Heartless soccer; old time music and a three-guard combo

Well, I still have the Black Stars of Ghana to root for, don’t I?

Guess we found out a wee bit about the Canadian men’s football team in what has to go down as one of the dark moments in the sport’s history here.

What a despicable performance. 8-1? My far more learned colleagues were incredulous at the immediate capitulation and while I am loathe to go all off the deep end because I don’t care all that much, really, there have to be major, major changes in that organization, don’t there?

Every coach in every sport at every big game ever played anywhere has always cautioned about weathering the initial storm.

It doesn’t take a seasoned observer to realize that desperate home teams are going to come out throwing haymakers and to not be ready for it is, well, deplorable.

Remind me of yesterday’s “big game” when the next World Cup qualifier rolls around, would you?

I was sitting with a guy watching the horror unfold and as the goals pile up and the Canadians looked increasingly amateurish bordering on entirely overwhelmed, he brought up an interesting point.

It’s going to be easier for a Canadian men’s basketball team to make an impact globally than it will for a Canadian men’s soccer team.

Yes, apples and oranges to a degree but if those are 1 and 1A in world sports – and they are without a shadow of a doubt – at least there is some promise in the develop of young talent for the basketball program.

I’m not sure that same optimism exists in soccer, which seems to me to be far more fractured than basketball ever was in its darkest moments.

I know there have to be great young footballers out there who are Canadian but they don’t ever seem to emerge wearing the national colours.

Why is that, folks? Enlighten me a wee bit, would you?

Is it because Soccer Canada can’t track them or entice them here? Is it because the opportunity to play for another country by dint of ancestry and passport is simply too good to pass up? Or are there not enough good young players in the pipeline to even get Canada to a second stage of World Cup qualifying.

It’s mystifying to me and it strikes me that in the two most respected games in the world, there is Canadian promise in one and none in the other.

How come?

How’s this for a minor point:

Is it all possible that the good young Canadian male athletes are simply choosing basketball over soccer? I’d say that’s a valid point to examine.

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Seriously, this is how my mind works.

Dude says, ‘hey, you’re going to Montreal with a free night, that’ll be cool.’

And I think to myself, ‘yeah, Montreal. Sweet. Smoked meat, a deli or two, perhaps a walk up the Street Of Pubs by the Bell Centre and …”

If I could have only found Youppi dancing and singing The Happy Wanderer it’d have been perfect.

But I bet this is the first time Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians have ever appeared in a nominal sports blog.

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Oh yeah, we’ll be here for an IGBT tonight right around 7 for the titanic struggle betwixt the HOTH and the Washington’s and in the words of the immortal Billy (Red) Lyons, dontcha dare miss it.

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Justin Verlander is the best pitcher of his generation and I defy anyone to argue otherwise.

Just sayin’.

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Hey, Raptors fans?

Remember the zone defence?

Well, we haven’t seen it for a single, solitary possession this season but it’s coming, Dwane told us at practice yesterday.

“We haven’t seen it, we’ve been thinking about it and working on it a bit the last few days so we’re trying to get it in.”

The interesting part? If they can actually get stops with it, it should help them run a bit, he said.

“It’s an old adage that when you play zone, you run better. First of all, there are constant mismatches all over the floor, the shot goes up, the guy guarding you is probably not next to you so it does produce better numbers in offensive transition.

The problem with the zone, any zone, is defensive rebounding, boxing out, finding a body. But it does give us an advantage to run.”

I do see it still as a bit of defensive trickeration and not something they can use all the time but did throw a wrench in to some games last season and as an odd change-of-pace plan now and then, it should be fine.

But given how much work they’ve had to do on offence and traditional defence this camp, I can’t imagine them using it very much for the next month or so.

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Mail?

Sure.

You know the drill, right?

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So I’m sitting there yesterday trying to figure out some travel for the regular season and have stumbled upon the worst “you can’t get there from here” road trip maybe ever.

It’s Christmas Day to San Antonio then on to New Orleans then down to Orlando and you can’t get from here to San Antonio without a stop, you can’t get from San Antonio to New Orleans without a stop and there’s no non-stops between New Orleans and Orlando, either.

Not complaining, though, those are two very good cities (with Orlando being the odd one out), just pointing out that all journeys are not fun to plan.

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The pucks might come back?

Oh joy, oh joy!

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What are the few thousands of fans at tonight’s Raptors game going to see?

Well, for the first time all three point guards will be available and don’t be at all surprised if you see two of Kyle Lowry, Jose Calderon and John Lucas III on the court at the same time.

