This is Simeon Jackson, hero of Gillingham and seemingly the latest member of newly-promoted Norwich City in what I will have to get used to calling the Npower Championship.

As strikers go, Jackson is little, and unlike most small men he’s not actually all that fast. He is, however, an assassin in front of goal and that allowed him to record a credible fifteen goals in League One last season in spite of ending the year on a five-game scoreless drought while fighting through an injury. He is a legitimate professional talent, even if his strike rate for Canada of one goal in ten appearances is Rob Friend territory and he’s never played a second of his life higher than the English third division.

There’s some enthusiasm about Jackson joining Norwich, which in spite of being recently promoted is expected to hang around the Championship and avoid relegation without difficulty. There’s also some cynicism, but most of it is along the lines of “well, now he’s hurt his chances of playing in the Premier League“. He is only twenty-three, after all. At age twenty-three, Tomasz Radzinski was playing for a bad Belgian team. Rob Friend was just coming out of Moss FK in the Norwegian second division. Twenty-three is young. Barring injury there’s no doubt Jackson has untapped potential and one hopes Norwich will help him realize it.

But it is just potential. An Englishman by the name of Billy Sharp is another 5′9″ striker in his early twenties and he was actually the leading scorer in all of League One two seasons running, yet he has completely failed to accomplish anything at a higher level. League One proves nothing, and in limited experience against better opposition Jackson has one poacher’s goal against Cyprus, one glorious moment against Aston Villa, and over a dozen games of nothing much. Nobody, least of all me, is writing Jackson off, but let’s be realistic. If Jackson can win a starting spot with Norwich that will be a tremendous victory for a young player. If he actually shows Premier League quality, then he’ll get his chance but that’s more than an outside shot. But the excitement over Jackson is disproportionate to his actual accomplishments. If one were to list Canada’s best players under twenty-five, would Jackson break the top five? Adam Straith, Nana Attakora, Will Johnson, Dejan Jakovic, André Hainault, and that was easy.

Hell, Marcus Haber got on a Championship roster last year. Ask him how much good that’s done so far.

Meanwhile, a striker who has actually accomplished something in his career has also found a new team and he’s just coming in for mockery. Ali Gerba signed with the Montreal Impact yesterday, and while the North American Soccer League isn’t exactly the Npower Championship it has got a better name and at least Canadians might be able to start in it.

Shall we get the jokes out of the way? Very well. O ho ho ho Ali Gerba is so fat he doesn’t run around defenders, he runs around defenders. There. Also, he’s in the prime of his career and if he retired tomorrow he’d have the best strike rate of anybody in the history of the Canadian men’s national team among players with over ten caps. He’s had competitive strike rates in the then-Coca-Cola Championship, in Germany, all over North America, in fact just about everywhere except Toronto FC where he saw spot duty and was cut by a manager who said “no, I’d rather have Fuad Ibrahim, thanks.” But Toronto is very nearby, and its soccer media is very loud these days, and so Ali is the fat over the hill guy who can score like mad against banana republics but never against Mexico except for that one time when he did, and Simeon Jackson is the bright young pup who hasn’t actually proven anything against international-quality players yet but is neither fat nor prone to giving The Score personalities embarrassing interviews about how awful the Toronto FC dressing room is.

Of course, at age twenty-three Ali Gerba was named “Ngon” and was playing in something called the “A-League”. One never knows.

Simeon Jackson is developing well, if not brilliantly. But Ali Gerba is there, now, and is clearly our only capable scoring striker. One is the butt of jokes, the other is the subject of hagiography. It’s entirely possible that come the 2011 Gold Cup or even the 2014 World Cup qualifying run, the fat man will score more goals than the prodigy. In fact, if Gerba sticks with a club for the next couple seasons I’d be willing to bet on it. Potential is lovely but never wager against actual, genuine, and proven ability.

This space has a proud history of bringing you the latest in obscure Canadian footballers. Whether it was the latest and greatest intelligence on the infamous Dominic Imhof or… actually, it was pretty much just Dominic Imhof. However, today the series continues with the latest mystery man called to the Canadian men’s national team, future Argentina/Venezuela debutant Pedro Pacheco.

Pacheco is as obscure as obscure can be. The Canadian Soccer Association didn’t respond to my request for information by press time, but we know that he’s a midfielder from the Azores, born on June 27, 1984. He’s 5′10″ and 172 pounds and currently plies his trade for C.D. Nacional in the Portuguese Liga, the first division in Portugal. Nacional is a mid-table size and Pacheco just completed his first season there, having come over from first division rival C.D. Santa Clara on a free transfer last summer. He’s a dual citizen of Canada and Portugal, rendering him (presumably) eligible for the Canadian national team assuming this isn’t another Ugo Ihemelu situation. How he qualifies for that citizenship is a very good question.

Although playing in quite a good league, Pacheco doesn’t get a regular shift: he made five league appearances last season, four as a substitute, usually coming in late in the game. He also turned out in a couple cup games and once in the Europa League against FK Austria Wien. From what information is available on his substitutions he seems to have been mostly used in an attacking role.

No complaints about calling the kid up. The Portuguese league is a good one, ranked ninth in UEFA. Our midfield against Argentina will be strong enough that he might not see action in that game but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start in Venezuela. But the remarkable thing is that we called him up at all. Whatever Pacheco’s connection to Canada is, it looks pretty slim: he’s never played in this country as far as the Internet can tell us and certainly wasn’t part of anybody’s youth setup growing up. He is, basically, Marc Bircham, except that we know Marc Bircham spoke English.

