Brazil sends in the big guns
The squad going to Seattle for the Friendly against Canada on May 31st has been announced and as expected this ain’t no B team. Kaka, Robinho, Gilberto Silva, Anderson, Adriano, Julio Baptista, and wonderkid Alexandre Pato (who played here last summer in the U20 World Cup) are all in the lineup.
Expect Canada to counter with our A team as well, and granted it hardly matches name for name. But we do have quality in the lineup – Julian de Guzman, Dwayne De Rosario, and Atiba Hutchinson are players that are world class. Rob Friend has been lighting up the Bundesliga with Borussia, Paul Stalteri looks like he has a new lease on life after being sent on loan from Spurs to Fulham (and playing a major part in their end of season drive to keep them up for another year). Tomasz Radzinski still has gas in the tank to make an impact. Sure, our players may not have the same name recognition, but they will be competitive.
And I am not the only one. Ryan Johnston (a Sportsnet soccer blogger who I just came across today for the first time) has a positive post about our chances against the juggernaut.
My guess is Canada will respond with names like
Mike Klukowski, Paul Stalteri, Julian de Guzman, Dwayne De Rosario,
Atiba Hutchinson, Ali Gerba, Rob Friend and Tomasz Radzinski.Something prompts me to like the chances of being competitive over outclassed.One last point to consider, before you try out the aforementioned
social experiment, is the last time Canada played Brazil in a senior
international friendly they drew 1-1. Brazil went on to win the World
Cup. They played Brazil in earnest at the Confederation Cup and drew
0-0 in 2001. Brazil went on to win the World Cup, again.
How many countries can say that the last 2 times they played Brazil the drew?