With Lucas proving to be a more than capable scorer still – he’s far more a scoring guard than a point guard – Dwane’s been toying with the idea of using some combination of the three in the same backcourt.

And if it works – I’m a bit dubious but we’ll see – it’s going to have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the rotation if Case wants to get to nine and 10 on the odd occasion.

“You have to look at your three guard combination, two of the three playing together at some point which may bump Landry to the three, DeMar to the three or whatever.

“That monkey-wrench is there; yeah, we have some issues to clear up before we get to that nine or 10.”

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Comments

[Steve]

Hey Doug,

As an avid follower of the game, and of the Canadian National Team, I am completely embarrassed about what went on yesterday. Particularly from our Veteran/Senior players - our Central Defenders: Captain Kevin McKenna and Andre Hainault - who were dreadful. After the third goal, they just gave up. Still shell-shocked and just don't know what to say.

As for your question of why, there a lot of factors that need to be taken into account. For one, I do believe there is talent in this country that do show up for the team. What we saw yesterday was a complete MENTAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL breakdown from the team. It was not prepared at all for this game.

The root problem of the Canadian program, is youth development - plain and simple. The coaching and emphasis at the youth levels has just been poor. There is too much emphasis on winning in the youth levels - than to developing players to improving technique and skill. The sport of soccer does require one to be extremely athletic, but actually having the technique, IQ, and skill is probably of more importance.

Unfortunately for Canada yesterday, in the most important game in roughly 15 years, we were exposed as to how behind we are to other countries in this region.

Plain and simple, if you can't beat Honduras away from home, you DO NOT deserve to go to the World Cup. These next couple of years should be interesting with regards to next steps of the program.

[Lorie]

Good Morning!
Well, what a day for news already: furious fact-checking on Mitt's Binders of Women (binders that predictably cost a mere .77 cents to the men's $1.00 asking price), Nike ends it contract with Lance, who's also stepped down as head of his Livestrong charity and the meteor shower created by Halley's Comet peaks this week. There's a lot going on. But, thanks to this blog, the most persistent, penetrating question I've got right now - and one whose answer has eluded me for decades - is this: what on earth does "Valderi, Valdera, Valderi, Valder-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" mean???

[sam]

8 goals in a soccer match seems extremely high - 8 goals for Honduras makes me wonder if my nephews Tim Bit Soccer Team could have done better than the Canadians....

Verlander was huge last night for the Tigers - This series is pretty much over, me thinks.

[Brad B]

Doug,

Still recovering from last night's debacle/nightmare, but to answer your question about the difference between the two sports: Our multi-culturalism is to blame for this state of affairs.

Basketball - most people rally around the teams because they see it as a game invented by a Canadian. There is no impetus to look at their home nations for inspiration. Canadian Basketball has a vision and development plan and all the members are following it.

Soccer - There has never been a home-grown system for coaches/players to build upon. Depending on where your roots are from, the English/ Italian/ Dutch/ Spanish/ German/ South American football system is the best. This has led to balkanization not just at a provincial but a local level, And there is no clear collective vision on how to move forward and develop players except for a laughable "Road to Wellness" LTDP document that is all style and no substance.

There is also a lot of politics involved as coaches tend to favor particular players over others, usually going for physical young players (rather than those that are skillful and technically proficient) in order to win games. The CSA has recently approved some legislation to help reform it's organization, but it will take at least 10 years to implement.

In the meantime, an entire generation of soccer players has grown up knowing nothing but Canadian ineptitude and remember Owen Hargreaves leaving Canada to play for England because of his consistently being passed over for National Junior team duty due to infighting at the Alberta Soccer Association. Good players know that if they want a shot at the World Cup, they need to play for another country (see Junior Holliet and Jonathan de Guzman as examples).

Really, it all comes down to the coaching. There are too many egotists who believe their way is the right way to play soccer. There has to be a major revamp of the national coach licencing system. But for the forseeable future, I'm thinking that we won't get another realistic chance at qualifying for the orld Cup until 2022 at the earliest.

[Rob]

Even though we came within a game of getting to the Hex round of WC qualifying, i always thought there were gaping holes in this canadian team that were being overlooked and masked, so i never jumped on the bandwagon completely. i knew they had no chance to make it.

- in FOUR games against Honduras, and Panama, we did not score a single goal from open play, until that consolation goal in final 10 minutes from yesterday game to make it 6-1.
- That 'victory' against panama at BMO came on a goal that happened because the other team wasnt prepared and was caught napping......ie. it was uncontested, a freebie.

