It doesn’t matter.

Canada should have won in Toronto against Jamaica.

It doesn’t matter.

Canada should have come out in droves to support the team in Montreal.

It doesn’t matter.

Canada should have beat Honduras at home.

It doesn’t matter.

Dale Mitchell isn’t cut out to coach. Stephen Hart should be coaching the team.

It doesn’t matter.

Canada have never won in Mexico.

It doesn’t matter.

The CONCACAF Refs are terrible.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters now is tonight. Leave everything behind.

90 minutes.

It’s not over.

Anything is possible.

Canada is the only team other than Mexico or the US to win the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Our starting 11 are some of the best, if not the best Canadian players, we’ve ever had on a soccer pitch.

We have guys who believe in each other.

We’re up against the wall.

It doesn’t matter.

It only gets tougher from here.

And if anyone can get Canada there, it’s the boys we’re fielding tonight.

Coaching, refereeing, and history aside — tonight’s the night.

Choose to win.

And make it happen.

The men’s national team.

Today they lost 2-1 in Montreal to Honduras. This loss makes making the world cup in 2010 really really difficult. We’re not dead.

Dale Mitchell. What are you doing?

First off – why didn’t you start Jim Brennan? WHy? Why why?
Klukowski? No – you should have gone with Brennan.

For TFC it’s a tale of two bad things.

A) Amado Guevara helps Honduras beat Canada. It’s bad for TFC. Bad for Canada.

B) Jim Brennan sits on the Canadian bench until the 86th minute or so. He also missed playing for TFC — and missed most of the Canada match.

I was crazy mad at the officials.

How is it you let the Hondurans spend most of the second half faking injuries on the pitch – then only add 4 minutes of injury time.

Then — in injury time — let another Honduran fake an injury for over a minute (so much that a stretcher is brought onto the field and he’s carried off) and then end the game 17 seconds after four minutes.

It took a helluva lot longer than 17 seconds to get that guy off the field for his fake injury.

Thus – a guy – in injury time – faked an injury and ensured that the clock would run out and Canada would run out of time to tie this thing. Oh it was horrible.

It was another example of CONCACAF refs making terrible decisions.

Canada should be used to it by  now.

For getting goals called back in the Gold Cup, to routinely getting killed by CONCACAF refs, it’s not surprising.

It still hurts, but it’s not surprising.

I was just dying watching this team. And then my friend Brian gave me perspective.

You have to play above it.

You KNOW you’re gonna get a crap CONCACAF ref when you play CONCACAF games.

You KNOW the Hondurans are going to waste time when they’re ahead, fake injuries. (thanks again Amado Guevera for getting Patrice Bernier kicked out of the game)

You KNOW they’re going to HACK DOWN TO THE GROUND every chance they get when Julian DeGuzman has hte ball.

It made me sick to hear Craig Forrest saying that DeGuzman was having a rough game – you would be too if every time you touched the ball some guy took your legs out from under you.

Kudos to De Guzman for getting up and continuing to play. He didn’t pull a Guevara and fake out and injury.

It was rough to watch this game.

For Canada to make it, they’re going to have to play above all of this. They got screwed by the ref AT HOME in MONTREAL. It’s only going to get worse on the road. And there’s no time to waste — they’re in Mexico on Wednesday.

Just a quick post that i hope that Team Canada wins huge next Wednesday at the National Soccer Stadium in Toronto against Jamaica.

GOOOOOOOO CANADA!!!!!

For the next round of World Cup qualifying Canada will face Mexico, Honduras, and Jamaica.

From the CONCACAF site it looks like the first two games will be in Canada — must wins of course.

The old adage being you have to win at home, and fight for a tie away to make it through.

Here’s a rough schedule. I don’t know how accurate it is, seeing as they’ve seemingly put two Canada games in Mexico.

Good news is we won’t be playing in Azteca in the middle of August (though Mexico City will be still hot in September)

Anyhow – we have a good team. If they plan to play in the games in Montreal, that may require a road trip.

Canada continue their world cup qualifying campaign tonight against St. Vincent & the Grenadines tonight at 7:30 in Montreal.

Some Canadian players were saying they’d like all their qualifying games to be at Montreal’s Stade Saputo – and seeing as there isn’t real grass at the National Soccer Stadium in Toronto I don’t blame them.

Is it inconvenient to put grass on the Toronto field once a year?

Yes

Is it more expensive to put in and maintain?

Probably.

Is it something that the players would want?

Certainly.

While you’re not going to hear guys on Toronto FC saying that they wouldn’t play without grass, I’m certain they’d quietly cheer if the team (Toronto FC) decided to go with real grass for the season. Real grass is preferable.