It’s a remarkable step for the Canadian Soccer Association, who not-so-long ago were unable to scout their own asses with both hands. Heck, for the longest time one of the greatest joys of the Voyageurs was trying to tell the CSA about seemingly-overlooked Canadian diamonds in the rough like the legendary Joey Torchia. And yet Stephen Hart and company seem to have pulled the wool over the eyes of the entire Canadian soccer universe: none of us, however well informed, even had an inkling that this kid existed and was eligible for us. Whether somebody in Pacheco’s camp alerted Canada about his eligibility or it we had a man in Portugal who seriously earned his paycheque with some grade ‘A’ sleuthing, it’s something to celebrate.

Be excited about the trend; that the Canadian Soccer Association may be showing the same ruthlessness with uncapped foreign nationals that other countries have traditionally shown to poach ours. Be excited that we’re not being dirtbags about it, as Pacheco was never in the Portuguese plans. Be excited about the player, who is getting a paycheque to play first team minutes on a pretty good team in a pretty good league and is only twenty-five years old.

The roster the Canadian Soccer Association has announced for the May friendlies against Argentina and Venezuela is one of the most interesting selections Canada has seen for some time. On a non-FIFA date against two marquee opponents, Canada has still managed to pull in many of its premier players such as Dwayne De Rosario and Julian de Guzman for the Argentina game. Yet the Venezuela match in particular will see a few relative scrubs and a couple absolute, Dominic Imhof-style non-entities. Such a roster is bound to provoke discussion, and I am only too happy to join in with the crowd and discuss it:

1. Terry Dunfield got his first ever senior call-up for the Venezuela game. He is 28 years old and starts for mid-table League Two side Shrewsbury Town. He is also the former captain of our U-20 team and a product of the Manchester City youth system. A cautionary tale about the European school of player development, Dunfield has just fallen further and further down the depth charts in his professional career. In 2001, when Dunfield was Paul James’s darling and in the same discussion as Owen Hargreaves, nobody would have imagined nine years would pass before he’d even get a sniff at the senior team. But that’s football. It’s nice to see him get the opportunity and yet it’s sad it had to come this way.
2. Also showing up from League Two is young Gavin McCallum, a 22-year-old attacking midfielder out of Hereford United. He is the polar opposite of Dunfield, showing up from nowhere but beginning to claw his way up the Football League. This season was his first in league football since his teenage days and he impressed, bagging eight goals and working his way into the starting lineup after arriving on a free transfer from an Isthmian Premier side. He’s supposed to be deadly off of set pieces and pretty quick; sort of a Martin Nash type. Venezuela is above his skill level but he still deserves a look on the national team.
3. Daniel Imhof is back! Yes, it is Daniel, not Dominic, making his return to the national team for the first time since the 2008 Estonia friendly. He’s thirty-two years old and a shadow of his prime self in the Bundesliga: an assassin of a defensive midfielder who was a match for anybody in CONCACAF. He turns out these days for FC St. Gallen, a mid-table side in the Swiss first division who attained promotion last year. Speaking sentimentally, it’s good to see him back in the international saddle, but let’s not pretend he’s going to be much more than a speed bag for the Argentine attack.
4. According to Ed on the Voyageurs board, the acknowledged resident expert on all things German, Massih Wassey is on the roster in spite of his absence in the press release.
5. Pat Onstad is on the Argentina squad. He is forty-two years old. You have to think that it’s between him and Haidar Al-Shaïbani to get the start in Argentina, and Onstad is the favourite. If he does get his fifty-seventh career cap in Buenos Aires, he will be as far as I can tell the oldest player ever to appear for Canada in a full international.
6. No Ali Gerba? What the hell? Yes, Canada is turning out a strong selection of strikers in Simeon Jackson and Rob Friend. But Stephen Ademolu is a 27-year-old playing in Lithuania and he’s on the team! I know Gerba is without a club, but he was without a club in the 2009 Gold Cup too and he was our best player by a country mile. If Stephen Hart has already forgotten what Gerba did for Canada and for him last year… I don’t even know what to say about that. Neglecting your best striker because he’s without a club when he’s already proven the ability to produce in quantity while without a club is just absurd.
7. David Edgar and Kevin McKenna couldn’t come to the friendly for “personal reasons”. McKenna’s personal reason is probably that he’s suffering from a knee injury, whereas Edgar has yet again begged off an appearance for the full national team. He may have genuine personal problems or he may have the increasingly common affliction of doesn’t-want-to-play-for-Canada-itis. How many of our matches has he skipped now?
8. Finally, the question that’s on everyone’s mind: who is John Galt Pedro Pacheco? I’m working on that one.

What sort of team has Stephen Hart gotten us? We’re missing our best goalkeeper in Lars Hirschfeld, our best defender in Dejan Jakovic, and our best striker in Ali Gerba. We’ve got as good a midfield as we’re ever going to have until World Cup qualifying season rolls around again but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not as good as Argentina’s. Plus, once the MLS guys head back to their clubs after the Argentina game, the lineup for Venezuela is going to rely a little too much on the likes of Issey Nakajima-Farran and Gianluca Zavarise. But given that this is a non-FIFA date, we were never going to get our best eleven together and I’m both stunned and impressed Hart got as many of our core players as he did. For reasons a later post will hopefully make clear, I’m excited that we might be seeing more of Pedro Pacheco in the future.

