Maxime Crépeau

[Unnamed Trialist]

19 hours ago, king1010 said:

He needs to be our number 1 going forward

I probably agree, but what do you tell me when next March, Crepeau is still in preseason and Borjan is leading the Slovakian league, and the team has made it through Conference League knockout rounds?

[narduch]

42 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I probably agree, but what do you tell me when next March, Crepeau is still in preseason and Borjan is leading the Slovakian league, and the team has made it through Conference League knockout rounds?

MLS will probably start late February again, in order to fit the stupid Leagues Cup in the schedule. 

Plus if LAFC wins MLS Cup he will also have Concacaf Champions League, also starting in February. 

The MLS guys should all be in game shape for the March window 

Edited December 4, 2023 by narduch

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, narduch said:

MLS will probably start late February again, in order to fit the stupid Leagues Cup in the schedule. 

Plus if LAFC wins MLS Cup he will also have Concacaf Champions League, also starting in February. 

The MLS guys should all be in game shape for the March window 

I'm more concerned with how we announce this change. And who does it. We have a single match, and demoting a veteran and captain could be a hard decision to make. 

Borjan in the bench won't be happy, I personally think he won't last more than two windows if he's not starting.

[InglewoodJack]

Something I just realized is that if Crepeau doesn’t get the job for the T&T game, we’re likely going into 2025 with Borjan as the starter. If we qualify for Copa, coaching staff is gonna say Borjan needs to start because he has 4 years of experience playing in South America, so he can handle the pressure of playing against a hostile crowd, etc. Also might mean we haven’t seen the last of Cavalini too, probably, for the same reason. 
 

What Crepeau has been doing during these playoffs- last year’s too- is remarkable. He has more than earned it.

4 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I'm more concerned with how we announce this change. And who does it. We have a single match, and demoting a veteran and captain could be a hard decision to make. 

Borjan in the bench won't be happy, I personally think he won't last more than two windows if he's not starting.

My question to this is for whom would it be a hard decision? I doubt there’s a roster contingent who is so married to Borjan as the starter that they would refuse to understand the very common process of winding down an older veteran losing form for a younger, better option- hell, Red Star did just that this season, and he was their captain and one of the faces of their team for much longer than he was ours. I think the only person who this would offend is Borjan, and I mean, what’s he going to do- go to the media and complain that a spot he deservingly lost was taken from him unjustly? As long as the coaching staff is honest in their intentions and calls him up with the expressed purpose of having him sit on the bench, I think it’ll be fine. It’s not like they’re disciplining a player who would otherwise be a big piece- not a Gio Reyna situation or anything. This is just an old player who can’t get the job done anymore. He of all people should understand. 

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

20 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

Something I just realized is that if Crepeau doesn’t get the job for the T&T game, we’re likely going into 2025 with Borjan as the starter.

I'm not sure the coaching staff thinks this way and I don't think the players do either.

The current cycle ends in March if we crash out or in the summer at the end of the Copa America.

When a new cycle begins all can be re-evaluated.

[costarg]

3 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I probably agree, but what do you tell me when next March, Crepeau is still in preseason and Borjan is leading the Slovakian league, and the team has made it through Conference League knockout rounds?

Well you can just call it like it is.  "Thanks for everything man, you're a freakin legend.  A Voyageur will one day pay $1,000,000 for your grey sweat pants at auction.  However, we're moving away from the ball juggling in the middle of the game, and coaches saying f-you to an entire nation before a game.  We're preparing for 2026 with a new mindset and respect for our opponents."

Edited December 4, 2023 by costarg

[InglewoodJack]

26 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

I'm not sure the coaching staff thinks this way and I don't think the players do either.

The current cycle ends in March if we crash out or in the summer at the end of the Copa America.

When a new cycle begins all can be re-evaluated.

I’m thinking that they’re going to claim that Borjan has South American experience and thus deserves to be our guy at Copa if we make it. Whether that’s the real reason or not, I don’t know, but it’s clear that our staff is motivated to keep Borjan as our starter, and if he’s not replaced now, I can’t see them deciding to replace him before the tournament where you can make an argument that his experience playing in front of the type of crowds we could face in South America will be valuable for us. He tries that ball juggling at minute 60 thing in Argentina, and maybe the home crowd starts pelting the pitch with garbage and it completely derails the match in a way that favours us, I dunno. 