Yes field turf is FIFA legal. The real question is, is it player friendly?

The Canadian Men’s National Team started their 2010 World Cup mission with a 3-0 win yesterday against Saint Vincent & the Grenadines.

While Canada was watching European soccer on Sportsnet, there was no TV coverage of the NATIONAL team’s game.

Come on Canada. More people turn out in England for a friendly against the Faroe Islands than demand to see our national teams games. This is one day after TFC have had another sell-out at the National Soccer Stadium in Toronto.

But the National Soccer Stadium in Toronto isn’t going to see the return match between Canada and Saint Vincent & the Grenadines – that’s going to be this Friday night in Montreal at the Stade Saputo.
While I’d prefer to see the game in Toronto – as a fan – I’m also very pleased that it’s going to be in Monteal because then, perhaps, there’s more of a chance that the stadium will be packed and cheering our Canadian boys onto the next round of World Cup qualifying.

Seriously Canada — get behind this team. They’re good. They’re for real. And they’re making it to the World Cup.

Go Canada.

CBC is doing one of those “Hockey Day in Canada” things for soccer on May 31 – this Saturday.

They’re likely going to show a bunch of players from Lethbridge or something, then cut to the TFC game against the LA Galaxy.

While I applaud the CBC for covering soccer — for example, they showed last night’s TFC vs Impact game at midnight — they’re still only getting it half right.

Why aren’t we showing the CAnada vs. Brazil match on the CBC?

It’s the Canadian National Team. We’ve got a great team. They’re exciting. They play attacking soccer. And they’re playing BRAZIL.

I mean, what does the National team need to do to get exposure? To get shown on soccer day in Canada.

Instead, they’ve probably banked on Beckham playing against the TFC. But you know what? Beckham won’t even be in the Galaxy lineup because he’s away playing a bunch of Friendlies for England. England, a team that isn’t even in the European Cup.

He wants to play for his country over his club. As does many of the Canadian players.

I’m not sure where they’re showing the Canada Brazil game, but i want to see it. There’s no mention of if they’re playing it on the score, sportset, TSN, or wherever. I suppose what i’ll end up doing is head up to College street somewhere and watch it from a Brazilian feed.

Soccer day in Canada indeed.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are in the Stanley Cup final.

I admit, I’m on the bandwagon – but I got on the bandwagon early this year. I went to see them play a game at Melon where they beat the NJ Devils 7-1. Since then, I’ve been a Pens fan.

I’m saying that Geno, Sid, and the boys are going to beat Detroit in 6.

Okay. May 31, 2008 was going to be the day that David Beckham finally played in Toronto, against the FC.

For the record, he’s already played in Canada this year — his LA Galaxy losing to the Vancouver Whitecaps in Edmonton. That’s a USL soccer club beating Donovan and Beckham — something to think about before Toronto FC goes ahead and books those CONCACAF champion’s league tickets.

Speaking of CONCACAF – May 31 is now another big day for soccer in Canada. Or perhaps it’s a big day for soccer in Seattle as that’s where the Canadian Men’s National Team will be playing Brazil.

It’s going to be great to see how Julian DeGuzman, Dwayne DeRosario, and Atiba Hutchinson play against Brazil. Canada has a fantastic midfield right now — i’m really looking forward to how they perform against a big squad like Brazil. Okay, i’ve mentioned Brazil enough. Back to Beckham.

Word is he may not be playing in Toronto. Okay fine, this on again, off again thing he has with the English national team and his injuries is getting to be just drama. He never was going to make the Galaxy an amazing team all on his own. Is it because the Galaxy are so terrible on the field even with Beckham in the lineup that the focus of the season is not, how is Beckham and the Galaxy going to hurt us on the field, but rather if the guy will ever show up to play.

We assume he’s going to come back for the MLS All-Star game — but can we really count on that? After all, shouldn’t you at least play a couple of games in a league before being added to the All-Star team?

Watching Mo Johnston making player moves is like watching someone play video game sports. There’s like a trade every game. New player in. Old players out.

Okay – so in today:

Defender Oliver Tebily.

Add him to the recent additions of Laurent Robert, Amado Guevara, and Rohan Ricketts.
(All of whom look great in the midfield)

Gone from the team are Canadian Tyler Hemming and Trinidadian Colin Samuel.

The good news is TFC are a better team today than when we started the season. And now, the team is at a 2 and 2 record. If they win today, well, that would give them their first ever winning record.

Good times.

Okay – Game today at 3:30 against KC. As my brother jokingly calls it “The Derby”.

Game on.