But there are too many Gavin McCallums, Haidar Al-Shaïbanis, and Adam Straiths who have seen too few winters, as well as too many Pat Onstads, Daniel Imhofs, and Paul Stalteris who have seen too many. Even an Argentina B lineup will make minced meat of us unless the Canadian team comes out rearing to go, in better form than we’ve ever seen this generation, with nothing to lose and everything to win as we try to spring the mother of all upsets on one of the greatest soccer powers the world has known.

I can’t help it. I’m looking forward to this.

It’s almost time to get excited about the Canadian men’s national team again. In a little under two weeks, we play an absolute A-list friendly against Argentina, an opportunity so prestigious that even the Toronto FC stars are talking their club into letting them make an appearance. The eyes of the world will be on international soccer in the summer for obvious reasons, then in September come two exciting home friendlies. It’s a fantastic set of opportunities, the sort we rarely get between World Cup qualifying campaigns, and they’re chances that the national team will hopefully seize.

But what will the composition of that national team be? If there’s one thing international soccer fans love, it’s debating the composition of their national teams. For Canada, their national pool is smaller than some other nations, but it might get larger. For there are a surprising number of decent players out there with Canadian roots who aren’t yet tied down to their home nations; players who might someday be lured into the Canadian fold. Some of them are household names, but not all of them.

More worryingly, there are a few Canadians who could yet be drawn to foreign pastures. Most of them have given no indication that they’re ready to leave, but for the longest time neither did Asmir Begovic.

This is a (hopefully exhaustive) list of those notable Canadians.

Before the list begins, let’s go over the ground rules:

• Players are only tied to a nation by playing in a full FIFA sanctioned tournament. This includes the confederational championships such as the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the Confederations Cup, World Cup qualifying, and the World Cup itself. Non-senior tournaments such as the U-20 World Cup do not count.
• The eligibility rules are somewhat complicated, but in general if a player is a citizen of a country that he’s spent a considerable amount of time in, he can represent it. He can represent the country he was born in, and he can represent the country of his parents’ origin.
• A player can only switch between nations once. This will henceforth be known as the “Jacob Lensky rule”.
• A lot of the guys listed here probably won’t actually switch (helllooooooo, Dominic Imhof). They are listed anyway for completeness’s sake.
• If you have any notable additions or corrections, please make note in the comments!

May 14, 2010: added the mystery man Pedro Pacheco to the Canada list.

May 30, 2010: updated for the South American friendlies.

Currently in the Canadian mix, but could go elsewhere:

GK Haidar Al-Shaïbani (Nimes [Ligue 2]) – eligible for Canada, Algeria, Iraq, and Ukraine. One cap.
GK Michal Misiewicz (Sunderland [English Premier League, reserves]) – eligible for Canada, Poland, and Greece. Four U-20 caps.
GK Adam Street (unattached) – eligible for Canada and England. Seven U-20 caps.
DF David Edgar (Burnley [Coca-Cola Championship]) – eligible for Canada and England. Twenty-seven U-20 caps.
DF/MF Dominic Imhof (FC Tuggen [Swiss 1. Liga, which is actually the third division]) – eligible for Canada and Switzerland. One cap.
MF Jaineil Hoilett (1. FSV Mainz 05 [1.Bundesliga, youth]) – eligible for Canada and Jamaica. Five U-20 caps.
MF Pedro Pacheco (C.D. Nacional [Portugese Liga]) – eligible for Canada and Portugal. Two caps.
MF Carlos Rivas (C.D. Universidad de Concepcion [Chilean Primera Division]) – eligible for Canada and Chile. One cap.
MF Massih Wassey (FC Schalke 04 [1.Bundesliga, reserves]) – eligible for Canada, Afghanistan, and Germany. Two caps.
MF/FW Alex Semenets (Vancouver [USSF Division Two, Residency]) – eligible for Canada and Ukraine. Four U-20 caps.
FW Randy Edwini-Bonsu (Vancouver [USSF Division Two]) – eligible for Canada and Ghana. One cap.

Currently undecided:

MF/FW Junior Hoilett (Blackburn [English Premier League]) – eligible for Canada and Jamaica.
FW Teal Bunbury (Kansas City [MLS]) – eligible for Canada and the United States.

Appeared for other national teams but could come back:

GK Joe Cannon (San Jose [MLS]) – eligible for the United States and Canada. Two caps.
GK Daniel Fernandes (VfL Bochum [2.Bundesliga]) – eligible for Portugal and Canada.* Two caps.
DF Ugo Ihemelu (FC Dallas [MLS]) – eligible for the United States, Nigeria, and Canada.* Two caps.
DF Steven Vitória (FC Porto [Portugese Liga]) – eligible for Portugal and Canada. Thirteen U-20 caps.
MF Jonathan de Guzman (Feyenoord [Dutch Eredivisie]) – eligible for the Netherlands, Jamaica, and Canada. Six U-23 caps.
FW O’Brian White (Toronto FC [MLS]) – eligible for Jamaica and Canada. Capped at U-20 level.

* – Daniel Fernandes is on the Portugese World Cup roster and would be cap-tied if he appeared in a match. Ugo Ihemelu appeared on the bench for Canada during World Cup qualifying against St. Vincent and the Grenadines despite not being eligible at the time; he has appeared in two friendlies for the United States and is not cap-tied. There are some question marks over his Canadian citizenship but he is probably eligible for us.

So, farewell then, Jimmy Brennan, riding gloriously off into the sunset after fourteen years of professional soccer, forty-nine senior international caps, and three seasons as captain of his hometown MLS team. Brennan is set to announce his retirement tomorrow afternoon, supposedly to become assistant general manager in Mo Johnston’s erratic front office.

