Canada vs Japan - Thursday, November 17th - 8:40am EST / 5:40am Pacific - Al Maktoum Stadium, Dubai, The United Arab Emirates

[The Beaver 2.0]

Just now, Corazon said:

 

Jesus guys, so defensive.  I just responded to a poster who compared our performance against Japan versus USA's performance vs Japan.  I was just stating that they were different Japanese teams. 

Would we want people to compare our performance against Bahrain to this one?  They were missing their starting teo center backs.  Imagine us without Vitoria and Johnston.

I regret making the comment at this point.🤣

Not defensive at all. I think you made a good point but...we were the better side for the final 25 minutes of this match, and won the game, with our subs. Kone, Kaye, Laryea, and then Cava with the winning goal. 

[ShaneC06]

The Americans couldn't even muster a shit against Japan .... LFG!!! I can't wait for next week! 

[footballfreak]

I was disappointed not to see Vitoria take the penalty. He’s statistically our best penalty taker and Herdman has never used him.

[Pottsy3]

I liked that we could hear John Herdman yelling at the boys to hold a high line late in the match.

 

Regardless of context, winning will insprie a lot more confidence for the boys than the match having ended 1-1.

[Hawkguy]

12 minutes ago, vancanman said:

Depending on ones opinion, we're also missing our two most important players.

Definitely our most important. 

Eustaquio. 

There's no doubt Davies and David are our best players and highest ranked players. And for good reason. But we have 30 million forwards who are capable of looking solid. We are significantly weaker from CDM and back. 

Eustaquio is our lifeline. 

[Lansdude]

Feel really good about this one, obviously the win, but especially a lot of individual performances. However, what would we be saying if Kamada scored and we didn't win the pen? Would we be rueing the two mistakes that cost the match and prognosticating doom?

[InglewoodJack]

12 minutes ago, Corazon said:

I think everyone on here knows that though.  Many on here don't know that Japan was missing half their team.  So to compare our performance against Japan versus USA's performance vs Japan is not the same.  We were missing half our lineup vs Bahrain and look at the drop in quality of our play.

Were the US missing (or do they even have in their pool) two players like Davies and Eustaquio? Hearing a lot about who Japan was missing, but we had two very big holes in our lineup too.

That's not to sound defensive- but we even with their absences, Japan is probably the best team we've beaten since the start of qualifiers, when you factor in the fact that we didn't have a frozen pitch at our advantage, and we were also missing two big names.

[imoffside]

1 minute ago, ShaneC06 said:

The Americans couldn't even muster a shit against Japan .... LFG!!! I can't wait for next week! 

We got the fiber 😎

[vancanman]

1 minute ago, ShaneC06 said:

The Americans couldn't even muster a shit against Japan .... LFG!!! I can't wait for next week! 

Japan made the Yanks constipated?

[toontownman]

Just now, Hawkguy said:

Definitely our most important. 

Eustaquio. 

There's no doubt Davies and David are our best players and highest ranked players. And for good reason. But we have 30 million forwards who are capable of looking solid. We are significantly weaker from CDM and back. 

Eustaquio is our lifeline. 

^^^

This.

I have been much more impressed with Piette the last year or so but Eustaquio is a completely different league. With him and Hutch together I think that backing will be much stronger.

[PastPros]

51 minutes ago, vancanman said:

Does Johnston have unusually large hands, or are they playing with a size 4 ball?

I thought the same!

[vancanman]

2 minutes ago, Lansdude said:

Feel really good about this one, obviously the win, but especially a lot of individual performances. However, what would we be saying if Kamada scored and we didn't win the pen? Would we be rueing the two mistakes that cost the match and prognosticating doom?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

[InglewoodJack]

3 minutes ago, Lansdude said:

Feel really good about this one, obviously the win, but especially a lot of individual performances. However, what would we be saying if Kamada scored and we didn't win the pen? Would we be rueing the two mistakes that cost the match and prognosticating doom?

Had we lost a game instead of winning it, I personally would not be as happy, that's true.

[vancanman]

2 minutes ago, toontownman said:

^^^

This.

I have been much more impressed with Piette the last year or so but Eustaquio is a completely different league. With him and Hutch together I think that backing will be much stronger.

Before the game, the Japanese commentary made more of a point about Eustaquio not playing than Davies.

[InglewoodJack]

Also, who wore captain's armband after Atiba? I saw him hand it to Kone when he went off, but didn't notice who had it on.

[Sal333]

Just now, InglewoodJack said:

Also, who wore captain's armband after Atiba? I saw him hand it to Kone when he went off, but didn't notice who had it on.

