cornerkick

In terms of alternates... would Qatar be a possible team?  They are ranked 51, competed in the Gold Cup last year, and from the looks of it, are available until the the WC (?)
 
https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/fixtures/_/id/4398/qat

In terms of alternates... would Qatar be a possible team?  They are ranked 51, competed in the Gold Cup last year, and from the looks of it, are available until the the WC (?)
 
https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/fixtures/_/id/4398/qat

Or geopolitical analysts

Scott Arfield. 

Re: All the politicians...
Guys its simple, these politicians did not give a flying fuck and 95% of them probably haven't watched a Canada Soccer game. Trudeau was put on the spot with that initial interview comment and took the easy way out. For everyone else from every party or municipality, they saw the public backlash and jumped in to collect their easy brownie points and free votes from the public for re-election
Once the cat was out of the bag, there was no stopping the firestorm

There are many alternatives to playing Iran. Even at this late date. 
For example, there are some nations without friendlies this window who could still be free. 
There are also clubs. MLS, Liga MX, you could even canvas club teams in South America as the FIFA break means they don't have league matches. 
You could invite Vissel Kobe, owned by the Rakuten CEO, with Iniesta (and Bojan). And even though it is a weaker J-League team fans would feel it was a good trade-off. They have a cup match on the 1st then are off until the 18th.
You could invite a Ukraine club team and they'd play their guts out. I see Dinamo Kiev has played friendlies in the past weeks vs. Dortmund, Zagreb and Basel. A very good team even with the young players, talented and competitive. As their league is cancelled they'd be free. 
The fact that they just cancel without an alternative, and without being minimally creative, makes the decision even more incompetent. 

Bustos has the solution 
 

While I was keen to see us play a hard rival, it is clear the lack of alternatives and the extreme slowness in making this friendly deal is fully the responsibility of the CSA and its president Nick Bontis. 
As there were teams available for friendlies up to very recently, and there may still be, this announcement is doubly incompetent, as it provides no alternative to fans and ticket holders. If you are going to give bad news, couple it with good news. They are not even competent enough to do that. 
Even a match vs a team from MLS, or LigaMX, would be better than nothing and most likely the majority of fans would still be pleased to see the national team players. 
I have never been less critical of the CSA as in the past year, since they made the right decisions both to get us success with the women in the Olympics, and qualify the men.
However, this error should have a cost within the organisation, as it discredits the programme, weakens the position of the National Team in prepping for the World Cup, sends a negative message about our volatility to the world of soccer and helps undermine the positive wave the team has been riding for the past months. It also sends a clear message to John Herdman that Canada Soccer is not a reliable employer going forward. 
Probably Nick Bontis should resign.

i saw that tweet, and while i believe there is a strong brotherhood, i also have never seen that reporter do coverage of the CanMNT.  Why would players suddenly go to him, of all people, to disclose a refusal to play the match?  
The game was sold out, or close to sold out.  Yes, there would likely be protests, but as someone pointed out, the Iranian diaspora has differing opinions on the current gov't (like any other group of people and their home nation).  My guess is support for the match would be much higher than dissent for it..

I’m going to say something critical. 
 
coming here and reading a bunch of hot takes on politics, the CSA, and Trudeau is an absolute snooze fest. I could get this shit for free on Twitter. 
I want to hear wild speculation about replacement games.

The CSA did something nobody thought possible..
It brought all of our political parties together on an issue. 

Geez I was thinking the same thing, funny.
Tell them it's Whistler and take them to Grouse. 

i saw that tweet, and while i believe there is a strong brotherhood, i also have never seen that reporter do coverage of the CanMNT.  Why would players suddenly go to him, of all people, to disclose a refusal to play the match?  
The game was sold out, or close to sold out.  Yes, there would likely be protests, but as someone pointed out, the Iranian diaspora has differing opinions on the current gov't (like any other group of people and their home nation).  My guess is support for the match would be much higher than dissent for it..

i saw that tweet, and while i believe there is a strong brotherhood, i also have never seen that reporter do coverage of the CanMNT.  Why would players suddenly go to him, of all people, to disclose a refusal to play the match?  
The game was sold out, or close to sold out.  Yes, there would likely be protests, but as someone pointed out, the Iranian diaspora has differing opinions on the current gov't (like any other group of people and their home nation).  My guess is support for the match would be much higher than dissent for it..

i saw that tweet, and while i believe there is a strong brotherhood, i also have never seen that reporter do coverage of the CanMNT.  Why would players suddenly go to him, of all people, to disclose a refusal to play the match?  
The game was sold out, or close to sold out.  Yes, there would likely be protests, but as someone pointed out, the Iranian diaspora has differing opinions on the current gov't (like any other group of people and their home nation).  My guess is support for the match would be much higher than dissent for it..

Also baby steps folks. A couple years ago we couldn’t even dream of scheduling a friendly then canceling it.
 
maybe the next one we will make it to pre-game warm ups

i saw that tweet, and while i believe there is a strong brotherhood, i also have never seen that reporter do coverage of the CanMNT.  Why would players suddenly go to him, of all people, to disclose a refusal to play the match?  
The game was sold out, or close to sold out.  Yes, there would likely be protests, but as someone pointed out, the Iranian diaspora has differing opinions on the current gov't (like any other group of people and their home nation).  My guess is support for the match would be much higher than dissent for it..

i saw that tweet, and while i believe there is a strong brotherhood, i also have never seen that reporter do coverage of the CanMNT.  Why would players suddenly go to him, of all people, to disclose a refusal to play the match?  
The game was sold out, or close to sold out.  Yes, there would likely be protests, but as someone pointed out, the Iranian diaspora has differing opinions on the current gov't (like any other group of people and their home nation).  My guess is support for the match would be much higher than dissent for it..

i saw that tweet, and while i believe there is a strong brotherhood, i also have never seen that reporter do coverage of the CanMNT.  Why would players suddenly go to him, of all people, to disclose a refusal to play the match?  
The game was sold out, or close to sold out.  Yes, there would likely be protests, but as someone pointed out, the Iranian diaspora has differing opinions on the current gov't (like any other group of people and their home nation).  My guess is support for the match would be much higher than dissent for it..

June 5th can't come fast enough but we should stick to our guns and play the match.  Tens of thousands of Canada fans bought tickets and saw no issue.  It will all blow over afterward unless we cave to the outrage du jour.
Where was the outrage when our Olympians went to China following the "2 Michaels" situation?  It was all about the coming together of athletes then ... 🙄
 
Dang it, they caved! 

An unfortunate cancellation.
I was thinking (probably naively and optimistically) that Herdman et al were thinking “above” politics.  That football/soccer/sport could be better than politics;  that athletic endeavor continues to be one of the few areas left in our culture where we could come together peacefully and in a dignified way (and forgive the mistakes of some for the benefit of the whole) … but I am an idealist and too much a philosopher.  

I would say the biggest mistake with the CSA was scheduling Iran to begin with, it would have been a great prep match for us but the potential political fallout was always going to be there! Unfortunately politics and sports are harder to separate in a case like this where it is our choice to host this team, many Canadians have negative views of the Iranian regime and when it came out that we were paying a large sum of money and the ties to their regime there was always going to be issues whether you agree or not!

19 pages in with 80% about politics.
Lord help me.  

Ajax has a friendly vs Curaçao as a tune up…Ajax won 5-1
 

The full match can be viewed here