It’s a surprise in more ways than one. Brennan mentioned on It’s Called Football last week that he was probably going to retire at the end of this season but nobody expected it to be this soon. He looked good, if not great, in Toronto’s season opener against Columbus. He’s only thirty-two and it’s not like he’s injured or physically incapable. The question, and one that can probably never be answered, is whether Brennan is falling on his sword for the sake of his club or whether he’s just so tired that the captain is willing to leave his players in the lurch.

Brennan has a non-trivial 2010 cap hit of $119,070, which is a fair chunk of change on a team starving for depth. If Brennan’s retirement relieves Toronto of all $119,070, that’s money they could use to sign two decent depth players. But the world isn’t exactly full of players who are unattached, available in April, willing to take $55,000 each and of the quality of even a 32-year-old Jim Brennan. It’s difficult to imagine a way that this could make Toronto better on the pitch, unless you are a far more starry-eyed Gabe Gala optimist than I am. Brennan’s cap hit just about exactly covers three players at the new MLS non-developmental minimum of $40,000, but horrible though Toronto’s depth is are two more  minimum-wage players the answer?

For all the admiration I have for Brennan as a man and as a footballer, he has a chequered history. He’s been captain of Toronto since its inception, and not only has Toronto never made the playoffs but talented players like Jeff Cunningham have left with bitter tastes in their mouths from the dressing room environment. His quarrels with the national team have been legion: his relationship with Holger Osieck was bad enough that Brennan skipped the 2003 Gold Cup that eventually led to Osieck being hauled behind the woodshed and he fared little better with Dale Mitchell, initially greeting Mitchell as “a good selection” and throwing Mitchell under the bus less than a year later. He proved his professionalism by always playing his hardest when he got the opportunity regardless of the boss, but there was always that question mark; that over-willingness to play bootroom politician.

Let there be no doubt that, in his prime, Brennan was one of Canada’s better players. He was the best left back we’ve run out other than Michael Klukowski since the 1980s. Again excepting Klukowski and perhaps Martin Nash (more limited in other ways), no other Canadian player on either flank in the last generation has combined his intelligence on the pitch and sheer crossing ability. He scored six times for his country, which is nothing to sneeze at, and in another world would have had the same improbably long and remarkably fluid career as fellow politicking defender Mark Watson.

Toronto fans shouldn’t be worried about Brennan as an assistant GM: it’s not like the position makes life-or-death decisions, and Brennan is an intelligent, well-spoken man who by all accounts knows his football. There are worse front office apprenticeships. But was this cushy job offered by a team eager to free up Brennan’s salary, or was it a gift from Mo Johnston to a devoted defender who had decided that enough was enough one game into a new season? It’s doubtful we’ll ever really know the answer.

But whether Brennan is leaving for the sake of his club or for himself, Toronto FC will be worse off for it.

This is Charles Gbeke, filling out his jersey like usual. Charles was a big fellow in every sense of the word: 6′2″ and built like an offensive tackle from the 1980s. Husky. Slow. Watching him jog (he never got above “jog”) up the pitch, you got an idea about how tectonic plates worked. Seldom were he and Randy Edwini-Bonsu on the same pitch, but when they were, Edwini-Bonsu could outrun Gbeke going backwards. They were not an effective partnership just because they never really had the same game plan. So, naturally, the young, athletic Edwini-Bonsu has stayed, where the older, chunkier Gbeke is currently toiling with something called Guangzhou F.C. in the Chinese second division.

But here’s the thing about Gbeke. He pipped fifteen goals in forty-two career appearances for the Whitecaps and led the USL Division One in scoring last season. The guy may have been essentially inert but he could strike with a vengeance and he always seemed to know exactly where he had to be. He was, essentially, a homeless man’s Ali Gerba, but with the Whitecaps talented ball distributors and wing speed, he was deadly.

With Gbeke gone and Marcus Haber off to greener pastures in lovely, er, Exeter, the burden of scoring on Vancouver will fall to Edwini-Bonsu, 33-year-old oft-injured St. Vincent and the Grenadines-ian Marlon James, and a rogue’s galary of decent-ish youngsters that include Dever Orgill, Canadian U-20 Alex Semenets, and a former Puerto Rico Islander benchwarmer with the tremendous footballing name of Jonny Steele. There’s some potential there, but it’s not exactly a murderer’s row. When James is hurt (i.e. “all the fucking time”), there’s not a classic goal poacher in the bunch.

Unfortunately, there aren’t exactly a lot of talented poachers out there. Particularly not talented poachers in the primes of their career. Preferably ones familiar with the North American second division but who are still young enough to be key contributors to an MLS roster. It would be best if he were Canadian, to help us out with potentially problematic domestic player rules in the future. Besides, anybody available at this time of year would probably have missed professional training camps and be hopelessly out of shape. It’s not like there’s such a player who is actively trying to seek his release from one of our mortal rivals or anything, right? That would be impossible.

Oh, wait, what’s that, John Molinaro? Preki has sent Canada’s best goalscorer by strike rate home because of “performance” even though he’s in the best shape of his career and that goalscorer, who could be fairly described as “Charles Gbeke if Gbeke suddenly got really good and could fire a shot from twenty feet hard enough to decapitate a USSF-2 goalkeeper someday”, is trying to engineer his release from the club even though he’s on a guaranteed contract that will pay him nearly $200,000 this season?