- Against Cuba at home, when goal differential was extremely important, and against a team that had NO substitutes, And cuba down to 10 men after a red card......it was still only 1-0 with 20 minutes to play.

I always saw it for what is was. I also blame the other canadian players in europe who refused to suit up until canada was in the hex phase.........now it looks like they won play on ANY world cup squad due to their DIVA behaviour

[RR]

I sat through that entire disgusting display yesterday and was completely shocked at the lack of pride that the players showed. These are professional athletes and they looked like a group who after the first 10 minutes of the game just wanted to go home.

To your point about better athletes choosing basketball over soccer, I don't really think that's the case at all because at the elite level I think there wouldn't really be a ton of overlap. There are also more people playing soccer at the youth level than any other sport in Canada it's just that we have the inability to identify and nurture the talented ones to really get us to the next level as they age.

As a huge soccer fan who's family has been in Canada for years and doesn't have another adopted country who I can pretend to cheer for come World Cup time it's extremely depressing.

[Alan C.]

Doug, I know little about soccer, and others above provide far more than I can regarding the immediate problems related to the program. My point goes to your question about competition for the young athlete among various sports. Yes, basketball may take some, but in my view, this nation's overemphasis on hockey is limiting its ability to compete in any other sport. Look at the time, resources and personpower that goes into youth hockey compared to any other sport. This 'all in' approach keeps Canada at the forefront of world hockey competitions, but struggling to compete in most others, including the Olympics.

[Wilber]

Perhaps they could have used Christine Sinclair yesterday. I hear she has some time off from the women's team.

What tool do you use when planning your milk run flights, Doug? Something like Kayak? Or do you have your staff do it for you?

Blogger's note: No staff at all; we have access to an internet Amex travel portal we use. A pain sometimes

[Cluck Kent]

I always figured that most of Canada's best male atheletes ended up playing hockey instead of anything else. Sure, we all played soccer as kids, but hockey was where the glamour was.

[Stavros]

It seems to me that part of what the Canadian Men's Soccer squad is suffering is a bit of what the Men's Basketball team was suffering not too long ago. That is, getting the best players in the sport to commit to playing for the program unless the national team is already a solid contender or deemed worthy of their participation. Seems the Basketball program has gotten over that obstacle but the Soccer team is still dealing with it. Is it a fair statement? Just perception? Maybe you could ask Jamaal Magloire. He may be able to offer some insight.

[Peter I.]

Hi Doug, I have played on varsity teams and local leagues for over 15 years. If you are asking why our program does not work, how about this for an answer: why do we have people who do not actually play soccer, making executive decisions for the program?

It is sad. There isn't such promise within the sport, plain and simple. Why would I rather stay in the system, instead of being signed by some low-level foreign team? Because at least I know I can enjoy doing the sport I love while getting paid.

Don't get me wrong, we are not about starting a pro league here. We are about what CSA did in support of youth programs. It seems that the overall concentration of CSA is on profits and men's team. What about the regional leagues? Shouldn't CSA be the governing body of every single operating soccer league within the country? I don't see that happening. The only thing they care about are leagues that make money.

Many kids in our country often start off their athletic careers by playing either hockey or soccer. Why, at the end, do they choose the blades and puck instead of the round black-and-white? I do not see Sidney Crosby making more than Leo Messi, so maybe career earnings may not be an indication. Then why?

It is all about the support. It is all about the promotion. It is all about the heart. Does CSA provide the necessary support for EVERY youth soccer player in Canada? I did not see that during my 5 years playing varsity at a nationally renowned high school in Toronto. Does CSA fund enough promotions to parents that soccer is one of the best sport for hand-eye coordination, critical thinking training and overall physical training? I have only seen the CSA logo on events or teams that have sponsors. Does CSA know that there are many youth soccer players in our country are actually paying $$$ for the right to play in a league? Probably not.

DO NOT tell us that it is hard to track down players or leagues or keep it centralized under one governing body. USA has waaaayyyy more citizens in the sport than we do, so please.

[Phil A]

The problem with Canadian soccer is that many players lack the technical ability that's required to compete with many of the world class countries in the world. This starts with the youth development programs and the coaching. A new strategic plan has to be implemented in the next few years in order for our country's next generation of players to develop the necessary skills to compete globally.

I still say that Roy Halladay is the best pitcher of our generation. He is the most consistent pitcher in baseball.