I think the new cycle starts now actually. We have one do or die game with the outcome defining the next year or so of this national team. After Copa, whether we qualify or not, it’s already time to shift focus to 2026 and shaping the roster we’ll bring to the WC. I think changes need to happen now, or they won’t until it’s too late- until we miss Copa, until we flame out of the 2025 gold cup and find ourselves staring at an upcoming World Cup with a roster of players who haven’t meaningfully been tested since the 2022 World Cup. 

Maybe it’s doomerism, but I’m just waiting for some justification to not start updating our roster, and I think waiting will be an extremely consequential decision for the CANMNT.

[Shway]

@InglewoodJack

you keep repeating that Borjan has played in South America...but he hasn't. And to my recollection he's only played against a couple SA teams in North America.

Plus this tournament is played in the States...and Mexico brings a similar SA atmosphere to what would be allowed in the USA.

[InglewoodJack]

Just now, Shway said:

@InglewoodJack

you keep repeating that Borjan has played in South America...but he hasn't. And to my recollection he's only played against a couple SA teams in North America.

Plus this tournament is played in the States...and Mexico brings a similar SA atmosphere to what would be allowed in the USA.

Played for Nacional’s academy, trialed with Boca and River Plate, spent a year with Quilmes. It was 15 years ago, and not saying it’s meaningful, but I’m saying it might be enough for our staff to keep him as our starter because they clearly rate him higher than our other keepers, and that’s just something they can point to as a reason, just like how people point to his leadership qualities that would apparently disappear if he’s not our starter. 

[Bigandy]

Theres a very good chance we go with crepeau. Biello stated he didnt have time to implement anything new with the team so he went with experience. He also wants to hold a camp for younger bubble guys.  We could also see a new coach soon and we know that experience didnt work in the end vs jamaica. All of this tells me that the jamaica games were all about qualifying using experience.

I think we will see some transitions. 

- Oso has lost his starting spot and we've reverted to a 2 man midfield. 
- crepeau takes over for borjan
- vitoria sticks around until the end of the season but LDF/Cornelius fight it out for starting RCB. 
- Cav gets dropped.
- MAK fights with choiniere for a spot with choiniere taking it. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

3 hours ago, costarg said:

Well you can just call it like it is.  "Thanks for everything man, you're a freakin legend.  A Voyageur will one day pay $1,000,000 for your grey sweat pants at auction.  However, we're moving away from the ball juggling in the middle of the game, and coaches saying f-you to an entire nation before a game.  We're preparing for 2026 with a new mindset and respect for our opponents."

So as well as being a crappy team you propose we be crappy classless fans.

[costarg]

7 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

So as well as being a crappy team you propose we be crappy classless fans.

The opposite.  Classless is saying "f--- Croatia" and ball juggling in your box.  I propose we adopt a classier approach, sans trash talk, poking the bear and drama.  Just let our play do the talking.  

[Unnamed Trialist]

17 minutes ago, costarg said:

The opposite.  Classless is saying "f--- Croatia" and ball juggling in your box.  I propose we adopt a classier approach, sans trash talk, poking the bear and drama.  Just let our play do the talking.  

Why not just move on entirely from supporting Canada?

I love coming to a fan site to find the real diehards shitting on our legacies and ready to burn it all down.

I propose we respect our heroes and veterans, and do transitions accordingly. But maybe I'm asking for too much, considering we couldn't even do a proper send-off for Atiba.

[costarg]

37 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Why not just move on entirely from supporting Canada?

I love coming to a fan site to find the real diehards shitting on our legacies and ready to burn it all down.

I propose we respect our heroes and veterans, and do transitions accordingly. But maybe I'm asking for too much, considering we couldn't even do a proper send-off for Atiba.

