The Footie Fool

Photo from Flickr user luisar. Licensed using Creative Commons license.

Back from Qwest and I can confirm what you probably have already read – we were that good. Yes, we lost, but we could have won.

By now you know the score and have probably seen some of the analysis. Suffice to say that, despite the lose, we played a ripping game and gave one of the best teams in the world trouble. And, while Kaka and Ronaldinho weren’t there, I would hardly call a team with Robinhio, Adriano and Alexandre Pato their B team.

We troubled the Brazilian defence, created lots of opportunities and have shown that we can not only play with the big boys, but we can win. And for a few, brief moments in the second half, I really thought we might be on the verge of an upset, either minor (draw) or major (win) – we were playing that well against the best (okay, second best) in the world.

We could have scored more, with Issey Nakajima-Farran firing wide and Julio Cesar getting lucky on a DeRo strike. In the words of Julian de Guzman (who, despite the bad back pass, had a really excellent game and perhaps the highlight goal of the night), Canada has taken it to the next level. Iain Macintyre at the Vancouver Sun wrote this morning:

The team of one-name stars nearly lost to the team of no-names. But never before has Canada looked so capable of ending its anonymity in the world game and rewriting the legacy from decades of pedestrian, uninspiring and unsuccessful soccer.

True, but the most important take away from this game for me was that we came back. Not once, but twice. Besides showing some real flair on the ball, we showed grit and resilience in the face of adversity. It would have been easy to roll over when Brazil got on the board 3 minutes in. But we didn’t. We marched down the field and got one back – a beauty, too, with Klukowski setting up Rob Friend’s header.

As an aside, Sportsnet blew the call in their highlights package,. The said that PATRICK Bernier set up Friend’s goal when it was clearly Klukowski (who had a really strong game playing leftback). First, the name is Patrice Bernier and the man wasn’t even on the field. Bernier came in as a sub later.

I was real happy that I ended up sitting with the great gang of guys from the Voyageurs, who came prepared. River City came down from Edmonton, drums and song sheets in hand, and Masster and a few others had the Canuck banners flying high. We had a few songs and some chants that got a bit more colorful as the $8 Qwest beers started kicking in. But we were clearly outnumbered by green and yellow and the samba. In fact, it was quite disappointing to see the number of obvious Canadians there decked out in Brazilian gear. I know it’s Brazil folks (and no doubt there were probably a fair share of Brazilian Canadians there), but c’mon! You wouldn’t go see the Canadian national hockey team playing Russia decked out in Russian gear would you?

Overall, I went to Qwest hoping to see the same team that played so well at the Gold Cup last year and I saw that – and more. I saw solid d from Serioux, Hastings, Klukowski and Staltari, held together by Onstad. A midfield that, as expected, provided plenty of offensive flair and controlled the ball well. Issey Nakajima-Farron is showing more than great promise in the midfield with lots of speed, and in Rob Friend we have the target up front who can convert.

We’re firing on all cylinders and things look good for the World Cup.

Here are some photo sets from the game that I dug up on Flickr.

• Set 1
• Set 2
• Set 3
• Set 4 (with a shot of The Voyageurs)

Up next, Panama on Wednesday.