Now, maybe Gerba has really been that awful on a Toronto FC team that’s looked uninspiring so far this preseason. Maybe his fat gave him super powers, like Samson’s hair, and now that he’s showed up lean and trim he makes Chad Barrett look like Wayne Rooney. Or maybe the notorious hard-ass coach is trying to light a fire under his team by sending home an expensive but expendable domestic player with a high profile just to show who’s boss. Maybe Gerba is getting Jeff Cunningham’d. It’s not like Toronto FC is blowing the barn doors off with or without Fat Fit Ali. Since a seemingly slightly panicked Mo Johnston was quick to emphasize that Gerba isn’t being released, this reeks of a motivational stunt.

Let’s suppose that Gbeke gets his release from Toronto FC. I doubt Toronto would be sad to get rid of Gerba’s cap hit, and if they could pay him off for a portion of his remaining deal by mutual consent, one suspects everyone would be happy with that. Gerba would be in need of a team, obviously, and the European clubs with which he once plied his trade are mid-season. They probably wouldn’t be looking to add an international who’d require a work permit. It would be North America or bust for him. MLS is probably going on strike, so there’s a very good chance he’ll be looking at USSF Division Two. And very few clubs have both the resources to pay Gerba and the roster spot where he could fit in.

The Whitecaps have both.

So make it happen, Mullet Bob. Sign him to a one-year deal and see what happens. It’s not like you have a salary cap to worry about. If he performs, fantastic, you have a striker who’ll be 28 at the beginning of your first MLS season and who we know can score goals. If he doesn’t, no harm done, staple his ass to the bench in favour of Orgill or Semenets and let Gerba wander down the dusty trail in search of a club once again.

At the very least, Vancouver restaurants would appreciate the business.

According to somebody who’d know on the Voyageurs board, there was a Middlesborough scout in Macedonia on Saturday watching Canada get turned into goop by the Balkaners. This Middlesborough scout was absolutely agog at the sight of Simeon Jackson getting the start for Canada. Why, this scout asked, would Canada ever start a League One striker however productive over somebody successful in the 1.Bundesliga?

My question to that Middlesborough scout is, why would you play the Bundesliger at all?

I’m not saying that Rob Friend is an all-round lousy footballer. His production in the 1.Bundesliga speaks for itself. No Canadian striker, anywhere in the world, is playing in a better league, but Friend is not only surviving but thriving despite a series of injuries slowing his production. You don’t score like Friend has for Borussia Monchengladbach if you are an incapable player. In terms of pure talent, he may be the best striker we have. He has played tough games against first-rate opposition and not been found wanting. Domestically, Friend is a rare Canadian success story, the only striker we’ve had who was both first division and first class since Tomasz Radzinski was the hero of Everton.

But if we accept the facts of his domestic talents, we must also accept his failings internationally. Friend is twenty-eight. He has won his share of caps, often in a starting or featured role. Yet his production for Canada is impotent. Unlike many of his contemporaries he has not been blunted by being used on the wing. He has benefited from a better ball-distributing midfield than most Canadian strikers. Every game he has played he has been up front as the target man, ready to bang in quality chances, and in almost every game he has been found wanting. He has only two goals to his credit.

The figures almost defy belief. Friend is, by far, the worst regular striker in the Canadian national pool in terms of goals per game. Among those who play striker at all he ranks ahead of Iain Hume, Issey Nakajima-Ferran, and Andrzej Ornoch. The first two have spent almost the entirety of their Canadian careers in midfield, and Ornoch has made only four caps. Friend, of course, ranks a million miles behind his contemporary Ali Gerba. He ranks a million miles behind Ali Gerba when Gerba (long accused of poaching goals against CONCACAF minnows, as if that’s a crime) is compared only to CONCACAF teams that made the last stage of CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying this season (Friend has never scored against a hex team). He ranks far behind Radzinski, who is old and played most of his international career as an attacking midfield. He ranks behind Kevin McKenna, who was only briefly a striker in the late Holger Osieck and Frank Yallop eras. He scores less frequently than Paul Stalteri.

Even Olivier Occean, who must have slept with somebody’s wife and has been condemned to exile from the national team like Moses wandering the desert, who hasn’t scored since Iceland, has a better strike rate than Rob Friend. In the Cyprus friendly earlier this season Stephen Hart called for Tosaint Ricketts over Olivier Occean, and Occean still has a better strike rate than Rob Friend. If we took Ben Rycroft out of the “It’s Called Football” studio, put a red shirt on him, and gave him twenty-four caps, odds are he’d have a better strike rate than Rob Friend.

Yet the only thing more remarkable than Friend’s international ineptitude are the lengths some people will go to defend him. The most common refrain is that he “isn’t getting service”, which is a peculiar thing to say when all of our strikers are scoring except for him. The most effective striker, by rate, in Canadian history is the same age as Friend and is a fat footballing vagabond who shambles around the pitch like an orangutan on quaaludes before slamming home a goal with the precision of Marco Van Basten. Ali Gerba could no more create his own opportunities than he could create his own diet plan, yet he thrives on the same service as poor Rob Friend.

The next argument is that Friend “isn’t being used properly”. Solutions to Friend’s not being used properly, however, seem to involve taking the rest of the Canadian national team and not using it properly. Tomasz Radzinski, when he wasn’t being used properly by Yallop, scored anyway. Iain Hume, when he wasn’t being used properly by Dale Mitchell, was at least a constant spark plug. Rob Friend, when he supposedly isn’t being used properly, essentially takes Canada down to ten men he’s so useless. Julian De Guzman is a born holding midfielder who’s been forced into an attacking role because nobody else can do it and he’s been able to adjust. Forcing our players who can actually produce to give way to a player who can’t because poor Robby isn’t being treated right is an insult to the concept of a team. Better ten Canadians playing well than one striker grinning and happily thundering headers into the crossbar.