That's extreme man.  What kind of transition do you propose for Borjan exactly?  We can appreciate the great things Borjan did, and also transition to a younger and better keeper without "burning anything down".  All teams do this, I'm not calling for a revolution.  It's just pro sports.  

Borjan just isn't as good as he once was, and if we're being honest and real, he was always good for at least one major brain fart per match, if not more.  We can all go back 4 years and dig up posts about dropping Borjan cause of his blunders.  We have keepers that can step in and make the saves as well as avoiding the antics that turned the game around vs Jamaica.

Just like the ship of Theseus, CANMNT remains.  Holding on to all the nuts and bolts is weighing us down and affecting our performance.

But honestly, just curious here and trying to understand your angle, do you feel Borjan is a better keeper than Crepeau today?  Or is it about his experience, or do you feel he has something that raises the level of the guys around him?  I honestly don't see what he is bringing to CANMNT at the moment outside of warm and fuzzy memories. 

Also, what is this "legacy" you're talking about it, is it the squad that got us first in WCQ or the accomplishment itself?  I talked about getting rid of the disrespectful antics and you're making it sound like the "f Croatia" and ball juggling are some great Canadian moments part of the legacy.  There is nothing Canadian about those two incidents, and they're both incredibly embarrassing.  I was asking some minor questions of Herdman just before that incident, I completely moved on from him the moment he uttered those words.

Edited December 4, 2023 by costarg

[RS]

Herdman didn't say "fuck Croatia."

He said: "We're gonna fuck Croatia," which is a stupid public statement to make in its own right but a completely different context. 

I've no idea what it has to do with Borjan or Crepeau, though.

[Bigandy]

42 minutes ago, costarg said:

That's extreme man.  What kind of transition do you propose for Borjan exactly?  We can appreciate the great things Borjan did, and also transition to a younger and better keeper without "burning anything down".  All teams do this, I'm not calling for a revolution.  It's just pro sports.  

Borjan just isn't as good as he once was, and if we're being honest and real, he was always good for at least one major brain fart per match, if not more.  We can all go back 4 years and dig up posts about dropping Borjan cause of his blunders.  We have keepers that can step in and make the saves as well as avoiding the antics that turned the game around vs Jamaica.

Just like the ship of Theseus, CANMNT remains.  Holding on to all the nuts and bolts is weighing us down and affecting our performance.

But honestly, just curious here and trying to understand your angle, do you feel Borjan is a better keeper than Crepeau today?  Or is it about his experience, or do you feel he has something that raises the level of the guys around him?  I honestly don't see what he is bringing to CANMNT at the moment outside of warm and fuzzy memories. 

Also, what is this "legacy" you're talking about it, is it the squad that got us first in WCQ or the accomplishment itself?  I talked about getting rid of the disrespectful antics and you're making it sound like the "f Croatia" and ball juggling are some great Canadian moments part of the legacy.  There is nothing Canadian about those two incidents, and they're both incredibly embarrassing.  I was asking some minor questions of Herdman just before that incident, I completely moved on from him the moment he uttered those words.

Borjans antics didnt turn the game around. It was clearly that jamaica had no midfield in the first half. They brought on lowe and he put in a destroyers performance. Did staq lose the ball to an unexpectedly aggressive slide from lowe because of borjans juggle? no. 

It was a very clear tactical change from jamaica and we had no response. 

UT isnt defending the ball juggling.... Its not even on his radar, as it shouldnt be on yours. There is sooooo many other factors that are vastly more important than 2 small kick ups...... The fact that youre obsessed with his juggling screams bias or a lack of soccer knowledge where you genuinely think 2 keep ups is or isnt the reason to start or drop a gk. You make some great points on here so I can only assume its your bias talking.  Simmer down with the bias and get some objectivity so you can do a proper analysis and the rest of the board will appreciate your insights way more. But the bias is getting old. 

[costarg]

4 hours ago, RS said:

I've no idea what it has to do with Borjan or Crepeau, though.

Read:  Another example of what we want to move away from.  Canada is better than that.

 

[costarg]

4 hours ago, Bigandy said:

Borjans antics didnt turn the game around. It was clearly that jamaica had no midfield in the first half. They brought on lowe and he put in a destroyers performance. Did staq lose the ball to an unexpectedly aggressive slide from lowe because of borjans juggle? no. 

