Canada Soccer Part VII: Copa America Semifinal Edition

[Michelangelo]

Disgraceful pitch

 

[PanniniClaus]

That's better..rush chance. He and Larin are so powerful.. just a shame this couldn't be played in decent conditions.

 

[PanniniClaus]

Fairly certain we have yellow cards across the team sheet

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

Awful pitch and awful reffing. f*** the loss as it was a circus instead of a match. Getting out of Honduras with no injuries is a W.

 

[Michelangelo]

Absolutely disgraceful

Shithousery by the ref

 

[PanniniClaus]

Concacaf nights... Bob Seager or John Cougar should write something and whip us up a song.

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

I just found myself mostly laughing at this game. It’s like it was played under the rules and guidelines provided by famed Iraqi information minister Baghdad Bob.

 

[Bures Elbow]

Shocking how this game was allowed to actually be played, in Europe it would have been simply cancelled or moved.

Concacaf at its finest: Shit pitch, shithousing team that Hondurans should cringe at right now, shit ref (how antagonistic was he getting? Horrendous inconsistent decision making with blowing additional time early after multiple field invasions the cherry on top), and a shit waste of two games to prepare for the World Cup where nothing productive was established.

 

[NyQuil]

Looks like another visit to the Iceteca is warranted.

 

[robertmac43]

So we really didn't learn anything from this window. Well from a footballing perspective.

 

[Tuggy]

So we really didn't learn anything from this window. Well from a footballing perspective.

Unfortunately.

On the pitch, just typical CONCACAF and probably doesn't help towards Qatar.

Off the pitch, disaster.

Really feels like we took a couple steps back. I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy after this window, that's for sure.

 

[Tuggy]

f***ing Honduras...such a shithole

 

[robertmac43]

f***ing Honduras...such a shithole

I was about to post this. The boys took this one personally!

 

[robertmac43]

Squad announcement for the coming Women's team window!

 

[PanniniClaus]

Watching Halifax at Edmonton... the weather sucks but the fan support looks to be about 200. Unless there is an entire stand in the picture the camera is not catching. Pitiful.

 

[luiginb]

f***ing Honduras...such a shithole

The only thing I see here is some classless behaviour from your players.

 

[al secord]

Waste of an international window. Just a perfect storm of missteps, untimely protest followed up with 2 pretty meaningless games. Not the way you want to prepare for the most important event in your professional careers.

 

[robertmac43]

Waste of an international window. Just a perfect storm of missteps, untimely protest followed up with 2 pretty meaningless games. Not the way you want to prepare for the most important event in your professional careers.

Taking out all the off-pitch garbage, Nations League isn't the way I would want to prepare for the WC. Even if we had good weather, the test just isn't there and the games add unnecessary injury risk.

 

[Tuggy]

The only thing I see here is some classless behaviour from your players.

Lol ok bud.

Honduras is one of the worst places/countries on Earth. The players deal with tons of shit down there.

 

[robertmac43]

Posted this in the transfer thread but thought it made sense here as well. Another CPL player heading to Europe, a great opportunity for a talented player!

 

[Pink Mist]

The only thing I see here is some classless behaviour from your players.

Easy to tell you didn't watch the game

 

[robertmac43]

Does anyone else here have tickets to Qatar?

 

[al secord]

Concacaf nights... Bob Seager or John Cougar should write something and whip us up a song.

I have full faith in Bob finding a good lyric to rhyme with "bag of piss."

 

[blueandgoldguy]

Watching Halifax at Edmonton... the weather sucks but the fan support looks to be about 200. Unless there is an entire stand in the picture the camera is not catching. Pitiful.

I try to catch highlights for all the matches in CPL. 200 is a normal looking crowd for Edmonton.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

The only thing I see here is some classless behaviour from your players.

Let me stick up for the Canadians.

I think most fans that don’t know the region’s football don’t understand what CONCACAF is like. The teams are not the most talented, but outside of that they are extremely difficult to play against because it’s not about the football. The fields are purposely not well maintained. Very little grass or too much grass. It’s purposely maintained in a way that makes it difficult to play football. The conditions are usually awful, ranging from 100F/38C temperatures with games purposely scheduled in the middle of the day to monsoon level rain in the rain forest. They sometimes will change the venues to small local stadiums in the middle of nowhere outside of the main national stadium because those smaller stadiums make the conditions more difficult.

The refereeing standard of the region is really bad. You’ll notice that you almost never seen officials from the region get the big games at major international tournaments. Most of the countries refused VAR until halfway through the World Cup Qualification because they know that leaving it up to refereeing decisions benefits them more than when we have complete information. Some of these players might seem unsuspecting, but they aren’t. They are as dirty as they come. That’s how they maintain their careers. It’s not because they are talented. They have no problem injuring the more talented Americans, Mexicans, and Canadians. They rough them up. If you bring these dual-nationals who haven’t spent much time living in the region, they often don’t adapt well to this. John Brooks famously has had problems with this for the USA.

Also, a lot of these countries are big on football. They love the sport, but aren’t very good at it. They create national holidays when they have a World Cup Qualifier against the big teams in the region. The fans are loud as can be at the game and in the lead up. The fans find your hotel and will pull the fire alarm all night to make sure you can’t sleep. They’ll throw stuff at the players at the stadiums. They are also usually right on top of the players because of the way the stadiums are built, although some of the stadiums have started to modernize and some of this has been curtailed.

It might seem crazy how Canada could lose to Honduras and USA could tie El Salvador. How good could those Central Americans teams be? Those teams may be no better than teams like Northern Ireland or Ireland on a neutral field. However, it’s not neutral. They play with an advantage at home that you don’t see almost anywhere in the world. And where you see it, it’s certain areas of South America, Asia, and Africa. The games are not about football. It’s a battle of will playing on the road in CONCACAF.