goleafs67

Seems yellows do NOT carry over into the Octo, despite it not being mentioned anywhere in the regs
 
 

I'm just posting in here so everyone knows how important I think this tournament is.

Sometimes a picture says a 1000's words. Don't forget the other one 5 mins later when Larin got mauled and thus couldn't get the shot off because he was being pulled back. 
I hate complaining and yes time to move one, but these screen grab pics from my TV are wild, both clearly in the 18. 
 

After watching that goal during the cooling break I'm gonna have to hang it on Fraser, that fly by at the top of the box was childish. Piette had to come over to try to clean it up and got a tough bounce, laryea came across to try to fill in, and the back 3 got a bit scrambled trying to cover, hence the wide open man on the wing.
If Fraser doesn't run past his man like a child everyone is covered and we're still in good shape.

You haven't watched us a lot right???

I wish you guys could watch this game on Paramount Plus. You'd all be begging for Wheels. Apparently Kylo Ren scored our first goal.

Just checked and the replay is available on Paramount+ now. So ~3 hrs after the end.

He had every right to be furious at Alaba after that third goal. He was WIDE OPEN down the left and instead Alaba played a hopeful ball into the box which lead to the counterattack and goal. 

Guys, it is fun to spell this out. There was a very big game today. Mbappe, Neymar, di Maria, and David all entered the field. Only one of those players left with a goal, and got the 3 points for the win to boot. That's Canada's 2nd best player against Brazil and France's best players, and an important player for Argentina. That's what happened today.

If you think David’s current strike rate with Lille is disappointing, then you must be down right embarrassed by the strike rate of literally any current American in a top 5 league 😬 the striker who tops your depth chart, Sargent, has 11 goals in 61 games 😬

Well he walked off on his own steam, so hopefully he will be fit again by next weekend. What that guy did to him was far worse than what Davies was given a red & another two game suspension for, and this guy gets off with just a yellow.

The fact that we’re playing WCQ games while Honduras, USA, and Mexico are playing friendlies makes it harder for us as well. They don’t need to worry about sending their best to the MNT and the B team to U23 like we do.

After sleeping in it and thinking about the result(s) I have to agree that some of the knee-jerk disappointment of not finishing first is probably unjustified.  We finished the group stage undefeated (1 win, 2 draws) and only missed out on topping the group by a single goal on goal differential - and Honduras had a ridiculously unfair advantage in that metric.  We managed all of that without a ton of guys that would normally be in our first 11.  We are now one game (albeit a very difficult one) away from qualifying for the Olympics.  
 
We may be ramping up our national teams expectations these days but objectively we have done pretty damn well so far at this tournament.  Win or lose on Sunday, the lads have nothing to be ashamed of.  

Richard Hastings needs to do a Zoom motivational talk before the match!🏆

How many in-season outfield players do we have? 3? Brym, Dias and Godinho? Most of our players are from MLS, USL and CanPL.
On the Dias front, I think he's getting integrated into the squad at an appropriate pace.  The team had 1 or 2 days of prep and the qualifiers started March 19th.  He's been with the Canadian program less than 10 days.  You can't construct a team to qualify by building an offense around him in that time IMO.  I just don't think that's realistic while trying to make it out of the group.  It's too short a window and many of these players have been with Canada for years.
We're in the semi-finals.  Biello did the job.  We have to go through Mexico or USA in every cycle.  The players played really well in CONCACAF against a main CONCACAF in-season rival.  We have players like Norman playing a new position and doing really well.  The team didn't fold under extreme pressure from Honduras and that alone is an accomplishment in climate that better suits almost every team we play with CONCACAF referees.
My only complaint about this side is this risky build from the back to absorb the press.  I'm not sure we can do that with Mexico.  Pantemis gets caught way too many times.  I'm also concerned about Cornelius' health.
There are a lot of positives.  Chin up fellas.

Something to consider is we didn't know about the availabilty of some of our top players until the last minute and we didn't know how strong a team Bermuda would field, there was some genuine concern if we didn't have Davies, Larin, David and Hoilett that this match could have been tricky if Bermuda were full strength! 

I think the biggest problem besides limited quality was match fitness, from late on in the first match we just weren't the same team, as others have mentioned missing the TFC players was huge, Fraser was clearly needed to anchor the midfield, Bair and Bryn were very disappointing and some may not agree but I thought Buchanan really faded once teams paid more attention to him! Dias looks promising but I'm not sure he was going to turn this tournament around for us, he is not without his flaws but he is till very young and I would have liked to see a bit more of him, maybe Sunday! This semi final will not be pretty and will bring out the pessimists that say we suck in soccer, thankfully the WC team has lots of our promising youth on it!

Glass half full vs. Glass half empty! Love it!

Lille can’t build an attack against a bunkering team to save their lives. I think David will enjoy his time with Canada, he will be reminded what it’s like to play for a team where someone other than him can play the occasional intelligent pass. 

Wait a minute, that's not how advantage works.  You don't give them a chance to finish the play and then give them a second chance because they're garbage.

So ref let’s them take a really high quality shot and then calls it back for advantage?