Canada 1 - Jamaica 1

As good as this team is, they make me cringe with every pass. Nothing is easy for the Canadian national team. Unless, of course, you count their crisp passing around the back in their third of the field, even in the dying moments. Boy, they can sure play back there where there were no Jamaicans in sight and the back four constantly seemed to want the other guy to be the one to move the ball forward.

This is one of many tactics that bothered me. I mean it's nice to see some control and patience, but I think they may have overdone it by not really taking it to a team that was sitting back waiting to be attacked. I think they should have used a formation with 2 forwards instead of one. Our crosses were awful in the first half and maybe we could have saved more balls with more bodies up front. In the second half, we seemed to be pumping balls forward from the back with more urgency and with only Friend or Gerba up there, it was tough to gain possession. Granted there were some nice balls up on the wings for Hume and Radzinski.

Though he has affectionately been named De Godsman, for reasons he displayed last night, Julian De Guzman had a persistent habit of frustrating me while playing in our own half. He was playing a dangerous game of 1on1 with defenders and often losing. Thankfully he was able to win a good share of fouls. The other times, when he gave it up cheaply, I screamed at the TV. There is no reason to be weaving through defenders in our half, play the ball back to the defenders who are sitting there waiting to provide support.

The turning point of course had to be a horrendous own goal off Onstad. What should have been an easy catch turned into calamity when he tried to punch the ball away leaning back toward goal. Unsurprisingly, his execution let him down. He claimed he was tugged and that threw him off, but I saw no indication of anything other than poor goalkeeping. I love the guy, but I think you have to go to Sutton in our next match, September 6th in Montreal against Honduras.

It was awesome to see a proper soccer crowd and atmosphere for this game and hopefully this continues in Montreal. It can only help the team feel like they truely are at home and increase the players' desires to perform for them.

I read on a blog about how pessimistic a fan was even though we were supposed to easily dispatch of Jamaica. And though I wanted to slough him off as an exception to popular opinion, I knew deep down I was one of them too. And sadly it came true. It's not a loss though and what this means is we HAVE to beat the Reggae Boys in Kingston in November. I'm confident we still can (... or am I?)

Sportsnet

People are frustrated with the lack of Canadian team coverage and have been giving Sportsnet flack for it (see their reader's postings on national team stories). Canada at least got to see the game live in standard def on SN West and Pacific, which was one complaint, but now they added a slate of others.

First, what was the FUCKING cameraman doing? Instead of celebrating a beautiful, beautiful goal setup by Radzinski to De Guzman, I was screaming at the cameraman for shooting our defense 50 yards from the action. And this was far from a one time thing. The guy (or girl) didn't have a sniff of where the ball was on many occassions.

Then there was the affair of watching standard def soccer on Sportsnet HD. Seriously guys, what's the deal. Why do you have a high def channel if aren't going to use it like it should be? So you can show poker in HD? This is ridiculous. It they have HD cameras, they are in Toronto, so why not use them? With the extra dimensions of 16:9, it would have helped the useless tit cameraman find the ball.

And then you have Gerry Dobson and Craig Forrest. I can't fault them for their passion of our team and sport, they are great ambassadors. But when they are reduced to mocking injured players and complaining about the ref like they are on the field playing, it's too much. It's soccer, players go down. And MOST of the time, they go down when they are fouled. Even though they go down easy, it is to earn the foul against them, not to fool anyone. I watched Steven Gerrard do the same thing against the Czech Republic in their friendly last night. Gerry and Craig should listen to the likes of English commentators to learn how to do it with class. It is frustrating when someone with soccer knowledge like Craig Forrest doesn't even know the definition of delayed offside. Ie. if an offside player doesn't play the ball, he is not offside IF HE DOESN'T INTERFERE WITH THE PLAY OR THE DEFENDERS.

Maybe there is something to be said about importing English play by play analysts like CBC does...