It was a very clear tactical change from jamaica and we had no response. 

UT isnt defending the ball juggling.... Its not even on his radar, as it shouldnt be on yours. There is sooooo many other factors that are vastly more important than 2 small kick ups...... The fact that youre obsessed with his juggling screams bias or a lack of soccer knowledge where you genuinely think 2 keep ups is or isnt the reason to start or drop a gk. You make some great points on here so I can only assume its your bias talking.  Simmer down with the bias and get some objectivity so you can do a proper analysis and the rest of the board will appreciate your insights way more. But the bias is getting old. 

Come on, the juggling was all over the media, pod casts, supporters sites, etc.... It was moronic and totally poked the bear.  Claiming it didn't wake something up in Jamaica is being a little naive, but I digress.  

But OK, if you don't want to hear about the juggling, there is also the brain farts that go back years, as well as the lack of saves which is also all over this board.  Yet, most of all, the reason we're on this thread, a certain Maxime Crepeau who is playing great at a solid level, who was also a big part of the winning WCQ.

[Watchmen]

I don't think the ball juggling "woke" anything in Jamaica. They'd already started to press more, and the goal that came immediate afterwards gave the confidence to keep pressuring, that they were back in it.

Rather, I think the ball juggling was symptomatic of Canada's problem - patting themselves on the back for a job well done, when the job wasn't done and taking their foot off the gas.

[YorkRegionFan]

We have to pick the goalkeeper that gives us the best chance to win.  Andre Blake kept Jamaica in the game in the first half, making some amazing saves, setting themselves up for the comeback.  Milan Borjan has done the basic saves, but none of those amazing saves that he done during the WCQ run.  Father Time has caught up with Borjan.  For a CMNT manager, he has to pick the player that will help come up with not just the standard saves, but those game saving ones. 

[Bigandy]

13 hours ago, costarg said:

Come on, the juggling was all over the media, pod casts, supporters sites, etc.... It was moronic and totally poked the bear.  Claiming it didn't wake something up in Jamaica is being a little naive, but I digress.  

But OK, if you don't want to hear about the juggling, there is also the brain farts that go back years, as well as the lack of saves which is also all over this board.  Yet, most of all, the reason we're on this thread, a certain Maxime Crepeau who is playing great at a solid level, who was also a big part of the winning WCQ.

Youre trying to manipulate my argument. I want crepeau over borjan but none of his brain farts etc has anything to do with the topic we are talking about - did juggling shift the game. 

I am only talking about how silly it is to suggest that juggling the ball changed the game more than a very tactical decision. In the first half jamaicas midfield was non existent. In the second half, their midfield won the game. 
Do you think their midfield dominance shift was"
1. Putting a cb in midfield - the same cb who forced the staq turnover 
or 
2. borjan juggled the ball and all of the sudden our midfields gone and their midfield dominates.... also lets keep in mind their midfield was already starting to dominate us before the juggling.

This is some high level soccer with high level stakes. It's so obvious that the shift in the game was tactical. 
As a fan, its pretty naive to focus on the juggling and become sooooo aggressively intense about it that you want to make line up decisions around it. If you were on the coaching staff, you may tell borjan to cut it out, but I desperately hope biello is watching game footage of the lowe substitution and our lack of reaction to the tactical shift, rather than the juggling. 

If we want to hang with the big dogs, we need to focus on learning from our tactical failing during the jamaica game. NOT some silly little antics. If we play against argentina would we want our half time speech to be - NO ONE JUGGLE. Or would we want it to be, " theyve brought on a pressing cm, we need to bypass the midfield, have david drop deeper, cb need to provide better angles, etc etc" 

Id love to hear if you genuinely think the most important part of the half time speech is the juggling OR tactical changes....... What do you think?

[Unnamed Trialist]

19 hours ago, Bigandy said:

Borjans antics didnt turn the game around. It was clearly that jamaica had no midfield in the first half. They brought on lowe and he put in a destroyers performance. Did staq lose the ball to an unexpectedly aggressive slide from lowe because of borjans juggle? no. 

