Postmortem Canada v Mexico

Well, that was not fun.

Truth be told, I was enjoying Canada's successful defending in the first half. They probably executed their game plan exactly how they would have wanted it. We probably all knew they would concede at some point, but there was a way back into it had we not slacked off on a corner kick to give Mexico the 2-nil lead. And it brings up a subtle point I forgot to make in my tips for improvement last night: defend well, defend smart.

I thought it would basically go without saying. But it seems Canada needs to be reminded. Specifically Paul Stalteri, whose lazy challenge on Rafa Marquez's near post header cost us any chance to salvage a point (not to mention the fact there wasn't anyone defending the near post). Which sadly has left me to make the following observation, Stalteri is costing us. Here is a guy who by all rights made me a Spurs fan when I started to really get into the EPL a few years ago. He was probably the highest profile Canadian in the world, having then just recently won the Bundesliga with Werder Bremen. Though his start with Spurs was bright, helping them to two 5th place finishes, he has now been dropped from Ramos' first team and is now rotting in the reserves. Whereas he was making crisp, dangerous passes through the Chelsea defense two years ago in the later stages of the FA cup, you would now be hard pressed to find where or if he is even playing at all, even with the reserves. I still love his passion and perhaps there is nobody better we could put in his position, but the lack of creativity and the defensive lapses are hurting big time. Eg. He and Serioux couldn't decide who would take the man with the ball in one of the Honduran goals in Montreal.

Which isn't to say there was a whole lot to be happy about at the back once we went down. Hastings can only knock it deep and Serioux is an expert and either giving away cheaply by overdribbling or just duffing a long pass that probably wasn't going anywhere anyway and leading to a dangerous counterattack. Klukowski though, played amazing. He is confident on the ball as ever and provided the only outlet of our last third of any quality. He was also defending very well, save for a few stupid challenges which gifted dangerous free kicks.

The refreshing thing was that the reffing was amazing. Mexico probably had more to complain than we did (Blanco's yellow should instead have gone to De Guzman for his early ankle buster). I wish we could have that quality of reffing in every game. His early yellow for a dive in the box probably set the tone for the Mexicans, who for the most part played with honesty and integrity. Of course, they didn't have to worry as much about getting the result as Jamaica or Honduras did in Canada.

One of the bright spots for me was the play of Nakajima-Farran. He was confident on the ball and had he been able to get further up the field, I think he would have been dangerous. I hope to see him in that position for the rest of the qualifiers.

Which brings us to a sobering reality. We are now desperate. I don't think we can continue this defensive posturing. We need to put Gerba AND Friend up front and hope the midfield can shut things down. Everybody saw how Friend was hopeless to corral any long balls sent his way. It is just asking too much. With two of them up there, we stand a way better chance. Plus, late in the game, our forward push was even unsettling the Mexicans to play lazy clearances which gifted us the ball back.

To make things even worse for the next match, we lose two huge parts of our team. De Rosario and Serioux will miss the next game against Honduras. This could be killer. Some combination of Stalteri/Brennan/McKenna/Hume are going to have to fill this void.

I think this was an improvement though. We played to a game plan well and we even found the score sheet under desperate circumstances (which was a beauty of a dead ball from Hume to Gerba). I think if we can just learn to avoid the hair-pulling offsides we had last night, we can start surprising people.

In the end, it turns out drinking beer while watching the game wasn't the solution to our problems. Damn, that is one sacrifice I am always willing to make.