Canada 4 St. Lucia 1
The Canadian Men’s National Team kicked off what Canadian Soccer Supporters are hoping will be a long journey culminating in an appearance at Brazil 2014 with their opening World Cup qualifying match against St. Lucia today in Toronto. Canada went into this game as heavy favourites against a St. Lucian side made up pretty much solely of local players and semi-professionals.
Canadian National Team Head Coach Stephen Hart went almost exclusively with a starting eleven made up of players who have been playing regularly and logging significant minutes with their clubs. Lars Hirschfeld got the nod ahead of Milan Borjan in net and Simeon Jackson got his first start for Canada since making his debut in the English Premier League.
The First Half
The first half kicked off a large number of boisterous Canadian soccer fans in attendance and with the Voyageurs Supporters Group in particularly fine voice in the South end. Canada immediately went on the attack and almost scored in the first minute when winger Josh Simpson broke down the left side and delivered a cross that required some organized defending by St. Lucia.
In the 3rd minute, Dwayne De Rosario delivered a very smart and aware pass that set up Iain Hume to deliver a shot that required a big save by St. Lucia keeper Iran Cassius. St. Lucia almost scored an own goal two minutes later when a cross by Simpson was redirected off his own cross bar by defender Bernard Edward.
Canada opened the scoring in the 6th minute when a De Rosario cross redirected to the feet of Simpson, who banked the ball into the net off of Cassius.
With Canada looking dominant and fully into control, St. Lucia would stun the crowd by equalizing less than a minute later on a blast from distance by Tremain Paul that beat Hirschfeld in the far right corner.
That goal seemed to unsettle Canada to the point that the team look disjointed and out of sorts for the remainder of the half following an excellent start in front of a very pro-Canada home crowd. As Canada stumbled through the remainder of the initial forty-five minutes, St. Lucia delivered some physical, bordering on dirty tackles on Ante Jazic and Simeon Jackson.
Canada had a couple of decent scoring chances near the end of the first half, with Atiba Hutchinson blasting a shot from distance just wide of the net and Jackson fanning on an attempted volley in the St. Lucia box.
Post game reaction for Canada following their opening game 4-1 win over minnows St. Lucia. In the video, speakers include Stephen Hart, Atiba Hutchinson, Dwayne DeRosario and Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault
The Second Half
Canada regained the lead early in the second half when St. Lucia fullback Pernal Williams was called for a hand ball in the penalty area in the 50th minute. Dwayne De Rosario stepped up and made no mistake in finding the back of the net on the penalty kick.
St. Lucia had an excellent chance to equalize four minutes later when Kevin Edward headed a dead ball into the Canada box just wide of the net.
Canada would increase their lead just past the hour mark when Hutchinson made a fine pass to send Simpson in alone on Cassius and the Burnaby, British Columbia native made confidently scored his second of the night.
The home side almost made it a three goal lead in the 67th minute when De Rosario delivered a well placed cross that Iain Hume headed just over the cross bar.
St. Lucia went down to ten men in the 88th minute when Pernal Williams was sent off for his second yellow card of the match, as Canada cruised to victory on the back of a much stronger performance in the second half. Canada would add a fourth goal in injury time when Tosaint Ricketts sent a perfect header to Will Johnson, who easily tapped the ball into the St. Lucia net.
Post-Match Reaction
After the match, Canadian Men’s National Team Head Coach Stephen Hart both rued the large number of missed chances by his team while at the same time stressing that he never doubted that his team would emerge victorious.
"I had complete confidence that we were going to win the game. I think people get caught up in the score and all of that, but it’s more important to play well and just win the game and willing to attack. It's what we did in all the practices,” said Hart.
When asked to describe what he said during the half-time break, Hart indicated that he preached patience and focus as the keys to coming away with a better performance in the second half.
"We warned them. We said do not try to play a 90 minute game in the first 10 to 15 minutes. We talked about that, be patient, things are going to happen for you,” Hart explained. We calmed them down and said that basically you are going to win the game. It's just a matter of getting the next goal and being patient and not giving them opportunities,” stated Hart.
Asked for his thoughts on the home support that Canada received, Hart was clearly happy to be answering the question in glowing terms.
"Excellent. Fantastic. (Goalkeeper coach) Paul Dolan was telling me he was getting goosebumps listening to O Canada being sung. It was beautiful.”
Canada Team Captain Kevin McKenna was asked if he thought that the team showed a massive improvement in its opposition when compared to the team that struggled to score goals from open play at the Gold Cup
"Yeah, of course. We created a lot of chances I don't know how many shots on goal we had, but we had so many crosses through their box. It was a game where we could have won by 8-9 goals, but we only scored four,” stated McKenna.
Canadian forward Josh Simpson indicated after the match that while he was happy with the result, he also wish that Canada could have put St. Lucia away very early in the match.
"It would have been nice to have put the game away earlier. That's what we were trying to do. But we're pretty happy with it. It's still a good win. Like I said, we wanted to finish them off earlier, but that's football. We can't always do exactly what we want, but we got the result and that's what is important,” stated Simpson.
Simpson was also asked to respond to an assessment by the St. Lucia Head Coach that Canada had delivered an average performance.
"Like I said, we could have been more clinical. I don't think we were average. We smashed them, so I'm not sure what he is on about,” said Simpson.
The Final Word: Major kudos to the home crowd at BMO Field
While Canada delivered a very underwhelming performance in the first half, the team responded well in the second half and scored three unanswered goals. While many had been expecting Canada to blow out the St. Lucians, the fact that the first half was so close was disconcerting. On the positive side of things, Canada scored three goals from open play and generate a large number of scoring chances with an attack that looked much more dangerous than it did in the Gold CupUltimately, Canada got the win and they have now started off World Cup qualifying with a victory, as their quality won out in the end over a lowly ranked side. When the win is added to the fact that Puerto Rico and St. Kitts and Nevis drew 0-0 in the other Group D match, Canada immediately finds itself in first place with three points and the best goal differential of the four teams.
Make no mistake though, Canada will have to perform better on the road if they want to win their group in the type of fashion that will breed confidence for the next round of qualifying. And the while performance the team delivered today was good enough to best St. Lucia, Canada will need to be much better if it hopes to defeat squads like Panama and Honduras later on in the qualifying process. If Canada can build on the good things they did in this match then this match will likely be qualified as a building block for a team that got stronger and more cohesive as the qualifying process moved along. This wasn’t a perfect start for Canada, but it was a decent one.
While Dwayne De Rosario was named the man of the match for Canada, the true MVP in this one was the Canadian supporters, who were genuinely fantastic and played a key role in lifting their team up when they needed a boost to get out of the first half funk that plagued Canada following the St. Lucia goal.
Canada Starting Lineup
1 Lars Hirschfeld
2 Ante Jazic
4 Kevin McKenna
5 Andre Hainault
6 Julian de Guzman
7 Iain Hume
10 Simeon Jackson
11 Josh Simpson
12 Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault
13 Atiba Hutchinson
14 Dwayne De Rosario
Substitutions: (69) Johnson in for Hutchinson; Ricketts in for Simpson (82) Haber in for Hume.
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