It was a very clear tactical change from jamaica and we had no response. 

UT isnt defending the ball juggling.... Its not even on his radar, as it shouldnt be on yours. There is sooooo many other factors that are vastly more important than 2 small kick ups...... The fact that youre obsessed with his juggling screams bias or a lack of soccer knowledge where you genuinely think 2 keep ups is or isnt the reason to start or drop a gk. You make some great points on here so I can only assume its your bias talking.  Simmer down with the bias and get some objectivity so you can do a proper analysis and the rest of the board will appreciate your insights way more. But the bias is getting old. 

The whole obsessing over Borjan playing keep up is the old, rancid Canadian mentality that we can't be fun, and we can't dominate in a cocky way, and we can't have frills.

I took it as him trying to assert authority, it was a way of dominating the rival psychologically. And then not Borjan, but a talented mid, coughed up the ball stupidly. And then another did something similar. Borjan played out cleanly.

This mentality also assumes that playing no-frills puritanical football with no adornments or curly-cues, we actually accomplished a lot as a national team over the years. That being serious and hard knocks and even ugly, we expressed our true character while winning. Which we didn't. Well, just once.

In fact, almost all we have are these guys who've tried like hell, made sacrifices in their careers, travelled tens of thousands of kilometers, and most have in common that they accomplished little to nothing, excepting the Gold Cup crew. That is it. It is not a club team, where you can sign and not sign and remake the squad at will in function of how deep your pockets are. So I think one of the few things we have is legacy, honour, respect, and us fans supporting through the thick and thin. I hate the idea that a player who shows up gets forgotten, and worse, pushed under the rug, and the attitude is cavalier. If Borjan has to stop being the starter, then it is a discussion that can take place, and he can decide how he feels about it (he would likely retire rather quickly if he weren't starting, also because of his age). But not in humiliation or blaming mode. 

Now I am as critical as the most critical here about the play, about lining up wrong, about playing style, about player selection at times. But I am the same with my club team, whether Whitecaps or Barça (who played well in the midfield for the first time in years last weekend, halleluya!). So I can be pissed as hell about results, to the point of disgust, which I guess is what @costarg is expressing, most of us agree with him. But the Wheeler line, which is asinine, or that Jordan Wilson guy who I normally like, about the way you are supposed to play, how you can't put sparkles on the ice cream and and men don't wear aftershave, and if you get a pedicure you're a loser, is so backwater it's not funny. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Unnamed Trialist

[Obinna]

11 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

The whole obsessing over Borjan playing keep up is the old, rancid Canadian mentality that we can't be fun, and we can't dominate in a cocky way, and we can't have frills.

I took it as him trying to assert authority, it was a way of dominating the rival psychologically. And then not Borjan, but a talented mid, coughed up the ball stupidly. And then another did something similar. Borjan played out cleanly.

This mentality also assumes that playing no-frills puritanical football with no adornments or curly-cues, we actually accomplished a lot as a national team over the years. That being serious and hard knocks and even ugly, we expressed our true character while winning. Which we didn't. Well, just once.

In fact, almost all we have are these guys who've tried like hell, made sacrifices in their careers, travelled tens of thousands of kilometers, and most have in common that they accomplished little to nothing, excepting the Gold Cup crew. That is it. It is not a club team, where you can sign and not sign and remake the squad at will in function of how deep your pockets are. So I think one of the few things we have is legacy, honour, respect, and us fans supporting through the thick and thin. I hate the idea that a player who shows up gets forgotten, and worse, pushed under the rug, and the attitude is cavalier. If Borjan has to stop being the starter, then it is a discussion that can take place, and he can decide how he feels about it (he would likely retire rather quickly if he weren't starting, also because of his age). But not in humiliation or blaming mode. 