[Eric-in-NS]

The answers to your soccer questions have been an education.
Would you please send the question to Steve Nash as well?

[Ben]

Hey Doug,

you say that the Canadian Basketball program is 'promising'. This gets me interested but other than a few kids that I can think of (Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph) I really don't see how we become that good. I mean TT and Cojo are decent players but can two young players really turn our mediocre national team into a contender? When do you expect the real turnaround to occur?

Blogger's note: Sorry, not enough time here. And been done a few times. Will have to do your own research

[Dave S]

Basketball is a distant 1A. Qualifying for any major FIBA competition involves the entire Western hemisphere, not simply North America. There are maybe 25 basketball nations in the world and the heritage of most Canadian players is not from one of those. Football/soccer is different. Most good players in Canada have a heritage rooted in a nation that puts soccer first (not fourth or fifth). They return to those roots for youth development once they show any future promise, because the opportunity for development and financial success in Canada is limitted. Same as some European hockey players coming to play in the CHL.

[JW]

Interesting discussion on the differences between the success of the men's basketball and soccer programs. I can't speak much to professional and amateur soccer, but basketball has most definitely come a long way over the past few decades.

Growing up in the GTA some 30 yrs ago I've witnessed a huge leap in the growth of basketball in this city. When I was coming up although there were some people serious about playing and pursuing basketball, there weren't the grass roots programs available to outline a clear path to success. Talented players back then just didn't have first rate competition to go up against to improve their games and most ended up topping out at a Canadian University. The thought of going to a D1 U.S. program wasn't even in peoples heads. However over the past 10yrs (especially the past 5) young men in the GTA have been streaming down to basketball prep schools and NCAA D1 programs in droves, playing against top competition and vastly improving their own games. So now instead of topping out in the CIS, we're seeing our best players top out in the NBA. Essentially, young Canadian (mostly GTA) men wanting to pursue basketball now have a clear path to the top league in the world.
Although I don't know nearly as much about soccer, I can say without doubt that there is no clear path from playing soccer in Canada to playing in a top league such as the English Premiership. Perhaps with the MLS now here we will see an improvement in talent over the next decade or so. But without a clear path to the top leagues in the world for our young talent, soccer players here will likely peak in leagues that don't have the best competition, much as basketball did here in the past.

[David H.]

The angst over the national soccer team and the "promise" of the national basketball team make an interesting contrast with what the national baseball team has been doing. The team won a bronze medal at the 2012 World Cup and a gold medal at the 2012 Pan Am Games. A second string version of the Canada World Baseball Classic team won its pool in Germany last month and qualified for the World Baseball Classic next spring. Baseball may not be as popular worldwide as soccer and basketball, but it has a considerable following in North America, South America, Asia and Europe. It is nice to see that our international success isn't limited to hockey.

[J]

Re: doug's comment in the previous blog post

This certainly isn't the first time, nor will it be the last, that someone will post something stupid online. What I don't get, however, is the trend in explanations after the fact. With Justin Hutchings, it was "a social experiment." With Eric Yee (the guy who boasted he had killed a child in the past), it was a "social and political commentary." Until now, I didn't realize the enormous, positive social value of anonymity. Aside from creating online buffoons, it apparently encourages thoughtful social scientists--yeah, what a load of bullcrap. Time for people to just admit the truth: they are boneheads with such a dearth of meaning in their own lives that they have nothing better to do.

[Andrew Gregg]

No, no, no Doug! You've got the Happy Wanderer thing all wrong..

THESE are the Happy Wanderers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbJIlEd6jA

You're welcome.

AG, Toronto

[BradW]

Lucas at the 2: thing is, there will be injuries during the season, and the ability of him to play a combo-guard role will be very useful during those times, for sure.

[Ewandro]

Cheers from Montreal

My two cents Doug. After having thrown in the towel and left my beloved football (soccer) to concentrate on youth basketball (my other passion), I can guarantee you that coaching and organizational mentality reining on Canadian youth soccer is among the main culprits of soccer situation in Canada (as remarked by so many irregulars).
Among the key detrimental characteristics of such mentality I can mention: the crazy hockey-ish behaviour of parents at the sidelines during practices and games; the over-emphasis on boring and non-realistic drills at young age in detriment of the development of good game vision, improvisation/creativity and ball contact exercises; the limited or non-existant knowledge of the necessary soccer fundamentals by most of people involved coaching youth and managing youth leagues; the lack of a soccer culture driving kids to watch good quality soccer in order to acquire game vision and love for the game.

Cheers