The only possible defense of Rob Friend’s international career is made on the basis of what he does in Germany, but CONCACAF is not the 1.Bundesliga. Different players thrive in different environments. This isn’t news, but apply it to Rob Friend, so good abroad and so historically inept at home, and you will hear about it.

There are no questions of sample size, or youth, or Friend having been played as a goalkeeper for the first half of his career. He’s gotten the best opportunity of any Canadian striker of his generation and he has utterly squandered it. Bring on Fat Ali. He may eat bacon with every meal and he may bounce between clubs, but put a Canada shirt on him and the man scores. Everything else is details.

Do you remember the year 1999? There was that Y2K bug thing, I remember that. We all had mullets and wore jean jackets and called each other “Zap”, but that may have just been in Alberta. And that summer, a plucky bunch of youngsters led by tykes like Richard Hastings and Paul Stalteri were gearing up for something called the “Gold Cup”.

Well, they were gearing up for something called qualifying for the Gold Cup, for those were the dark days when Canada was expected to join the likes of Haiti and Cuba in the ritual of earning the right to play for our continental championship. Among those kids was a long-forgotten Poznań-born immigrant named Thomas Radsunski or something. Once the second-best striker for the North York Astros, that 26-year-old had somehow caught on with Anderlecht in Belgium and was piling up goals like they were missed CSL paycheques. Canada’s then-undisputed national soccer kaiser, Holger Osieck, had called upon Rudnuzsky or whatever his name was to join Paul Peschisolido and Carlo Corazzin as the best strike force Canada had seen since Bunbury and Mitchell.

Rasputzki accepted Osieck’s callup and then the day came and he was laying in bed in Anderlecht and the young man came to a fateful decision which could be summed up as follows: fuck this shit. Rather than head to the goddamned airport and fly across a goddamned ocean to play El Goddamned Salvador, he decided that he’d keep on kicking it in Belgium. He didn’t, however, think to inform anyone at the Canadian Soccer Association of this, which meant that some poor wino dragooned into being a chauffeur probably had to stand at an airport for six hours holding a piece of cardboard with “TOMMY RADNESKY” written on it. It also pissed off Holger Osieck something awful, and if there’s one thing living in Belgium should have taught young Tomas, it was never piss off the Germans.

Well, that was it for that young striker, whatever his name was. Osieck absolutely went spare. When Canada eventually qualified for the Gold Cup, Osieck did not invite him to join the full team. When Canada eventually won the Gold Cup, its first title of any kind since 1986, Osieck had the last laugh. Holger’s Heroes were as much national icons as any Canadian soccer team had been since 1986. Craig Forrest was a celebrity. Richard Hastings, he of the winning goal that put Mexico (fucking Mexico!) out of the tournament in what was very nearly their home ground of San Diego, had won himself a place in football Valhalla. That Polish immigrant who could, well, his international career was over. The Canadian team was more successful than ever even without that particular prima donna. Sure enough, Tomasz Radzinski never played in the Gold Cup again.

But a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity. Holger Osieck never quite forgave Radzinski, but the sheer paucity of depth for Canada in the first half of the decade meant that he eventually picked up the phone again. Radzinski returned in 2001 for a friendly in Malta because who the hell wants to play a friendly in Malta? Six months later, Osieck again summoned Radzinski, this time to Switzerland, where he potted a brace just because he could. They were his first goals for his country in six years.

He kept showing up. He skipped the Gold Cups – perhaps El Goddamned Salvador still weighed on his mind – but throw a European friendly or World Cup qualifying match and he was there. From 2002 to 2008, Radzinski scored at least one goal for his country every year except 2005, when a 32-year-old Radzinski, seemingly long past his best-before date, played only two friendlies and against Spain and Portugal.

The glory dimmed for Radzinski. He went from Everton, where he scored in quantity, to Fulham, where he didn’t. His next stop was in Greece, where aging strikers go to die, and though he produced once more he left after accusing his teammates of match fixing. Now he toils in the Belgian second division, and is possibly the best striker there.

But, as his club career dimmed, internationally the hits kept on coming. Frank Yallop hated Radzinski like he hated all his players with flair and personality; a then-Premier League star was thrown out onto the wing and told to try and get Kevin McKenna the ball so the fucking centreback could head it somewhere like where the net was. It was Dale Mitchell, of all people, who finally clued in that maybe his natural goalscorer should be in a position to score some goals. In 2008 World Cup qualifying, Radzinski seemed (not for the first time) like a man reborn. He tore up and down the wing like he was belatedly calling upon all the talent we Canada fans were robbed of in 2000. In Edmonton, we were witness to the best individual performance by any Canadian player since Craig Forrest hung up the spikes. Radzinski roared against the best midfield and defense in CONCACAF. His goal was a sublime bit of finishing, his balls into the box were deadly. Father Time had that game off, for it was Canada’s old men who came to play: who will forget Paul Stalteri blasting up the right wing and thundering a ball from forty feet that we belatedly realized had been really well-struck, ricocheting off the crossbar as the crowd went from resignation to near-orgasm in the flash of a second.

