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Canada 0–1 Mauritania
OLIVA, Spain – When Canada conceded a late goal to Panama to go out of the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup with a 1-1 tie, former coach Stephen Hart said that “sometimes football is a lie, the best team doesn’t always win the match.”
On a field at a resort in rural Spain, Canada was the better team all over the field against Mauritania except when it matters the most. In the end, Canada’s inability to score once again came back to haunt them as they conceded once to lose 1-0 to Mauritania.
“What was missing was pretty much what’s been missing since a very long time and that’s scoring,” said midfielder Julian de Guzman. “Hopefully that’s something that we can work on going into the next couple camps.”
Unlike Sunday’s game, where took Canada some time to get into, on Tuesday Canada took it Mauritania right off the start and got a chance just a few minutes in when Issey Nakajima-Farran had a shot near the edge of the 18-yard box get saved.
The pressure kept coming and in the 33rd minute, Adam Straith took a quick free kick over the top that found Tosaint Ricketts. Ricketts beat the Mauritanian goalkeeper to the ball and crossed to Nakajima-Farran who had another crack.
This time, with the goalkeeper out, the ball looked bound for the corner but Mauritania packed the box and blocked the ball on the line.
“You need to finish the moves. It’s important,” said Benito Floro, who will ultimately be judged on whether or not he can turn around the almost timeless Canadian problem that is the lack of goal scoring. “I say the players made several chances on goal but it’s a question of finishing them in the next camp.”
Benito Floro:
It was a lineup that had more veterans than on Sunday but it goes without saying that it would have been better had Atiba Hutchinson been involved. Hutchinson, of course, played on Sunday and was in the stands on Tuesday watching and shouting advice and encouragement to his teammates.
All the good work that had been building up in the first half was undone when Marcel de Jong was sent off for a second yellow card in three minutes.
Eight minutes into the second half, Adama Ba struck when, on what was essentially Mauritiania’s only threatening move of the game, he slipped through the Canadian defence, chested down a ball over the top and beat Milan Borjan in a one-on-one.
The teams were level on players again with just under half an hour remaining when Oumar N’Diaye was sent off for a second yellow card when he went in late on Nakajima-Farran.
Canada had already been dominating the possession again at that point but after the second sending off, they virtually spent the rest of the second half in the Mauritania end. But again, the just couldn’t get that goal.
“I feel like after they scored we did dominate the game,” said Straith. “At the end of the game it’s not going to be good enough to just dominate and not score and not get a result at some point.”
Adam Straith:
All through the camp, the word coming out was that this was more about the performance and taking the first steps to learn the way the team will play under Floro.
Earlier in the camp, Floro essentially said these were training games that just happened to be against an international team.
That’s fair enough, but in any game Canada can dominate the entire game like they did on Tuesday night. But if there’s nobody who can score on a consistent basis then it’s going to be the same outcome every time.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” assured de Guzman. “I think the feeling that myself and the guys have is very positive regardless of the result. We had a chance to finally meet Benito. I think a lot of us believe that it’s a very productive style of play. It’s something that can take us really far once we’re close to perfecting the football that he wants and you can see it’s very effective.”
Julian de Guzman:
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