…and then it got pissy


Earlier today, Dale Mitchell responded to Jim Brennan and, well, it looks like we’ve got us a good ol’ fashioned tit for tat going on in Canadian soccer.

When asked if he would ever call Brennan again, Mitchell responded with an emphatic “no”.

Mitchell said Brennan had turned down the call-ups in the last 18 months “but when he doesn’t get a call-up then we get a big song and dance about it.”

“I don’t know. I think with certain players in this day and age, they expect to have things their own way,” he added.

I’ll be very interested to see what happens after this campaign ends. Yesterday Brennan eluded to the fact that he wasn’t the only one unhappy with both Mitchell and the CSA and that more players will probably make their voices heard after this campaign is over.

It may all be mute, however, if we don’t move onto the next round. I suspect that a lose in Honduras will mean the end of the road for Mitchell. If not then, failure to move on would surely see him gone at some point and the rebuilding begin, once again, for “the next time”. At that point, the real question will be whether those same players will still speak up about the role of the CSA, or with Mitchell gone would that be enough to quiet the discontent?

This assumes that there is widespread discontent in the Canuck camp. Who the hell knows right now? All I know is that the drama is flying fast and furious. And, oh yeah, we’ve got a game to play in Honduras on Saturday.

We’re going head to head with the opening of Hockey Night in Canada, so there probably won’t be many pubs carrying this game live at 6:30pm Pacific. Sportsnet will be showing it, as Sportsnet usually does, live on Sportsnet Pacific West and Pacific, providing you have the full Sportsnet digital package and your rabbit ears tuned to 49.6 degrees north by northwest. Let’s all hope that the Honduran network carrying the game doesn’t do it’s part for the cause and, at the last minute, decide to piss of Canadian fans by sending a rerun of BJ and The Bear down the satellite line to Dobson and Forrest sitting in the studio in TO. Mind you, with the mess that might be awaiting us on Saturday, that little monkey might be a whole lot more fun to watch.

Related articles

Brennan sticks it to CSA & Dale Mitchell


Looks like there is fire underneath the Jim Brennan smoke I posted about a few days ago. The Toronto FC defender has publicly spoken out against both Dale Mitchell and the CSA. He hasn’t retired from the MNT, but emphatically states that he won’t be suiting up as long as Dale Mitchell is at the helm.

“I spoke to officials here at Toronto FC, my family and friends, and decided that it was best that I step down from the national team while the current manager is in place,” Brennan confirmed to reporters on Tuesday.

“That’s not to say I won’t play for Canada again, it’s just that there’s a lot going on that I don’t agree with, I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.”

If there wasn’t so much dirt swirling around the CSA and Dale Mitchell’s relationship with the team, then you could write off Brennan’s comments as sour grapes. He has been called away from TFC and, some would argue, has been underutilized when called during this WCQ campaign. But because the persistent rumblings of mismanagement, both on and off the pitch, keep swirling around, you have to think that Brennan is not the only one harbouring these types of feelings towards both the CSA and Mitchell.

All in all, it points to a team that seems to be imploding. And hearing stuff like this makes me feel like the dream is dying dead. At a crisis time like this in the campaign, where we still have a shot, this is the time when you need key players stepping up and talk about things like the ability, the belief, the drive that exists in the team that they can do it. And we just are not hearing that these days.

I am not blaming Brennan here, although, like Joe Ross at The Score,  I wish he would have waited until this campaign was over before speaking out as his news does nothing but hurt our already slim chances of qualifying. Brennan could have stuck to the route that, apparently, many of the other players are taking. Says Brennan:

“There are a few people who shouldn’t be there, there are a few people on the bench who shouldn’t be there. When this World Cup campaign is over, I think a lot of players will come out and say how they feel, but they can’t right now because of the situation.”

Which makes me think that when this campaign is over, the shit is going to hit the fan and the truth will come out. And I hope that, for the good of the game in this country, the players speak up about specific issues they have and somehow, in some way, some confidence can be restored in the body governing soccer in this country. If not, we are going to continue to see more and more great players bleed away to play in other countries - countries that know how to run a national team.

There is also a video interview with Brennan available from Sportsnet, but I am having problems viewing the video right now.

Sidenote: I have given the CBC’s John Molinaro public guff in the past for his failure to write about Canadian soccer when he is the man for the CBC. But kudos to him for this story. Nice work, John. We need more of this type of reporting.

De Guzman out for Honduras & Mexico WCQ


Well, as if this WCQ campaign could stink anymore, it has now completely gone from crap to shite.  Reports from the Deportivo website (via squizz) say Julian De Guzman is injured and out for 2 weeks. No DeRo, no Serioux, no De Guzman.

Canada Roster for Honduras & Mexico WCQ


The CSA released the roster for the next 2 Canadian WCQ games against Honduras (Saturday, October 11 in Honduras) and Mexico (in Edmonton Wednesday, October 15) and there are changes aplenty with 7 new names on the roster, and a few familiar ones missing.