But it was Radzinski. Radzinski. Always Radzinski. When he ran to the corner of Commonwealth Stadium to celebrate a 2-2 draw with the Voyageurs, he was showered with love. And gifts. A plaque commissioned by Victoria Voyageur Geoff Wallace, honouring his commitment to the national team. A Voyageurs scarf, which was hard to come by at the time. It wasn’t the most graceful award presentation of all time since the plaque was very nearly thrown at him (it was that sort of celebration), but he got it anyway. Then somebody tossed him a black “Sack the CSA” shirt. Radzinski held up the shirt for an instant and looked at it thoughtfully. He took his jersey off and threw it into the crowd (it eventually got to the Voyageur who purchased the plaque). He put the “Sack the CSA” shirt on. The crowd erupted. The Voyageurs thundered to the rail. I was already there and found myself being jostled on all sides by those eager to salute the old hero. Through the chaos, I managed to snap a picture of Radzinski putting the shirt on, another of him walking away, and a lot of pictures of people’s elbows.

It was official. Radzinski was forgiven for his sin of nearly a decade ago. The prodigal son had been sent off into the sunset with a fanfare fit for kings.

Yet, you know what? For all the plaques and salutes and the glorious exits, Tomasz Radzinski never actually came out and said he was done. On the contrary, he kept plugging along. Scoring goals. Telling a Voyageur interviewing him that “I have been approached by the CSA to see where my future lies with the national team but right now I really don’t know.” Not coming to the Gold Cup but that’s hardly news. When Poland was announced as Canada’s second November friendly, Voyageurs like me started clamouring for Radzinski to get the call to Poland, the country in which he had been born but never played a professional game. Then he did, to the extent that Stephen Hart actually allowed Radzinski to miss the Macedonia match to ensure his presence in Poland.

Here we are again. Another would-be sending off. Another chance for Radzinski to possibly ride off into the sunset. Jonathan de Guzman and Dani Fernandes should take note: time and loyalty, however belated, truly does heal all wounds. Yet has Radzinski said he’s done? Not within my earshot. He is dominating the Belgium second division, and playing at a higher level than any of our strikers aside from Rob Friend and Simeon Jackson. It’s easy to say that he’ll be forty years old by the 2014 World Cup, but Radzinski has never given a damn about Father Time’s opinion before so why should he start now?

Is this actually a Canada – Poland preview? Not really. Poland’s sending a young team and if we play our best we should beat them. But it is an axiom that in friendlies it is not the result that matters but the effort. And if we’re talking effort, it is only fitting that we talk Radzinski.

…indifference, treason, and greed…

This is Jacob Lensky, wearing a look taken straight from the “guy you warn the flight attendant about” collection. Never has the term “mug shot” been more appropriate. From the time I saw it, I always thought that this picture made him look like he was in the dock for touching little boys or something. Then again, the Canadian Soccer Association has been known for many things but “a creative and skilled media department” has never been one of them.

Yes, this picture was taken from the CSA’s website. I suspect it might soon become a collector’s item because – in the biggest twist since the last one – Jacob Lensky, a man who has raised changing his mind to an art form, declined an invitation from Stephen Hart to our central European friendlies in favour of playing with the Czech U-21 team. Yes, he declined an invitation to a pair of full internationals in exchange for playing youth football.

Like Canada, the Czech Republic failed to qualify for the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa. They’re better than we are, of course, but the margin isn’t as considerable as it was in the past and the Czechs are getting older rather than younger. There was even a rumour that the Czechs would be playing us in one of our November friendlies that ended up going to Poland, which is surely a sign that you’re starting to slip down the table. However, Jacob Lensky has allegedly looked at them and said that “you know what? That U-21 team sounds good!” Now, in fairness, the Czech U-21s are going to the World Cup, whereas ours are not, but that’s still a pretty ridiculous decision, particularly since the bizarre weightings given to each confederation in U-21 World Cup qualifying means that it’s a much looser test of a nation’s relative skill.

No, I’m not here to make any snide remarks about the “treason scale” or to say that Jacob Lensky is now worse than Hitler. The only reason I thought that Lensky would be true to the Canadians was that I didn’t think the Czechs would want him. Apparently his strong showing at left back with FC Utrecht in the Eredivisie has opened some eyes in Europe, and he’s probably won a spot fair and square. He’s starting for a surprisingly strong team in a vastly underrated league and doing well there; why wouldn’t the Czechs want to give him a look?

Let’s just remember the reason why Lensky is on FC Utrecht in the first place. “Feyenoord is saddened by the player’s departure, given that his footballing qualities were unquestionable,” in the words of Feyenoord’s then-director of football Peter Bosz, after the Dutch giants courteously released Lensky to return to Vancouver after he retired from football and declared his intention to never ever strap on a set of studs again. Almost exactly a year later he returned to the Eredivisie after training with the Vancouver Whitecaps, signing on with Feyenoord’s rivals in Utrecht. Feyenoord, having given Lensky his release under what turned out to be false pretense, didn’t receive a transfer fee in exchange for serving a promising youngster up to a rival on a silver platter.

That’s without even getting into his earlier youth career, where he played for almost every halfway decent academy in Europe before leaving, not because of a lack of skill but because his family had some problem with this or he wasn’t adjusting well to that or in general being a grotesque prima donna entirely out of proportion to his admittedly considerable talent. To quote Lensky in a rather ill-headlined interview with Red Nation Online:

People enjoy talking about me, my brother and father like it’s some pity story, but people don’t know what they’re talking about so those keyhole theories just need to stop.

