Given Scott Higgins apparent sour disposition towards footballers who hit the turf too cheaply, Long Balls is going to assume the goalkeeping coach for A-League's Gold Coast United doesn't spent much time watching Concacaf football.
Or perhaps it's not divers per se that Higgins hates on, so much as it is Brisbane Roar's Issey Nakajima-Farran himself. Or maybe it's both. That would certainly explain why Higgins tore a strip out of the Canada midfielder on Twitter this weekend, with an opening salvo of, "Is @isseynfarran possibly the softest player in the league".
Either way, it's somewhat of a shame, since Long Balls was hoping to extend a social media invitation to the Aussie to live-tweet Canada's June date with Honduras in the second round of World Cup qualifying. Based on Higgins performance this weekend, we figured the mixture of him, Nakajima-Farran and players flopping to the ground at the faintest opportunity would be particularly combustible.
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It's hard to say whether Higgins will accept the offer, but the bigger question may be whether Nakajima-Farran will be there in the first place. The Canadian may miss some of his club's biggest matches this year if he finds himself on the wrong side of the four-man Asian Football Confederation limit on how many foreign players are allowed to participate per side in its version of the Champions League.
No, Ulsan Hyundai isn't exactly AC Milan, but playing fewer games than expected can hardly count in the 'positive' tally for a player who has played a peripheral role for Stephen Hart's Canada.
And if there's no Nakajima-Farran around to insult, will Higgins really want to sit through two hours of
In better news, Canadian forward Simeon Jackson scored against Burnley in the FA Cup. The winner it turns out, in a 4-1 victory.
That makes it three goals in four games now for Jackson, who has acquired the reputation of a player who scores in bunches, switching unreliably from hot to cold like a shower in rent-controlled housing. His timing has been glorious mind you, with his biggest splashes saved for year-end and coinciding with his club climbing another rung inside England's soccer pyramid. And the good news is that according to Long Balls' calendar he's due to pop off again in sometime in late spring (perhaps during that aforementioned Canada-Honduras game) after a barren spell through March and April.
And in even better news: Canada's best footballer is back in the lineup with PSV Eindhoven following an injury, if only for a friendly and if only as a substitute against Spanish second-division side Real Murcia. The Dutch side resumes league play on January 22nd and we hope that Atiba Hutchinson is in the lineup.