Canada's U20 Mens National team's 'Road to Turkey' became a little clearer today and you can expect a lot of Whitecaps involvement along the way.
The draw was made this morning for the CONCACAF U20 qualifiers, which kick off in Mexico on February 18th and will produce the region's four teams to compete at the FIFA U20 World Cup in Turkey next summer.
Canada have been drawn in Group B alongside Nicaragua and Cuba, and will play their group games on February 18th and 22nd. It is a group that Canada should win and that would set up a qualifying showdown with the runners-up in Group A on February 26th, which should be Costa Rica, but could be the US. Either game will be a tough match.
U20 Head Coach Nick Dasovic is conscious that the Canadians will be expected to top their group but feels that <i>"it's important not just to win, but how we win"</i>, and says that they need to believe and expect to win that group and show ruthlessness.
As Canadian preparations continue, Dasovic named six Whitecaps in his 21 man squad for an 11 day training camp which started yesterday and we got a chance to chat with him on a media conference call this afternoon about them and the national team's preparations for Mexico.
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MLS Caps Bryce Alderson and Caleb Clarke are joined by Residency prospects Yassin Essa, Ben Fisk, Callum Irving and Daniel Stanese at the camp, which will take place in both the US and Costa Rica.
With a game planned against their possible Costa Rican quarter final opponents, it's a crucial camp.
Alderson, Clarke and Fisk were over in Spain with the U20's last month at the Marbella Cup, with Clarke scoring the winner in the 2-1 victory over the US. Essa, Irving and Stanese were last in a U20 camp in July.
Irving and Stanese are both playing NCAA Division 1 football at the moment and the unfortunate elimination of Irving's University of Kentucky and Stanese's Florida Gulf Coast University from postseason play at least has the added benefit of allowing both of them to attend the camp.
A seventh Whitecap, Ben McKendry, was ruled out of the camp as his New Mexico Lobos are through to the 'Sweet 16', but after having a standout season, that saw McKendry named as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation 'Newcomer of the Year', there is little doubt that McKendry will be a key player in Mexico come February.
Dasovic clearly agreed:
<i>" We've got Daniel in camp because of the fact that they got knocked out.
Ben McKendry, we've talked to him. Obviously New Mexico's still in the tournament.
One thing you have to remember, Ben McKendry is playing in the round of 16, as is Justin Murrell, so they're playing at a high level right now, so that definitely counts for something."</i>
The Whitecaps are the most represented team in the training camp with six, followed by Montreal Impact with three and, somewhat strangely, Polish side WKS Slask Wroclaw's U19 side, also with three.
The three Polish players are all from Ontario, with two having played for Mississauga Eagles and one for Brantford Galaxy previously.
Dasovic is keen to track down Canadian talent wherever they may be in the world and evaluate them first hand so that they don't slip through the net to another country from never having been called up by Canada.
Whether they will feature in the current campaign, a future one, or none at all, it's worth having a look, especially as some players were unavailable to Dasovic for this camp due to club commitments.
With 89 days still to go until the CONCACAF qualifiers kick off, Dasovic knows that the time he spends with his squad right now is key, as sadly any other opportunities before the tournament are very limited:
<i>"Unfortunately, and it's not just us feeling the crunch, it's difficult in this new football regimen with the lack of international games and weekends etc. We have a tough time getting our players.
So right now this will most likely be our last camp heading in to the qualification in February.
We'll go in hopefully about five to seven days early, but we'll get ourselves organised. Even that we might even struggle to get some players in that time. I think a lot of teams that are going to get players from different clubs are going to have the same problem.
Its different when you're playing in a country like Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, where most of the players are based in that country and normally based in one of the major cities, so it's easier to bring them in to camp every two or three days.
We don't have that luxury, but it's up to us at that point in time to monitor the players, see how much minutes they're playing and being in contact with them and their clubs to make sure that no matter what happens that they're getting the right evaluation and that they're getting at least their fitness ready and some games to come in to the camp and be ready to go in February."</i>
Let's hope they are.
[We'll have more from Nick Dasovic tomorrow as we chat about getting vital competitive minutes for this U20 group at whatever level they can]
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