I think it was Mr Sweatpants

[Cicero]

One other factor that plays to our advantage compared to the US is that everyone wants to beat the US at everything, so Japan would have been up for that game. Regardless of what they say, Belgium and Croatia will not be as hyped to play us as they will be against each other, and to a lesser extent Morocco. We just have to frustrate them early.

[The Beaver 2.0]

Kone had a couple of errors, but otherwise looked good. Very composed. He needs to add some long distance shooting to his repetoire, but mostly he needs to focus on neater possession and no cheap giveaways. But he's gonna be a beast, and soon.

[Bison44]

6 minutes ago, footballfreak said:

I was disappointed not to see Vitoria take the penalty. He’s statistically our best penalty taker and Herdman has never used him.

Did you notice on the replays, when Lareya won the penalty Vitoria was in the foreground sucking air, bent over with his hands on his knees at midfield.  He was probably too gassed......

[InglewoodJack]

Just now, Sal333 said:

I think it was Mr Sweatpants

As it should be 

[PastPros]

I believe Herdman was yelling for David to take the penalty. When they were setting up, he was clearly screaming "Johnny! Johnny!"

Which is why Pantemis, Atiba and Johnston were teasing him after it went in.

[Sal333]

1 minute ago, Bison44 said:

Did you notice on the replays, when Lareya won the penalty Vitoria was in the foreground sucking air, bent over with his hands on his knees at midfield.  He was probably too gassed......

He always looks that way.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Sal333

[Watchmen]

18 minutes ago, VinceA said:

People saying Cava shouldn't take pens when he just scored lmao.

 

It's only bad if it doesn't work.

He missed quite a few for Vancouver. 

[Corazon]

Very strong performance from our boys today and a great way to head into the World Cup.  On top of the great team performance, there were many very good individual performances as well.

Borjan - Didn't have to do too much but he looked confident on the ball.  I was a lot more assured when he had the ball at his feet than St Clair but the pitch today also helped that.

Vitoria - I thought he was fantastic today, but he did look tired for the final 20 minutes which worries me because we're going to need him every game.

Johnston - Fantastic performance.  Leaves me a lot more confident going to Qatar after his previous couple friendlies for us.

Miller - Obviously struggled at times today and is likely our weakest link in our lineup but he has come up big for us in the past 18 months, so I am hopeful he's up for the challenge.

Adekugbe - I thought he had a bit of a slow start with some missed passes but continued to grow into the game to have a solid performance.

Hoilett - Man of the match.  Great skills and great set pieces.  Incredible performance.  Enough said.

Buchanan - Looked very dangerous and caused Japan all sorts of problems.  Wish he could be a bit more lethal in front of goal.

Hutchinson - Felt like he rewound the clocks today.  Doesn't look like a player that has played once this season before today.  Very positive performance.

Piette - Struggled at times on the ball.  I think his role with Canada is to close up games and that's about it.

Larin - Not really involved in the play much in the first half.  Love that he's done so well for us over the years, but I'd rather see us utilize a 3-man midfield in Qatar, especially against teams like Belgium and Croatia.

David - Thought he was fantastic today.  Great work rate off the ball and clever skills.  Unfortunately, never got too many good chances in front of goal.  Having players like Davies and Eustaquio will definitely help us get better scoring chances.

Kone - At this point, I think he's done enough to warrant starting in these games over Piette.  Still has the occasional mental lapses like his pass out of bounds for a corner and being caught on the play where Vitoria should have been carded.  But too good not to play.

Laryea - A performance of the old Laryea.  Was excellent for the entire 30 minutes and caused problems for Japan.  Gotta be happy with him coming off the bench and creating havoc like he did today.

Osorio - A good performance but nothing spectacular.  His tight passing in small spaces is something that we lack in the midfield and he's one of the only ones that can do it.

Kaye - Very, very strong performance.  I know he's been quite poor lately but late in a game, I would use him as a sub for a midfield replacement.

Waterman - Looked much more composed out there today.  Happy he was able to get in and build confidence.  We are an injury/suspension or two away from needing him.

Cavallini - I've been on Cavallini for recent performances but today I thought he was quite good.  Made some great runs.  He doesn't have a great penalty record and I wouldn't be giving him penalty duties in Qatar (at least not with David and Vitoria on the field).  But I'm happy for him, nonetheless.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Corazon

[InglewoodJack]

2 minutes ago, PastPros said:

I believe Herdman was yelling for David to take the penalty. When they were setting up, he was clearly screaming "Johnny! Johnny!"

Which is why Pantemis, Atiba and Johnston were teasing him after it went in.

I could’ve sworn that’s what he was saying, which is why I was even more surprised that Cavallini took it. Imagine you piss away a win on some psycho trick shot that your coach didn’t even want you to take? He would’ve walked home.