz, and Daniel Stanese.

All of them saw playing time and made valuable contributions for Canada.

Midfielder Bryce Alderson was Canada’s captain for the tournament, started all three games and played 258 minutes, being substituted late on in the final two games.

Midfielder Yassin Essa started all three games, playing the full ninety against England and Rwanda and clocking up 247 minutes.

Midfielder Matteo Pasquotti saw the least gametime of the Caps contingent, coming on as sub in the first two games and playing just 18 minutes.

Defender Adam Polakiewicz played every minute of every game, whilst his Caps defensive team-mate Daniel Stanese played well and the full ninety against both Uruguay and England before being surprisingly relegated to the bench against Rwanda.

All five did themselves proud and from a selfish Caps perspective, it will be great to have them back playing for the Residency team against Victoria and Abbotsford next weekend.

Not being Canadian, I don’t feel it is my place to go on too much about what went wrong for Canada and what needs improving.

Scotland didn’t even make it this far after all!

There are some real positives to be taken from the tournament. The Canadian U17’s leave with two points. That’s two more than they’ve ever achieved at that level in the past.

It will be good experience for a number of the guys and this can only bode well for the future of the Canadian national team. They’ve had a taste of what being at a big tournament is like. They’re all going to want more.

They also walk away with what could be the goal of the tournament from goalkeeper Quillan Roberts.

For the Whitecaps contingent, they will only grow, learn and develop playing alongside MLS players in the PDL. The success of Russell Teibert shows them what can be achieved.

What I would like to see for these guys is more games. Sixteen PDL games is not enough and it won’t help the Whitecaps or the Canadian game.

The CSA should set up some kind of highly competitive Canadian-wide youth league or tournament. The Whitecaps, TFC and Montreal are all doing great jobs in developing their guys but the whole future of the Canadian game shouldn’t be left on their shoulders.

Only with the right investment and a good number of competitive games will we see many of these players reach their full potential.

I’m glad the Whitecaps have it right. I’ve enjoyed the PDL games I’ve been to this season.

Get out there and support these guys for the remainder of the season. Support The Future.

International Quandary Faces Whitecaps In MLS

As another round of international games finish up today, one question that the Vancouver Whitecaps need to weigh up is what benefit having currently capped international players on their roster brings.

There were 22 MLS players away on international duty for the games between September 3rd and 7th. Some in competitive qualifiers for Euro 2012 and the African Nations Cup and others just for friendlies. In total, 11 different countries were represented by MLS players, with Jamaica claiming six of them and Canada five.

This number would have been even higher if the US had a game over the period as well.

Whereas it’s great for the League to have top quality domestic and international players plying their trade in MLS, it ridiculous that the League doesn’t follow protocol elsewhere in the world and call off the domestic program, if not for every team, but for teams who have a number of players away on international duty.

In last weekend’s MLS games, New York Red Bulls had four players missing in their 1-0 loss to Real Salt Lake. Toronto had three missing in their own 1-0 loss to FC Dallas, namely the Canadian trio of Dwayne De Rosario, Julian de Guzman and Nana Attakora.

There is no doubt that the missing players had a big part to play in both sides going down and Toronto’s plight should provide a cautionary tale to the Whitecaps, but one which will be hard to avoid in some respects.

Sure you want to see the best players you can pulling on the Caps jersey, but when you’re playing in a league with mickey mouse rules, you follow this road at your peril.

Even East Fife were getting their Scottish First Division games called off when they had their three Trinidad and Tobago players away on international duty.

It’s going to be hard for the Caps though. They need Canadians and if these Canadians do well then they’re going to be called up by Stephen Hart. It’s great for the Club on the one hand and a disaster on the other if games clash with the MLS season and the MLS don’t change their rules.

In many ways, it actually would help Vancouver (and Toronto) if Canada continue to play poorly and miss qualifications. That’s a terrible state of affairs to be in for the game in this country.

Canadian internationals aside, when the Caps are looking at non domestic players in general they need to be careful not to have too many players from the same country and even the same region. I personally think that avoiding too many Concacaf players is the way to go but going for those not in the international picture and those retired from international football has its merits as well, just as long as they are still on their game (which obviously isn’t always the case).

Looking at out current roster, we’ve lost Nizar Khalfan recently as he was away on international duty for Tanzania. He has also been called up for October, right during the play off run. Cornelius Stewart will also be missing for the playoffs as he has been called up for St Vincent & Grenadines for Digicel Caribbean Cup games.

Teitur Thordarson has moved swiftly and cut both players from the final 30 man roster for the remainder of the season. A shame for the players but a good move for the Club as we need to have players who will be with us in the playoffs gelling quickly just now.

This is not a luxury that the Caps will have come MLS, so their signings need to be shrewd and not just take in talent. It’s a sad state of affairs but that’s what we’re faced with in the Leagues in North America. If we do this right though then it will be an added bow to our MLS arrow next season.

Swapsies Not The Same In This Modern Age

It’s great to see that Panini sticker albums are still around today and still going strong. I’m not sure the excitement is quite the same amongst kids as when I was growing up. Not when they have some violent video game to play instead or some random thought to tweet or post on Facebook.

It does seem that the new releases are more anticipated and welcomed by grown ups trying to relive their own childhoods whilst forcing it onto their own kids!

This is especially true when it comes to the Panini World Cup sticker collections, the latest of which was just launced earlier this month. I know it’s a four yearly event I avidly look forward to!

But it’s not the same. Kids don’t cherish them as gold. And you don’t even have to buy the stickers in packets of five any more if you don’t want to.

In this technological age, you can buy full boxes of 100 packets of stickers on ebay. That’s what I did for the 2006 World Cup! Whilst this got me most of my collection, I was obviously still short of some, although there were very little doubles in the box – an “interesting” side note there!

Of course I still never got round to sending off for my missing ones and my collection sits in beside all my other football memorabilia and previous incomplete World Cup sticker albums that I kept hold off going back to 1986.

This year ebay still has all the boxes you can buy but there’s also a lot of people around the world selling complete sets of all 640 stickers. Some of them will even stick them in the album for you!

Even swapsies have taken on a new modern day twist, with a Facebook page set up to help facilitate people’s wants.

Sure it may be safer than going up to some strange kid who pulls a knife on you and takes your cell phone of you, but it’s not the same!!! I pity the poor, lonely fat kids who will now be devoid of any human contact.

I hate myself for doing it, but I’ll probably just go down the route of buying a complete set online this year. At least I’ll have my first ever complete album.

Obviously I’ll buy the stickers loose and attach them myself. How can you get someone else to do it for you? You’re already losing the joy of ripping open the packets. To remove the sticking in from the whole experience would just be sacrilege!