Now I am as critical as the most critical here about the play, about lining up wrong, about playing style, about player selection at times. But I am the same with my club team, whether Whitecaps or Barça (who played well in the midfield for the first time in years last weekend, halleluya!). So I can be pissed as hell about results, to the point of disgust, which I guess is what @costarg is expressing, most of us agree with him. But the Wheeler line, which is asinine, or that Jordan Wilson guy who I normally like, about the way you are supposed to play, how you can't put sparkles on the ice cream and and men don't wear aftershave, and if you get a pedicure you're a loser, is so backwater it's not funny. 

I think you are on to something here.

Had we gone on to cruise to the victory, nobody would care about Milan juggling the ball. It's the same mentality as the paneka - people only care when you miss.

I am all for us asserting a psychological edge, but how and when we did it was naive and arrogant and backfired, just like at the World Cup. That's the ugly side of the coin here. 

Do we just chalk it all up to coincidence that Borjan was juggling the ball right before we played that pass into a risky area where Eustaquio was stripped by what seemed to be a very good and fair tackle? Which then led to Shamar Nicholson smashing the ball into the net with confidence? Want to talk about a psychological edge? Nicholson absolutely rammed it down our throats and completely shifted the tide. It wasn't a goal mouth scamble or a fluke goal, he smashed with authority past Borjan, the same Borjan that was playing mind games just seconds before.

And by the way, I don't pin the whole sequence on Borjan. I blame the whole team. It was the team as a whole trying to assert a psychological edge by trying to play Jamaica off the park, rather than just playing to maintain the result. Borjan's juggling was keeping in line with that general theme. That's how I saw things. We need to get more mature.

We could have controlled the game by just keeping the ball for the last 45 minutes - otherwise known as game management - otherwise known as asserting a psychologicl edge. 

[Cicero]

50 minutes ago, Obinna said:

what seemed to be a very good and fair tackle?

This has probably been litigated elsewhere, but I'd say this play is called a foul 7 or 8 times out of ten. It was definitely a judgment call, I'd say it probably shouldn't be a foul, but with the contact and coming from behind, it would very often be called a foul. But kind of irrelevant given that Eustaquio knew he was there and chose to expose the ball after hanging onto it for too long. Though I don't love showboating, Borjan's antics had really nothing to do with it, just a bad decision not to go right back to Johnston. It's a game where who has more mental lapses often decides the outcome. That's part of what separates the good from the great. But I'd agree that Borjan hasn't been up to the standard he was at in qualifying, why not give the hot keeper, and the likely future mainstay, a chance. 

[Bigandy]

56 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I think you are on to something here.

Had we gone on to cruise to the victory, nobody would care about Milan juggling the ball. It's the same mentality as the paneka - people only care when you miss.

I am all for us asserting a psychological edge, but how and when we did it was naive and arrogant and backfired, just like at the World Cup. That's the ugly side of the coin here. 

Do we just chalk it all up to coincidence that Borjan was juggling the ball right before we played that pass into a risky area where Eustaquio was stripped by what seemed to be a very good and fair tackle? Which then led to Shamar Nicholson smashing the ball into the net with confidence? Want to talk about a psychological edge? Nicholson absolutely rammed it down our throats and completely shifted the tide. It wasn't a goal mouth scamble or a fluke goal, he smashed with authority past Borjan, the same Borjan that was playing mind games just seconds before.

And by the way, I don't pin the whole sequence on Borjan. I blame the whole team. It was the team as a whole trying to assert a psychological edge by trying to play Jamaica off the park, rather than just playing to maintain the result. Borjan's juggling was keeping in line with that general theme. That's how I saw things. We need to get more mature.

We could have controlled the game by just keeping the ball for the last 45 minutes - otherwise known as game management - otherwise known as asserting a psychologicl edge. 

Its not coincidence. Its methodical and tactically saavy with a sprinkle of talent. lowe is a CB who was put into midfield with one purpose. Destroy. His tackle on staq is quite remarkable. No coincidence there. 

Nicholson is a 6'4" monster striker in ligue 1. Phenomenal player.... The strike was class. It would be foolish to say that a player of his quality doesnt score that goal if borjan didnt juggle. 

Also, we couldnt control the game by keeping the ball because we lost the midfield. staq and kone tried to keep the ball but we lost it and got punished. Game management requires adapting to the game and we required a tactical shift not a psychological edge.