Millsy Sounds like Canada are a lot better than England tbf
They’re certainly more exciting to watch with Marsch at the helm than Southgate at England.
COPA America
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Mad_Cyril Not quite the end product you’d expect from his all-round play
I will give him credit though… He tracks back unlike a lot of strikers. He’s not afraid to get stuck in defending, so I can see a lot of teams being interested in that quality from a striker who also scores goals at the club level. He does so for Canada too but it’s been a while and that’s been when we’re playing smaller opponents we should be scoring against anyway.
loopdokter We watched different games apparently. I’ll agree that the keeper played really well, a few miscommunications aside, and they look like an athletic group, which made up for a lot of mistakes against a far better side.
The fact is that they defended poorly, midfield swung between indecisive and panic for the entire game, and they’re a team without a 9 or 10. Argentina jogged through that game and they could because Canada was never a threat going forward.
They look far better than a decade ago, but it’s still a long, uphill battle to any sort of relevancy. And yes, they were far more fun to watch than England, but that’s a really low bar at the moment.
loopdokter
Got loads of energy, looks good on the ball, just lacks end product.
Decent for Canadia, not what we need at Old Trafford.
Would probably score for fun in the Bundesliga.
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I don’t think he’s the right fit for Old Trafford either. He’d fit in well at a mid-table Prem team (which I realize Man U are right now) without the reputation of Man Utd.
I think he’ll get there eventually. It’s inevitable he’ll move from Lille to a bigger club. The question is where?
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We definitely watched the same game. I’m by no means claiming we were better than Argentina. At points we had them on the back foot, but our inexperience and lack of top tiered players across_all_ positions showed at crucial moments. Argentina definitely had issues with our pace and they didn’t appear to be as invincible as they once were. Messi was visibly frustrated at his lack of touches in the first half.
I was always hoping for a draw, but realistically didn’t expect it. There’s definite room for improvement and I expect that they will. Marsch has only coached them for 3 games - all of which have been against the three of the top 10 ranked teams in the world.
The upside is Peru and Chile drew yesterday 0-0. If we can score against Peru and actually beat them - which I think is a plausible outcome - that puts us in a good position to advance out of the group.
It think the expectation from fans who’ve been following Canada lately is that we get out of the group… Maybe by the hairs of our chinny chin chin, but advance nonetheless.
loopdokter I don’t think Canada were really competitive in that game, the lack of quality on the ball was evident at every position. My understanding is that Peru is pretty awful, so maybe that game is winnable. Until they find a legitimate and consistent source of goals, I’d keep my expectations very low.
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Watching the USA vs. Bolivia out of sheer boredom on a Sunday and The Sports Network (TSN) here in Canada are so hockey focused and cheap that they can’t even send a crew down for the entire tourney; so they’re using the American Fox Sports feed in non-Canada games.
What’s amusing is TSN have a full crew for halftime and the pre and post game analysis for the Euros… I appreciate that, but if they want the game to grow in this country in the lead up to co-hosting the World Cup in 2026, they should be staffing the tournament that Canada are actually playing in.
Listening to Yank announcers call footy like a basketball game is fucking painful! They don’t shut the fuck up and let the game breathe. It’s akin to listening to brostep and gabber at full blast. Woeful!
I’d assume they’re not putting money into it because no one is watching. I’ll watch Canada play if I happen to be in front of a tv with nothing else to do and I actually like the sport. Most Canadians just don’t care.
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I’m not sure I agree with that summation. It’s the most played sport in Canada. Hockey is going the way of the dodo and isn’t even the second most played sport in the country. That honour belongs to basketball. Hockey is largely played by rich white kids and has a really bad culture and image problem too.
In World Cup qualifying some of the Canada games were up there with the most watched sporting events of the year. The only place in Canada where the game isn’t as popular is in the more rural and very white areas of Canada.
You’ve got to build out the infrastructure in order for it to have a fan base - especially with us co-hosting a World Cup. I’m surprised you’re not more invested considering Phonsie is from Edmonton.
Obviously they get enough viewership for the Euros to at least have a crew do match analysis. How much extra does it cost a national network to have TSN-affiliated analysts and play by play announcers call all the COPA games, along with a crew doing analysis in the Toronto studio? It’s peanuts. Most of those people are already salaried anyway.
loopdokter If it’s true that hockey participation is on the decline (and it seems very plausible), it’s because of economics and the corresponding lag in interest will take a couple of decades to manifest in ratings. It’s happening with youth football in the states, for example, but the NFL’s ratings have never been higher.
