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  • The Reserve Squad: CSA to experiment with 'eye-jab' marketing ploy


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    Following its successful "Paint the Stadium Red" campaign, the CSA will now appeal to the non-traditional Canadian soccer fan by encouraging the newly in-vogue practice of eye-jabbing.

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    "On the surface, Canadians are a reserved people," said CSA General Secretary Peter Montopoli. "But really we share a primal desire for wanton violence."

    "I'm not talking fist-fights or anything," Montopoli continued. "Maybe Canada is in a tight match against Panama and there's a lull in the crowd energy. Stephen [Hart] could just wander casually into the opposite technical area, as if he were looking for a misplaced water bottle, and then Whamo! ram his index finger directly into [Panama manager] Julio Dely Valdes' eye socket."

    "Valdy-whatever-his-name-is hits the turf faster than one of his players faking an injury, and the crowd goes nuts!"

    The CSA's new initiative is widely seen as a response to one of the modern game's coaching greats, controversial Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese was involved in a fracas during Wednesday's Barcelona-Real Madrid match in which he put his finger into Barcelona assistant manager Tito Vilanovaeye's eye.

    When asked why the CSA would want to emulate the behaviour of a man Barcelona defender Gerard Pique described last night as "destroying the game in Spain", Montopoli was dismissive.

    "Look. If you're asking me whether it's against the rules for a manager to physically assault another on the sidelines, well I don't know? Why don't you tell me?" Montopoli challenged, followed by an awkward silence of several seconds before the phone connection went dead.

    A CSA media liaison officer later clarified the general secretary's remarks.

    "The CSA board has yet to decide on an official policy concerning eye-jabbing, although many parents are already experimenting with similar behaviour at various youth levels."

    "Our main concern is having a happy, excited, pro-Canada crowd at Canada matches," he said. "Besides, grown men do stuff to each other on the ice at Air Canada Centre that would involve the Special Investigations Unit if Toronto police tried the same thing while apprehending a suspect. And hockey is on the front page of the Globe and Mail sports section like every day."



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