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GWT: World Cup - Group F (Morocco and Croatia Advance)

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Who Advances?

  • Belgium

    Votes: 72 69.2%

  • Croatia

    Votes: 70 67.3%

  • Morocco

    Votes: 24 23.1%

  • Canada

    Votes: 33 31.7%
  • Total voters
    104
Definitely a disappointing end, but they never really had a chance in this group. Even if they drew vs. Belgium, I don't see them getting points against Morocco. It would have been a best case scenario type situation.

Davies has a lot to learn, but still a very impressive performance. That missed penalty will haunt him for the next 4 years.
 
snowkiddin said:
Just gotta hope that this appearance here as well as our appearance in 2026 as a host helps grow the game.

If we can make the move from a team that never had a chance to ever even qualify for the World Cup to a team that’s in every tournament, I think that would help us.

I don’t think we have a prayer of ever being a real threat in a tournament like this but hopefully one day we’ll be able to make it through the group stage.
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logically thinking.... major north american sports compete with eachother for viewership and money. Households only have X amount of money to shell out for entertainment including movies etc...

right now big cities like toronto raptors, blue jays and leafs all compete for that mighty dollar and tv viewership. adding soccer would increase competition. only way to grow anything is if there is money there else it won't.

two major global sports 1) Soccer, and 2) cricket I am not sure how Canada will ever compete in those tournaments unless there is fierce domestic competition which I dont see here. Good example is India. almost 2 billion in population and the only sport they are good at is cricket and suck at everything else :laugh: similarly IMO canada will always be a hockey superpower but to be able to compete in world sports at the highest degree would be hard.

in hockey we have the best of the best like Ovi, Lidstrom etc.. coming over to north america; similarly I think our best goes outside Canada to play in other markets. Only way to develop is to introduce it at the grassroot level; have serious contention at different age groups; have money in it so youngsters can see it as viable career instead of having other jobs to make a living while playing the sport as a hobby instad of as a profession.

Long way to go IMO but who knows..... :laugh:
 
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PromisedLand said:
logically thinking.... major north american sports compete with eachother for viewership and money. Households only have X amount of money to shell out for entertainment including movies etc...

right now big cities like toronto raptors, blue jays and leafs all compete for that mighty dollar and tv viewership. adding soccer would increase competition. only way to grow anything is if there is money there else it won't.

two major global sports 1) Soccer, and 2) cricket I am not sure how Canada will ever compete in those tournaments unless there is fierce domestic competition which I dont see here. Good example is India. almost 2 billion in population and the only sport they are good at is cricket and suck at everything else :laugh: similarly IMO canada will always be a hockey superpower but to be able to compete in world sports at the highest degree would be hard.

in hockey we have the best of the best like Ovi, Lidstrom etc.. coming over to north america; similarly I think our best goes outside Canada to play in other markets. Only way to develop is to introduce it at the grassroot level; have serious contention at different age groups; have money in it so youngsters can see it as viable career instead of having other jobs to make a living while playing the sport as a hobby instad of as a profession.

Long way to go IMO but who knows..... :laugh:
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hey, don’t dump on our curlers! :sarcasm:
 
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Moncherry said:
Too early for Canada. They have some top players but their midfield and especially defence is just took weak.
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They have one top player and David who is a quality striker. Football is the number one sport in the world and it's like what, sport number 3 in Canada? Realistically Canada will never have a chance, USA is much bigger country and they have zero players that would fit to say Spanish, French or Portuguese teams.

Youth football academies in the top European countries are much like basketball programs in the States. But it's been nice to see Canada playing, first game especially was amazing. I wish USA and Canada would have their own powerhouse teams so World Cup would be even more interesting, but it's not looking good. France and Spain have like 5 Pulisic tier players per age group. Tough to battle against that.
 
SeawaterOnIce said:
There is potential for football to be a massive sport here. However organized football is a nightmare...

The U10 program near me has 7pm start times on a school night once a week in the early spring. You spend $350. Practice is 45 min which is mostly spent just making kids chase the ball. It's largely run by volunteers or ex High School football players who have no idea what in the f*** they are doing.

Compare this to my experience in Northern Italy where, as an 11 year old... I was put through drills twice a week with a game every Saturday. My manager was a former Serie B player.

A better system would be an after school football program with a set curriculum and a coaching staff to educate and train our younger generation. Our country can barely fund our existing education programs right now so it's a very tall ask.
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One of the biggest differences (and it applies to all sports) is that the focus on games starts absurdly early in North America (at least Canada and the US). When my son was like 5 or 6, the little summer club he joined was still about practicing so they could do well in their mini games.

It's all about practicing skills so you can be better in games and the focus is entirely on offensive play. You're not drilling to improve skills and understanding, you're drilling to do better in games. The only remote mention of space and formation is based around offensive positioning.

And that didn't seem to get any better between 5 and 8 or so.
 
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Live in the Now said:
Considering your team sucks and their best chance was to catch another team playing lazy? Yes it could have made some kind of difference.
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On the contrary, you could say Herdman’s words inspired Canada’s strong start that kept it a close game score wise at the end of the first half between two imbalanced teams on paper and this simply was unsustainable for the full 90 minutes.

Point being, anyone can pull an Eden Hazard and create a lazy narrative based on the end result, it doesn’t mean anything however.
 
NyQuil said:
I think most people had this Group as being pretty competitive.
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Yeah I wasn't trying to pile on in the first place but some of the responses I got brought me to that. I just don't think a coach should be saying what Herdman said. Gave some motivation to what the other day was a pretty drab Croatia team with not much to offer.
 
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hatterson said:
One of the biggest differences (and it applies to all sports) is that the focus on games starts absurdly early in North America (at least Canada and the US). When my son was like 5 or 6, the little summer club he joined was still about practicing so they could do well in their mini games.

It's all about practicing skills so you can be better in games and the focus is entirely on offensive play. You're not drilling to improve skills and understanding, you're drilling to do better in games. The only remote mention of space and formation is based around offensive positioning.

And that didn't seem to get any better between 5 and 8 or so.
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At that age I did a summer camp in Italy. I had spent the previous 2 summers playing youth soccer in Vancouver and would often kick long balls and roam around chasing after the ball.

So I go to a practice game and try and pull this. I immediately get pulled out by my manager and absolutely reamed into. I watch the rest of the game from the sideline as 2 other guys show me the importance of a formation. As a 9 year old...it was immensely frustrating to come back to the West Coast and reverting back to our methods of play.

It was like learning how to play chess and then coming back to play connect 4. Boring.
 
Live in the Now said:
Yeah I wasn't trying to pile on in the first place but some of the responses I got brought me to that. I just don't think a coach should be saying what Herdman said. Gave some motivation to what the other day was a pretty drab Croatia team with not much to offer.
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I didn’t like what he said either.

But I also don’t think Canada was going to surprise anyone twice, and I was pretty gutted that they failed to get points out of that first match.
 
Live in the Now said:
Yeah I wasn't trying to pile on in the first place but some of the responses I got brought me to that. I just don't think a coach should be saying what Herdman said. Gave some motivation to what the other day was a pretty drab Croatia team with not much to offer.
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Pretty sad that Croatia needed a coach trying to amp his team up for them to show up.
 
Live in the Now said:
That's what happens to these teams sometimes. Some of the older players who've been in so many of these games may need something extra.
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And yet Canada had a dream start, scored first, and within two minutes. I’m not convinced that mentality switch doesn’t happen anyways if Herdman doesn’t make any comments yet Davies still scores.
 
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