Holy smokes! We're less than a month away from the start of Canada's World Cup qualifying campaign!
So obviously, head coach Stephen Hart had plenty of absolute knock-'em-out-of-the-park revelations on Thursday morning during a media conference call, right? Well, not exactly. As usual, Hart was reserved and diplomatic, taking nothing for granted against the minnows (St. Kitts, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia) and certainly not getting far enough ahead of himself to make any projections about the next round. Heck, he spent several minutes praising the overall strength and quality of CONCACAF, which was an effective buzzkill to any optimism about our ostensible good fortune in the preliminary draw.
But, Hart did provide a few morsels of tasty information about the status of Atiba Hutchinson and Paul Stalteri, and his thoughts on the location of Canada's home games in World Cup qualifying.
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- Atiba Hutchinson, who sat out a few games in the Gold Cup due to injury, has had to have "minor surgery" and will "more than likely" not be available for this fall's games. Hart later said that Hutchinson's status would be a "game-by-game" decision-making process, but one would have to imagine that unless Canada finds itself in some terrifying situation wherein it desperately needs points, Hart won't rock the boat at PSV by calling Hutch over for this opening round.
- He noted that he's "monitoring" the injury situations of Patrice Bernier (who's now back in training, returning from injury) as well as Rob Friend, who has "a slight injury".
- He made it sound as though Paul Stalteri still isn't out of the national team mix -- but before being considered for a call-up he'd, of course, need to get regular playing time. The 33-year-old is currently without a club and, as tweeted by Full-Time's Tyler Green earlier today, recently went arthroscopic surgery... so we've likely seen the last of Diesel in the red and white in a meaningful game.
- When I asked his thoughts on all three Round 2 games being played in Toronto this fall, he referred to "the whole CONCACAF situation" -- in other words, the difficulty of setting up travel plans with only a month's notice -- as a sign that under these particular circumstances, having all three games at BMO Field was the way to go. He noted that with things being "left so late", they were having difficulty even assembling the squad in time for these games, and that reducing the complexity of travel and logistics was "the main thought behind" putting all three games in Toronto.
- Then, we had this sparkling exchange between Hart and Sportsnet's Gerry Dobson:
GD: I know that the CSA will, within reason, play wherever you want the home games to be played. It's going to be Toronto this time around. When you get to the next round -- and I know you don't want to look ahead -- but when teams like Honduras and Panama come calling, it's obvious that if you play in Toronto or Montreal, there'll be a huge contingent of away supporters. When you get to that second round, are there more options on the table in terms of where you might play other than Toronto or even Montreal? I'm specifically thinking Atlantic Canada.
SH: As you know Gerry, there's some complexities to that. Stadiums have to meet specific requirements now, and so that's a further complexity. And then, you don't want to jeopardize your own squad by complicating how travel would be. So I think I will have to sit down with my staff when that time comes and, in the meantime, look at some potential venues where it's to our advantage, and I mean everything is to our advantage, and then make those decisions.
GD: So is it fair to say then, just in terms of the next round, that Toronto is not necessarily a slam dunk for the next round?
SH: That's correct. - And because there are those who just need to know... according to Hart, there hasn't been any change in the national-team situations of either David "Junior" Hoilett or Jonathan de Guzman.