Look at Edmonton over the last month and tell me soccer (yeah I know) is anywhere close in popularity. No one cares now, it’ll probably change eventually. We had 400 hundred people out for the England game last Sunday and that took 20 years to build (and there is no other nation with that support, here anyways, outside of games we’ve hosted featuring Canada obviously) in a city with a greater population of 1.5 million or so.
Why am I not invested personally? I don’t have time to watch everything and the product is generally poor. If Canada had a team worth watching, I probably would do so more often. And again, I’m a fan of the sport. If you mentioned the COPA to the average person here, 98% wouldn’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Could TSN help that with better coverage? Probably, but that’s a chicken and egg discussion.
Nunez has 9 goals in 6 games for Uruguay?
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303abuser Why am I not invested personally? I don’t have time to watch everything and the product is generally poor. If Canada had a team worth watching, I probably would do so more often. And again, I’m a fan of the sport. If you mentioned the COPA to the average person here, 98% wouldn’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Could TSN help that with better coverage? Probably, but that’s a chicken and egg discussion.
Again, if you build it they will come.
I get why at the moment Edmonton might not be into what Canada is doing at the COPA with the Oilers going into Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, but at the same time Commonwealth Stadium had 44,212 in -20 degree conditions (‘The Iceteca’ vs. Mexico) during World Cup Qualifying.
That stadium holds 60,000 people as you well know. I know fans came from outside of town for the game, but I imagine most of the people attending were Albertans within driving distance and local Edmontonians. The attendance probably would have been more if it hadn’t been for the huge snow storm you guys had in the day before the game.
My point to you is if you keep dissing the team as being poor and not supporting the product, it’s not going to get any better with attitudes like that. The game is growing and has done so leaps and bounds in this country. Our population has increased to 41 million in 2024 from 30.5 million in 2000. We are an immigrant fuelled nation and those immigrants largely have one thing in common - they play football. They sure as hell don’t play hockey.
We now have academies that players can stay and develop their skills at instead of having to go to Europe. Alphonso Davies is a product of the Vancouver Whitecaps’ academy. We have a pro league with nearly province-wide representation that’s looking to expand, along with a promotion/relegation model. The women’s pro league has just been announced. Most provinces have a semi-pro league that’s affiliated with the Canadian Premier League. We have both men’s and women’s players playing at the very top level in the top leagues across Europe.
Referee development is being taken more seriously by Canada Soccer as well. We’ve sent multiple referees to both men’s and women’s World Cups in recent years. When I was reffing I saw how they’d created a pathway for people who wanted to become FIFA refs and know several people who are now involved in that pathway.
All these things contribute to pathways for budding players (and referees) to become better and gain attention from professional clubs (or higher level assignments for refs) both at home and abroad, along with inspiring much younger generations to want to be like them. That’s exactly what has happened with basketball in this country and it’s why Canada won a bronze at the FIBA World Cup last year and why we’re favoured to be one of the contenders for the gold medal in Paris this summer.
While I agree that Canada have long underachieved in the beautiful game for far too long, if you keep poo-pooing and dismissing the product you’re part of the problem. I would argue that the current batch of players are the best we’ve ever had and I don’t foresee us dropping back into the doldrums of football in the near future.
Suffering Jesus.
Send me over a couple of grams of that stuff Jay.
Anyone struggling to sleep should welcome these posts.
I like a good rant. I’m surprised anyone read it. I generally accept I’m talking to myself in here. 
loopdokter While I agree that Canada have long underachieved in the beautiful game for far too long, if you keep poo-pooing and dismissing the product you’re part of the problem. I would argue that the current batch of players are the best we’ve ever had and I don’t foresee us dropping back into the doldrums of football in the near future.
Look, I hope they do well now and I’m sure they’ll improve, but et’s not pretend my attitude, which is a pretty realistic assessment of the teams’ quality, has any affect on their play or the future of the sport here. Bottom line and my only point, is that the hype machine doing its thing doesn’t make them a decent side. The have exactly zero goals in 3 games under the current coach. It is what it is.
