Believe it or not but we are roughly four months away from our Canadian U23 squad taking part in the 2012 CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament. In the process they are not only looking to book a place to London 2012, but break what would be a 28 year (or 6 Olympics) run of non-qualification.
Usually when it comes to Olympic events Canada is associated with Gold, however the last time we won anything in Men’s Soccer was 1904! That’s not a typo folks; it was the third edition of the Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri where the historic side from the city of Galt (which I believe is now present day Cambridge, Ontario) defeated a local USA side from Christian Brothers College. I personally would love it if we could break that curse as well but I won’t get ahead of myself, we’ll have to take baby steps.
To give a little background on the tournament format it consists of eight qualifying nations, three from North America, three from Central America and two from the Caribbean (USA, Mexico, Canada, Honduras, Panama and El Salvador have already qualified). Much like the 2008 tournament this edition will be held in the United States in three venues. The eight teams will be split up into two groups, the first group will be playing their matches at Home Depot Center in Carson, California while the other group will be playing their matches at LP Field in Nashville, Tennessee. The group winners and runners up will play the Semifinals and Finals at Live Strong Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kansas with the two finalists earning their place at the 2012 London Olympics.
The “favorites” tag will be clearly placed on the hosts, who will be lead by a strong MLS based core with the likes of Philadelphia Union’s Freddy Adu, New York Red Bulls’ Juan Agudelo, Sporting Kansas City’s Teal Bunbury and possibly FC Dallas’ Brek Shea. However, their depth doesn’t stop there as they also boast players such as Vancouver Whitecaps’ Omar Salgado, Columbus Crew’s Dilly Duka and D.C United’s Perry Kitchen, along with European based talent lead by the much talked about Mikkel “Mix” Diskerud and a blend of NCAA talent. They are lead by newly appointed coach Caleb Porter, who is ironically also coach of one of the strongest NCAA programs at University of Akron.
So where does this leave Canada?
In my opinion we have a legitimate chance to get to the final provided we don’t meet USA in the Semifinal stage like in 2008 where we subsequently lost 3-0. We have a core group of players that except in a few isolated cases are all playing meaningful matches with their club sides. The 2008 side that was lead by Coach Nick Dasovic was probably a slightly better group, lead by Will Johnson who scored three goals and was named to the CONCACAF Best XI but also had the likes of Tosaint Ricketts, Nick Ledgerwood and Andre Hainault. However, while this group still has a few months from being fully named, it is shaping up to be a solid squad.
Here is who I believe will make up Coach Tony Fonseca’s core:
DEF - Nana Attakora (San Jose Earthquakes)
DEF - Ashtone Morgan (Toronto FC)
DEF - Adam Straith (Energie Cottbus)
MID - Shaun Saiko (FC Edmonton)
MID - Matt Stinson (Toronto FC)
FWD - Randy Edwini-Bonsu (Eintracht Braunschweig)
FWD - Kyle Porter (FC Edmonton)
There is a question mark over whether Straith and Edwini-Bonsu would be released from their clubs in Germany to play in the tournament but I would venture to guess if they express their feeling of wanting to be a part of the team it shouldn’t be a problem.
Both Adam Straith and Nana Attakora should be relishing this opportunity. In the case of Attakora being on this team will help immensely with his confidence and just knowing that he is wanted and needed will serve as motivation to what has been a rollercoaster last few seasons. As for Straith, although he has been getting playing time for the Senior Canadian side during FIFA World Cup Qualifying the same can’t be said of his time at Energie Cottbus. This is a chance to both stay in the mind of Coach Stephen Hart and continue to improve against international competition with regular playing time.
This is also an opportunity for other players to showcase their talents for either their current clubs or potential suitors. While the Vancouver Whitecaps have taken criticism from most, including myself, for their lack of producing Canadian talent they have a golden chance to show the rest of Canada what they have to offer. It will be interesting to see if the much hyped Russell Teibert will earn a call up alongside his teammate Philippe Davies on the squad. We’ll know in a few months but he’d definitely be an asset and this would be a great opportunity that neither him nor his club should pass up.
This is a tournament that if everything works out as planned I’ll get to experience first hand, if that is the case I’ll be sharing my experience through RedNation Online for all to see and hopefully be able to unearth a few diamonds in the rough in the process.
Kamal Hylton is Owner/Freelance Soccer Writer at Hylton Sports Media,
he specializes in covering Youth Development in Canada and the
CONCACAF Region as well as European leagues such as Bundesliga, Serie A and UEFA Champions League. Follow him on Twitter to view all
his work.
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