The Footie Fool

The roster is out, officially, and by the time you have read this the mainstream press will probably have plenty of quotes from Dwayne DeRosario as to why he won’t don the red and white kit for the Gold Cup. Heck, they may even have a quote or two from Adrian Serioux as why he also skipped the call. I won’t hold my breath for a Lars Hirschfeld quote, but I would love to hear his excuse reason.

Excuse me for being just a bit pissed off about this. I mean, I knew DeRo and Serioux weren’t going to make the trip, but that doesn’t mean I am happy with their decisions. Or Hirshfeld’s either. I mean, for better or for worse, this is still the premier international competition on this continent and three of our key players are sitting it out.

Let’s look at this scenario from a different perspective. What would the reaction be in England if Frank Lampard, John Terry and David James decided they wouldn’t play for England in the European Championships? Damn straight the phones at 5 Live would be on fire from indignant footie fans wondering why three national team starters were giving the continental championship a pass.

I was a pretty happy footie fan when it was announced that DeRo and Serioux were going to join TFC. I felt like Toronto was going to finally do what a lot of Canadian fans had been hoping for – help build a national team. Okay, yeah sure, the pragmatic business side of me knows that I can’t expect a professional organization to have any other mandate other than to make money, but I still had this naive belief that having Canadian players playing on Canadian teams would actually improve our chances of winning competitions like the Gold Cup. Well, that belief was shaken today. Not broken, but shaken.

I want to blame the MLS and their fucked up policy of playing through this (and virtually any FIFA sanctioned) competition, but then I see that other MLS teams have given up their talent for the Gold Cup. Will Johnson, Dejan Jakovic (who is the feature of a nice writeup at the MLS site today)  and André Hainault have all been released from their clubs, so the MLS  can’t be all at fault here. TFC, in their defense, did release Kevin Harmse and Ali Gerba (although can he actually be released if he hasn’t been signed yet?), so I guess expecting them to gut the team and piss off the ticket paying fan base by removing two key players in DeRo and Serioux was just a bit too much.

I suppose I should feel like we are in good company. It appears that Mexico is sending a B team (although any B team that consists of Giovani Dos Santos and Carlos Vela has to be considered a B+ team) and speculation is that the US roster will also be light on big names. Which is all beginning to make me feel like the Gold Cup is turning into a bit of an irrelevant joke this year.

On the bright side, I do like this roster. We have a nice balance of experience and youth and in it I can see the core for the next round of WCQ. If the young kids dazzle, and we get a great performance from a goalkeeper who currently isn’t even practicing with a team, let alone starting, then we might just have a shot. And I like that Paul Stalteri is looking for a shot at redemption. However I would have loved it if there were 3 other names on it.

CANADA
1- G- Greg Sutton | unattached / sans club
2- D- Adrian Cann | DEN / Esbjerg fB
3- D/M- Mike Klukowski | BEL / Club Brugge KV
4- D- André Hainault | USA / Houston Dynamo
6- M- Julian de Guzman | ESP / Deportivo La Coruna
5- D/F- Kevin McKenna | GER / 1. FC Köln
7- D/M- Paul Stalteri | GER / Borussia Mönchengladbach
8- M- Marcel de Jong | NED / Roda JC
9- F- Ali Gerba | unattached / sans club
10- M/F- Willi Johnson | USA / Real Salt Lake
11- D- Richard Hastings | SCO / Inverness CT
12- M- Issey Nakajima-Farran | DEN / FC Nordsjælland
13- M- Atiba Hutchinson | DEN / F.C. København
14- D- Dejan Jakovic | USA / DC United
15- M/F- Josh Simpson | GER / FC Kaiserslautern
16- F- Simeon Jackson | ENG / Gillingham FC
17- D/M- Jaime Peters | ENG / Ipswich Town FC
18- G- Joshua Wagenaar | ENG / Yeovil Town
19- D/M- Kevin Harmse | CAN / Toronto FC
20- M- Patrice Bernier | DEN / FC Nordsjælland
21- M- Chris Pozniak | SCO / Dundee FC
22- G- Kenny Stamatopoulos | NOR / FC Lyn Oslo (on loan from Tromsø I.L.)
23- F- Charles Gbeke | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC