The World No 1 ranked Americans are taking nothing for granted in the CONCACAF Olympic qualifiers.
That little bit of cliché out of the way, welcome to the first instalment of The Rest of the Story – CSN’s attempt to put the little shindig in Vancouver into a global perspective. Throughout the tournament I will be providing a daily round-up of the news from the rest of the competitors.
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Expect a lot on the Americans because their media speaks English and my grasp of written Spanish is what it is. Also, the Americans are the only other team at Canada’s level.
Now, before you run to the comments section to blast me for excluding Mexico from that list consider that Canada handled the Mexicans twice last year, both in easy fashion, and the Americans loss to them in World Cup qualifying was an upset of epic proportions.
If the roles had been reversed and the USA had stunned Mexico after losing 5,987 (approximately) times in a row to them Disney would have already optioned the movie rights. So let’s be real. It’s a two horse race and if Canada wants any of that “redemption” it keeps talking about it will need to pull off a Mexican-like stunner itself in the finals.
Making sure that the Canuck’s redemption attempt comes after both sides have booked the trip to Old Blighty was the narrative of much of the American coverage ahead of tonight’s clash with the Dominican Republic. Although the Red, White and Blue open up as 10.5 point favourites (you have to lay slightly more points on them than you do on the Patriots), every player coach and fan was warning the media of compliancy.
They can afford compliancy. Tonight’s game is about working on stuff—namely the possession game that they have been trying to move towards for a few years now.
That’s going to be difficult on the gridiron football set FieldTurf BC Place features. Ignore the propaganda you’ll hear on the broadcast, the stuff is junk for soccer. The women don’t complain because the women rarely complain about anything.
Heather Mitts came close yesterday when she posted a photo on her Twitter feed of a scraped up knee and joked that it was a “welcome to BC Place turf.”
The photo has been taken down now. Can’t rock the boat, I guess. They should though – it’s shameful that a competitive tournament is being played on the junk, but apparently they can’t grow grass in BC (or Cascadia for that matter, but that’s a different topic).
Tonight’s other game could potentially be more interesting. As mentioned, the Mexicans are the wildcard. Albeit a wildcard not playing in front of thousands of crazed partisan fans desperate to show the Gringos what’s what. How much of a difference the home crowd made to Mexico’s run last year will become a bit clearer after watching them tonight.