Canada: See Thee Qualification Hopes Rise

Canada wrapped up their Round 2 qualifying campaign for the 2014 World Cup in Toronto last night with a healthy 4-0 victoria over St Kitts and Nevis.

It’s never easy playing two teams at the same time, as we saw in the no score, bore draw on Friday. St Kitts were easy to conquer but man, did Nevis put up a fight.

In the build up to the game, Canadian coach Stephen Hart said “We owe it to the fans to put on a good performance”. He, and the team, were certainly true to their word.

The reaction by some to Friday’s draw was a little strange. It was all doom and gloom in some quarters and you’d have thought that the Canadians tournament dreams were all over instead of securing the vital point which saw Canada qualify for the CONCACAF round three group games with a match left to spare.

Sure it wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. It all reminded me of this famous quote from Blackpool manager Ian Holloway:

“To put it in gentleman’s terms, if you’ve been out for a night and you’re looking for a young lady and you pull one, some weeks they’re good looking and some weeks they’re not the best. Our performance today would have been not the best looking bird but at least we got her in the taxi. She wasn’t the best looking lady we ended up taking home but she was very pleasant and very nice, so thanks very much, let’s have a coffee.”

Last night’s clean sheet saw Canada’s shutout streak extended to 533 minutes, just eight minutes shy of the national record. Canada’s five consecutive clean sheets does tie the national record.

As something of an outsider (as a Scot now living in Canada and cheering them on), the positive signs are there, from what I’m seeing.

I personally don’t really care all that much what route my teams get to their destination, just as long as they make it in the end.

When I first moved over here in 2007, I found it surprising on the one hand at the lack of interest in the national team, but also not too shocked when considering the immigrant make-up of the country, the lack of exposure and I guess, ultimately, the lack of success on the major international stage.

A generation has passed since Canada last qualified for the World Cup, and that’s too long. Scotland are nearly getting to those levels, so I know how depressing it all is.

It’s been great to see the slow change of attitude from many to the Canadian national team these last few years and these qualifiers have seen an interest in Vancouver that I haven’t found here before and it’s been pleasing and refreshing to see.

The Vancouver Voyageurs, coupled with the Southsiders, have been promoting the hell out of their viewing parties and there’s been good numbers turning up at Doolins to watch the games, even for those on crappy online streams.

And of course it’s not just in Vancouver that we’re seeing this change of attitude and new found excitement in the national team.

Tuesday night’s attendance of 10,235 was the seventh consecutive attendance over 10,000 for a Canadian FIFA World Cup Qualifier home match. The streak includes all home qualification games from 2008 and 2011.

Canada’s home average attendance for the last two cycles of FIFA World Cup Qualifiers (2008-2011) is 47% greater than the average attendance recorded for the previous 11 cycles combined (1957-2004).

Hopefully great for the domestic game, as well as the national one.

Vancouver Whitecaps and Toronto FC have healthy and loyal support. The introduction of Montreal next season will bolster these numbers further.

There’s always been a loyal and fervent support here for the national team, but now that more and more people are getting used to watching domestic football on a regular basis, these numbers are growing.

If Vancouver (and Montreal) can actually start producing first team Canadian regulars, that will become household names, then this is a key to growing these numbers and interest further from my viewpoint.

Canada has booked six new dates on their road to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Finals in Brazil. Canada will now play six more group matches, this time against Honduras, Panama and Cuba from 8th June to 16th October next year.

Locations for home and away matches will only be announced in early 2012. Hopes are high that Vancouver might attract one of these games to BC Place, even if realistic expectations don’t match.

We would be prepared to wager that if we were to attract a game (or two) to the west coast, we’d be talking about way larger numbers attending than what’s been seen in Toronto and Montreal of late.

The dates and opponents for each of the matches are as follows:

8 June 2012 – Cuba v Canada
12 June 2012 – Canada v Honduras
7 September 2012 – Canada v Panama
11 September 2012 – Panama v Canada
12 October 2012 – Canada v Cuba
16 October 2012 – Honduras v Canada

The top two teams from each group will make up a final round of six teams, that will play 10 matches from 6th February to 15th October 2013. The top three teams from this final group will qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, whilst the fourth-place team will advance to an intercontinental playoff.

The real frustrating aspect of it all is how long the CONCACAF process takes to play out.

Just when we’re all excited about the national team, we now have to wait nearly seven months before we see the guys kick a ball in competitive anger again. Let’s hope the excitement and passion we’ve seen these last few weeks just gets even stronger in that time.

With Tuesday night’s victory, Canada’s all-time record in FIFA World Cup Qualifiers improves to 40 wins, 31 draws and 30 losses in 101 matches. let’s hope we can add to this and get the total number of wins to 50.

Get that and I can hear the samba music and feel the sand between my toes already.

I still have my dream of heading down to Brazil to see both Canada and Scotland in the 2014 Finals.

Dum spiro, spero. While I breathe, I hope.

Gold That Isn’t Glistening (Part 2)

As an outsider looking in, I have to admit, I don’t get the Gold Cup.

The tournament has the potential to be a great thing, but seems to be nothing more than a shambles.

It should at least have importance and pride and place in the CONCACAF calendar, but it doesn’t give off that impression either.

We discussed some of our feelings about the Gold Cup in the blog before (July 5th) and as this year’s tournament goes on, it just causes us more bewilderment.

Where to start?

Well to recap, there’s the under-strength teams, with many sides just bringing their B sides to the tournament and at best A minus. Then there’s the fact it’s being played slap bang in the middle of a World Cup qualifying campaign. Then there’s the whole “why is it played every two years argument?”.

I can now add some things to the above.

As kind of a non CONCACAF neutral, apart from wanting Canada to do well and win the Cup, I was a little slow in getting into things. Then Canada got into the winning habit and started playing good football and I was excited by the whole idea and started to take an interest in the tournament and the other games being played.

Then, just as my excitement was peaking what happens? The group games finish and there’s a huge six day wait before the quarter finals began and Canada had an eight day break.

I can only assume this is for maximum TV coverage from the likes of the US in particular – in other words, keep the games at the weekends or no one will watch. Not only on TV but in the stadiums it seems.

But come on, when you’re trying to grow the enthusiasm for the game amongst the general population of some members of the region, and especially in their media, such a long break is just not on. It completely kills any buzz and momentum the viewing public have been building up.

Then take a look at the quarter finals. A major international tournament that features Panama, Haiti and Guadeloupe in the last eight! I had to look up an atlas to see where the hell the latter was.

Another bewildering puzzle for us is that domestic action continues, forcing players to choose between Club and country and by the looks of it, the Clubs are winning. The likes of the MLS is seen as more important to some players than representing their country at international level and it’s more than one country that is affected.

I can’t finish this rant without mentionining the officiating. It’s been a long running “joke” amongst Canadian fans I know that the refereeing in the region doesn’t favour them for a number of reasons. Chip on the shoulder, Old Firm style paranoia I hear you say. Well I thought so too.

When so many people start telling you that they expect Canada to lose their quarter final against Honduras to a dodgy penalty and then that’s exactly what happens, it does make you wonder and it does start to devalue the integrity of proceedings.

The penalty in question was so farcical that you just have to shake your head. Find it on You Tube. Watch it dozens of times and still try and see where any infraction took place.

I recently found out that the Gold Cup carries triple FIFA ranking points, so with Canada having no competitive international fixtures for two years now, this is the only way they can keep their place in the rankings. That would explain the whole two year things.

It also explains a lot of the inflated rankings we see for other teams from the region.

There’s so many things that could make the Gold Cup the international showcase it should be but I can’t see any changes any time soon.