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hobbes

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  1. hobbes

    Canada Gemme

    Cheers Thistle. It was what it was and it was pretty ugly at that, but we played with pride at least. Holiett was even working hard. Ledgerwood and Piette played well and James and Straith weren't bad together for the first time. I was very pleased for Aird. His (Glasgow-born) dad died last month and I know the goal meant a lot to him. I watch Scotland regularly and I'm not sure I can recall seeing them playing so passively. So few challenges and they gave Canada so much time on the ball. I'm don't rate Scott Brown all that highly, but the side was desperate for some of what he brings. I couldn't believe the number of times Aird was allowed to cut across the face of the area unchallenged. Given the options, I'm fine with Anya on the right on Sunday, but some context for his performance. Hoilett was better than usual, but he still doesn't defend much. He at least tracked back into his own half. And Max Tissot, our left back for the night, was released by Montreal (it takes a lot for Montreal to release a french-Canadian) and was just loaned out to a U.S. lower level team from DC United. And I don't think he's even a back. He's a midfielder in my book and always has been for his clubs. I couldn't believe Snodgrass didn't trouble Tissot more. As a positive Tissot's hair was significantly less stupid than it was the last time we saw him, so there was that. Good luck on Sunday.
  2. That wasn't what I was trying to imply. A hard-working, honest player. But not afraid to get stuck in. It feels like tackling has been nearly banished from football in some places these days, but I suppose I watch many more matches from the western hemisphere than I do from Scotland.
  3. I miss Dazza to be honest. He'd get booked every match in modern football though. Going back further I wish we had another Gerry Gray.
  4. Julian did nearly play 100 matches in each of La Liga and the Bundesliga. So he's wasn't a poor player by any means. Begovic left Bosnia when he was 4 years old and made an Adidas advert about fleeing the bombs and moving to Canada that they showed constantly when he was our starting keeper when Canada hosted the 2007 U20 World Cup. It just made his move even more aggravating. It has been getting better in the last couple of years, but we still have players jumping ship as soon as a better opportunity comes along. 18 months ago Fikayo Tomori captained the Canadian U20s to a 2-1 win in England. Now he's playing for England. It gets tiring. And I didn't mention Vitoria, Ferreira and Fernandes for Portugal, the whore for England... There's been a lot of over the years. Bino's: Aird's young enough I'm not writing him off yet. We're desperate for a right back (sound familiar?) and he at least has the pace and the work rate to be a wing back. He might start Wednesday, but only because Ricketts, Akindele, Johnson and Cavallini didn't make the trip. We've got a lot of work to do, but it's not nearly as dire as our FIFA ranking — or frankly, I expect, our play at Easter Road — would have you believe. We did win a CONCACAF title in 2000 (Richard Hastings of ICT scored his only international goal, a golden goal, to knock Mexico out in the quarters) and we went to the Confederations Cup. But that feels very long ago now. cheers, hobbes
  5. Our old manager was very defensive and the caretaker has carried on in a similar fashion and used the same 4-1-4-1. The caretaker will be in charge Wednesday and our new manager will likely just be in the stands. Zambrano, the new manager, is known for attacking football, so maybe that will affect the approach, but there's only so much anyone can do with that squad.
  6. Canada squad: GOALKEEPERS: Jayson LEUTWILER, Shrewsbury Town/ENG; Simon THOMAS, Bodø/Glimt/NOR. DEFENDERS: Nikolas LEDGERWOOD, FC Edmonton; Manjrekar JAMES, Vasas/HUN; Adam STRAITH FC Edmonton; Wandrille LEFÈVRE Montreal Impact; Luca GASPAROTTO, Falkirk FC/SCO; Maxim TISSOT, DC United/USA; La’Vere CORBIN-ONG, FSV Frankfurt/GER. MIDFIELDERS: Samuel PIETTE, Izarra/SPA; Junior HOILETT, Cardiff City/WAL; Charlie TRAFFORD, Sandecja Nowy Sącz/POL; Marco BUSTOS, Vancouver Whitecaps; Scott ARFIELD, Burnley/ENG; Fraser AIRD, Falkirk/SCO; Ben FISK, FC Edmonton. FORWARDS: Marcus HABER, Dundee/SCO; Simeon JACKSON, Walsall/ENG. Not a lot of the first team there unfortunately. I'm not sure what either of us are going to get out of it, but I'm sure Scotland will win in a walk. I hope the boost in confidence does the side some good against Slovenia. cheers, hobbes
  7. Apologies if someone else has posted this, but here's a list of all of the fines levied in World Cup qualifiers to date by FIFA: http://resources.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/competition/02/86/32/72/fifa_disciplinaryoverview_fwcqualifiers_jan2017_neutral.pdf I daresay FIFA are fining everyone for absolutely anything. As a Canadian I've been going to qualifiers for more than 20 years and I was in the stadium for three of the four matches we were fined over. Compared to some of the things that happened in the past we were very well behaved in those matches and yet we were fined 52,000 Swiss francs for our conduct (twice for insulting chants. Not racist or homophobic chants like our opponents offer, but just insulting) over four matches. I'm not going to wade into the debate about wearing them (though to me the symbolism of the poppy feels like it has changed over my lifetime), but I thought I'd give a little context for the fine. Right now FIFA is fining everyone for everything. cheers, hobbes
  8. Thanks for the welcome ErsatzThistle. I follow Scotland as well, so I read the forum (I used to post, but my post count has disappeared) and keep pretty close tabs on Scotland. I do think you should be favoured at home and should get the result. In the last two years we’ve lost 1-0 to a full-strength Colombia (No. 6) and drew Costa Rica (No. 17) in a competitive match. We also recently beat Mauritania (No. 113) 4-0 with a reserve side and we’re still behind them in the rankings. We’re not going to Russia and we’ve done nothing of note to earn anyone’s respect, so I have no problem being dismissed. But the FIFA rankings are a complete farce. We also recently played friendlies with an interim manager and without any regular midfielders or our best forwards and we lost to Morocco (No. 57) in match that was closer than the score and to South Korea (No. 37) with a scoreline that flattered us and dropped even farther down the rankings. If we bring a similar side to Easter Road we’ll lose and Scotland might well win easily. If we bring our first team it should be a good match I think. cheers, hobbes
  9. As a life-long Canadian supporter, I can't argue that Canada is pish, but that being said, we sent out an absolute disaster of a side about 2 1/2 years ago and only lost 1-0 in Slovenia against close to their first team at the time. If Canada has some of its key players, I think we'll provide a good test before Slovenia. If we don't, we won't and Scotland will win and it will all be fairly pointless for both of us. But I hope we send a proper team, have a manager in place and give you a good test. If we're using the likes of Marcus Haber, forget about it. Regarding the Bermuda result, it was a dead-of-winter domestic friendly on a non-FIFA date with four debutants who may never get a second cap and we had a defender in goal for the final 40 minutes. It was what it was. Having made the trip to Easter Road in 2002, I wanted to thank everyone who was there and whom we met pre- and post-match for making it such an enjoyable day out. Pretty sure I'm not going to bother this time around, but it is tempting. Also re: U21s. We typically don't play a youth fixture before a friendly (we didn't in 2002, but Scotland played a different European nations U21s), but if we qualify for the under-20 World Cup (qualifying tournament begins in a few weeks), I can see us trying to get that squad back together as often as possible to prepare for the summer. cheers, hobbes
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