ensco

Surprised nobody has asked the “elephant in the room” question yet, which is: Did we do this at Copa?

It is amusing to think that Canada's success was perhaps a major factor in getting both the US and Mexican managers canned. It is one thing to fail. But quite another to fail while the runt of the litter is having success…

^I don’t think Shaffelburg belongs on a best XI list as, much as it pains me to say it, he was absolutely awful in the Argentina semifinal (which I just rewatched last night). It was painful to rewatch…. as we actually played really well generally in that game, and the refereeing was a major factor, it was truly, horribly one sided. But both Larin and Shaffelburg had poor first touches pretty much every time, and just generally sprayed the ball all over the place.

^I remember those posts. I really hadn't seen enough of Kemal in the last year in league play to have an opinion. But I sure remember what he did in qualifying... It says something that Jesse went to LdF last night instead of Miller. I hope Miller stays with it and works to get back into the mix.

These eight games were shock and awe with respect to Marsch. Stunning. Marsch's man management generally seems incredible. He has an innate sense for when to rotate and when not to. Example - he stuck 100% with Bombito, who was good but not perfect, while rotating Kone, who was good but not perfect - until Uruguay, when he was perfect. Marsch turned the backline over without hesitation. Who among us would have selected Cornelius and Bombito, and stuck with it? Kemal Miller has has numerous big games for Canada and is in his prime- sitting that player took cojones. Marsch was also able to get Davies to play with more discipline and within a system. This is all before even talking about has roster moves last night, which were simply breathtaking. He schooled a master, Bielsa, there. Marsch has gravitas. He dominates the room in everything he does and says. His body language in game is perfect. He carries himself differently and you can see it. I am a Herdman fan, and Herdman has some of this too, but for Herdman, it's more that he is a good person. It is on a different level with Jesse. This is a top flight, properly trained, professional manager. The rap on Marsch was that he was a creation of the gegenpress machine - yet how much did formation matter? It seems like we played simple hard nose soccer in a 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1, and just executed. This was far from what he was “supposed” to do. If I had a criticism, it is that his subs were late several times, given the heat. But that is the only thing I can think of.

Stunned at how right Marsch got the team selection, in retrospect. He gave us our best chance to win and got some important young guys incredible exposure against an elite team. Take a bow, Jesse.

I hope Uruguay bring their A game, with A players, with max intensity. I don’t want too much squad rotation, I think you guys are expecting more than will actually happen. We get so few opportunities to see what these types of elite teams bring when they turn it on. We need to learn how to handle that. Mexico spent something like 50 years trying to get there- and couldn’t. It is very hard - and live fire training drills are incredibly few and far between.

Umm, Neil, no one is all that interested in Canada Soccer's view of what Marsch is thinking. How about not substituting a meaningless quote and just saying what the facts are - that you have asked Marsch for his views but he hasn't responded yet (or whatever the current truth is)?

He teased interest by tweeting out on July 4 a "Happy Independence Day" message to the US, for seemingly no obvious reason....

There are 1.9 million Americans of Brazilian descent, 1.4 million Americans of Colombian descent, 800,000 of Venezuelan descent, 300,000 of Argentinian descent … and approx 50K of Uruguayan descent. Uruguay-Canada is kind of a disaster for the moneymen. The stadium will be empty.

Every Uruguay game is a rock fight.

I think the stats totally flatter us. That isn’t what happened. This is a great example of the problem with xG. No way was our xG yesterday higher than it was in the first game, but our xG in that earlier game was 1.17

I thought he was the wing, with Phonzie behind him… but not sure about my memory, I was there and probably had heatstroke!

Richie has played a lot of LB, and done it for Canada… Marsch never went there, part of the answer to the question why not, is the emergence of Shaff and the Buchanan injury… but he could try it when Tajon is back

So my big sum up is: We played very well. Maybe not our best, because we couldn’t score, but that was a function of the caliber of competition. I also feel like we were pretty lucky to be here. The reds in the Peru and Chile games were “lucky” breaks - in that non-Conmebol teams have mostly not gotten these calls. But the summary is not only that we got some luck -we took advantage of it (no small thing!) I also feel damn proud that Argentina never embarrassed us, and getting to play them twice was an honour. The hard part, the reason this is sticking in my throat a bit, and I feel regret, is: it might be many years before we get another shot like this, a chance to beat a top team for the highest stakes. We may not be back at this particular poker table for a long time. We all know that, while we didn’t “deserve” to win tonight, we actually, maybe, could have, if we had just done a little bit more, gotten that early goal on one of the Shaff counters, just gotten a couple of breaks generally…