First, the lose of 2 starters, Dwayne DeRosario and Adrian Serioux (arguably one of the better players for Canada in this brutal qualifying campaign) due to suspension for the Honduras game has affected Dale Mitchell’s roster. Both have still been called, but won’t play a part in the Honduras game. Issey Nakajima-Farran, another starter lately for Mitchell, is injured and will also miss out.

Backing up Hirschfeld will be the young Josh Wagenaar (Yeovil Town FC). No Pat Onstad or Greg Sutton.

With Onstad, it sounds like he has taken his gaff against Jamaica pretty hard and pulled his name out of contention, according to Mitchell.

“It wasn’t really my decision. … The reaction that he had, to be honest with you, from a lot of people within the country I think has made him think that at the moment he’d like to just step back a little bit from the national team,” Mitchell said. “It’s not a retirement. But at the moment’s he’s not going to be involved for the next little while.”

“It was a big game,” the coach added of the 1-1 tie with Jamaica, the opening game of the round. “Certainly I would never have blamed the result on one person. But he got a fair bit of criticism over the goal.”

Let’s face it, we fans have been riding him hard. The reception he got in Toronto when Houston rolled into town for their MLS date last week apparently pretty rough, more than the usual abuse a visiting keeper gets.

Sure, the goal was horrendous and hurt us. I think in all our bluster and “analysis”, we fans out here in the cheap and easy seats sometime forget these are not robots, but real people. I have no doubt that Onstad was, and still is, gutted about that goal and has yet to make peace with the fact that because of it, he may never get a chance to play in a World Cup. As much as we the fans want to get there, I have no doubt that the players want it more than we will ever know.

Sutton and wife have just had a baby so it’s understandable why he isn’t getting the call. There is also the TFC factor with Sutton. John Carver is getting tired of losing key players for international duty who end up riding the pine. If the MLS honoured international dates, like virtually every other major soccer league around the world, then we wouldn’t have to worry about pissing off MLS teams when we call up players. But that is another post completely.

I am sure there is also some MLS - factor in the fact that Jim Brennan hasn’t been called. There is the fact that Klukowski has a lock on the LB slot. But there are some rumblings around the interwebs suggest there is more to Brennan’s story. Fall out with Mitchell? Pissed off at the CSA? Not sure, but there is enough smoke on this story to suggest a fire.

Along the back expect to see Hainault or McKenna fill in for Serioux.

As for the rest of the lineup, I am with OTT:

I have a hard time getting too worked up about these selections. The dream is dead, or close to it, and there is no reason to believe Canada will play any worse with Poz, Harmse, and de Jong on the bench than when Imhof, Occean and Brennan were riding pine.

I don’t believe the dream is dead just yet, but it doesn’t matter what I think. Right now I am wondering about the players - do they believe it is dead. That is the question that we will find out the answer to next Saturday.

TV Coverage

Apparently Sportsnet’s Gerry Dobson said on their BPL coverage this morning that the game will be a 6:30 PST start time live on Sportsnet Pacific and West, if you have the full digital Sportsnet package. Watch the Sportsnet website for details.

Roster

Hirschfeld out of Cluj in January?


Photo of Lars Hirschfeld, a Canadian football ...

Image via Wikipedia

My Romanian is only as good as Google Translate so I may be off the mark here, but it looks like Lars Hirschfeld is shooting for a transfer during the January transfer window in Europe.

In a posting on the CF Cluj website (I’ll link you to the translated Google version), Cluj management has made it clear that there is no place for Lars in the lineup.

“Simply, Hirschfeld has not caught the lot. There were others prefer”, is the official explanation of Heads of CFR Cluj.  However, Canadian it has already sent his agents to seek the team. “Than to not play in Cluj, better go in winter,” he reasoned Canadian doorman.  Hirschfeld was brought to the request of former coach Ioan Andone, to 1.2 million euros from Rosenborg in last winter, but caught only 5 games official cherry-colored shirt.

Well, this explains why Hirschfeld hasn’t been playing. Being brought in by an outgoing gaffer is a sure way to log bench time (see Paul Stalteri).

A couple of other things stand out. First, 200,000 Euros (which is Lars current salary) is a heck of a lot of money for a third keeper.

Second, the article states that Lars has not played in 162 days. Lord thundering Jes-us. Even if he goes in January (and I hope to hell he does cause our keeping situation could certainly use the steady hand of someone playing week in week out), this means he will probably have sat out of rotation for almost 8 months.

Finally, Google translate makes reading foreign press releases a sematic headache. You gotta read a lot between the lines (doorman?).

So, the quesion is, where might Lars wind up?. I wish I knew more about the keeper situation in the European leagues to know (after watching Arsenal spank Porto 4-nil in the CL tonight, maybe Portugal :). But I do know that wherever he does end up, here’s hoping it is as a starter and he gets time in the pipes.

Previous Articles

DeRo speaks


Is the CSA is driving away our best and brightest?


Mexico 2 Canada 1


Welcome to The Footie Fool

Right now, I am posting a lot about Canada and our run at qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. But I also follow the EPL, Champions League and major international events.

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