That’s the Canada we all loath and hate
Oh my goodness, did that suck.
It took me a day to watch it due to a crazy schedule yesterday but after seeing the game I have to think why did I bother? Canada put in a brutal performance and drops a 2-0 Friendly to (as Gerry Dobson continually and painfully kept reminding us of) a South Africa B squad. Perhaps Sportsnet shouldn’t have picked this particular friendly to carry across their networks (but I’m very happy they did, despite the shite on the field).
Where to start? First, we never really controlled the game. Gone were the long spells of possession and fine passing we saw in the GC and recent friendlies. We gave the ball away way too much, and were sloppy in our own end. Iain Hume, bless his pit bull terrier heart, seemed out of his comfort zone up front. I agree with Out of Touch that Hume’s qualities are most effective when he comes tearing off the bench at 60 minutes when defenders are starting to fade. That’s when he causes problems.
I also thought Josh Simpson had a poor game, Hutch and DeGuzman were not as effective or clinical as they usually are, Bernier wasn’t able to control anything in the holding role he was given, and once again we lost our cool at the end of a frustrating game (Paul Stalteri please take note). If there is one trait I would like to see us develop is a bit more resiliency when we are down. Yes, it sucks to lose, but you can do it with some grace and dignity. Swarming refs and trying to get calls overturned doesn’t show a lot of class or professionalism.
Despite all the bad, however, let’s not forget that this was a friendly and a chance to experiment with formations and players. Hume up front may not have worked perfectly this time, but chances are both he and Mitchell learned something. We finally got a chance to get Marcel de Jong into a game, and Lars Hirschfeld had one fine outing, despite giving up 2.
And I cannot forget Iron Mike Klukowski, who took the worst stomp to the crotch I’ve seen since Rooney laid the boots to Ricardo Carvalho at the 2004 Euro. Could the camera have been in any better position to catch the kind of action that makes every person watching flinch and instinctively reach to cover private places? Yet, after a few minutes (and choice words), Mike came back on the field and still managed to put in a decent performance.
I am also heartened by the fact that this lose brings us back down to earth after the GC run and will give us a dose of humility – not as big as England received today, but still…. Maybe we were beginning to get a bit inflated to the point where we run into that danger zone of underestimating our opponents. Not that they should have caused us this much trouble. On paper we look the better team. But when we came out rather flat and SA didn’t fold and buckle in the first 10 minutes, we actually let them grab on to the belief that they could play with us. And the longer we let them control the game, the more they began to believe they could win it. So, a lesson to us – there are still bumps in the road as this team grows and develops. And I still think we are in a fine spot to be back in SA in 2 1/2 years.