Well, your father yanked you across the universe to satisfy his own ego to have a son playing as a superstar in professional football, and his pressure drove your supposedly older brother out of the game entirely. I’m not making these things up; talk to the guys who witnessed it. And now you’re taking a big risk and throwing away your Canadian eligibility so you can play for the youth time of your father’s homeland? Where’s the keyhole theory, Jacob? It is a pity story. And what a shame you’ve taken the only country that hasn’t rejected you so far and turned that pity into anger.

I’d say that I wished Jacob the best but I don’t, of course. Well, maybe I do. I hope that he puts the bravado, bluster, and pressure behind him and finds an occupation that he really loves, rather than football which his own interview indicates he sees as a mercenary, merely a means to an end. I wish him nothing but ill on the pitch, but maybe what’s best for Jacob Lensky the athlete isn’t what’s best for Jacob Lensky the man.

It’s a shame that the Maple Leaf Forever has been so quiet lately. After all, there’s been quite a bit going on with Canadian players around the world. David Hoilett made his debut with Blackburn, Asmir Begovic is getting first team time with Portsmouth, and of course there are the Jonathan De Guzman transfer rumours…

Okay, none of them are exactly Canadian. Regardless, not a few Canadians have been shuffling about the football world. If you ever want up-to-date information on the tribulations of every Canadian outside Canada, the Voyageurs should be your one-stop shop, particularly the aptly-named Mother of all Canadians Abroad thread, from which I mercilessly lifted much of this news. I did, however, try to add my own insight and research to it, so hopefully even the hardest-core Voyageur will find something in this summary they didn’t already know,

In a sad bit of news, alumnus of the Canadian national team and former Toronto Blizzard standout Fernando Aguiar had retired from football at the age of 37, returning to Canada. Mixed in with sorrow at a great warrior from a bygone era finally hanging up his boots, the most natural response to this is “Jesus Christ, Fernando Aguiar was still playing?”

Indeed he was. Aguiar was actually at a surprisingly high level, playing for S.C. Gondomar of the Portugese Liga Vitalis (their second division). Aguiar was once known for speaking before he thought, famously running off his mouth after not being selected for a friendly on the Voyageurs board. But in recent years he has kept his head down while quietly accumulating the best resume of any Canadian outfield player in his age group. The last true casualty of the Yallop-Watson dark age, Aguiar will be remembered fondly.

Andrew Ornoch recently joined the many Canadians plying their trade in the Netherlands, joining up (as reported in superior detail by the Out of Touch guys and by Ben Rycroft) with Heracles Almelo of the Eredivisie. The 24-year-old plays both midfield and striker and enjoys a positive reputation both in Canada and in Europe, where he is called a positive influence as well as a talented player. Ornoch signed on a free transfer after impressing the Dutch in his trial, and the manager has indicated (Dutch) he’ll get a shot in the starting eleven.

Born in Warsaw, Ornoch is (until they change the rules again) a signed, sealed, and delivered Canadian: he appeared in Dale Mitchell’s last match, the famous 3-0 curbstomping in Jamaica which also saw a forgotten Bosnian named Asmir Begovic spend the entire match on the bench. Ornoch has also appeared against Hungary in 2006 and Cyprus earlier this year.

While Ornoch enters the Netherlands, could-be Canadian Jonathan De Guzman is on his way out, being linked to many of the powers of Europe from his current side Feyenoord. Chelsea, Stuttgart, Everton, and Valencia have been linked to the starlet of ambiguous nationality, with the transfer fee rumoured to be in the £4 million range. The Chelsea rumour is getting the most buzz, but that’s probably just because they’re Chelsea: they are reportedly looking to send De Guzman out on loan and the younger De Guzman is not at all happy with that idea.

Jonathan is obviously catching the eye of the European press after an injury-plagued 2008 campaign, which is great for him but a shame for us Canadians as we’d hoped he’d slip under the radar long enough to commit to the maple leaf. For what it’s worth, though, there is still no Dutch national buzz around De Guzman and they seem content to let World Cup Qualifying pass without tying him down. Perhaps the Dutch have no doubts about his loyalties, or perhaps they have no interest. We outsiders can only guess.

The much bigger news for Canada fans came on a much smaller scale, and promising defender Adam Straith, formerly of the Vancouver Whitecaps academy and fresh off of a year on loan in Germany, will stick around in Europe as the Whitecaps agreed on his transfer to 2.Bundesliga Energie Cottbus for an undisclosed fee.

Cottbus have made a habit of acquiring Canadians lately. In addition to Straith and the other half-dozen Whitecaps loanees up and down the Cottbus youth setup, the newly-relegated side also rescued Lars Hirschfeld from obscurity by signing him on a free transfer from CFR Cluj earlier this summer. The Canadians have not yet gotten any first-team experience, with Hirschfeld consigned to the bench until Cottbus manages to transfer out the overqualified Gerhard Tremmel, but both Straith and Hirschfeld were acquired with the expectation that they’ll be starting sooner or later.

Straith, 19, is entirely a product of the British Columbian soccer system, having played with Victoria United of the PCSL, the Whitecaps Residency team, and the usual panoply of elite youth teams. He made five appearances with Cottbus II in his loan spell and acquitted himself very well, and while the Germans will of course train him up to full European standards he and his kinsmen are the much-belated realization of the long-held dream that Canada could develop its own players domestically.

Last but not least, a Canadian goalkeeper has signed in the Scottish second division. There’s not much glory in the Scottish second tier but since I did an entire post on our goalkeeper signing for a soon-to-be-relegated Scottish Premier side, the least I can do is give this guy a paragraph. Cameron McKay agreed to terms earlier this week with Cowdenbeath F.C., joining a promising squad. It’s certainly a leap for McKay, who was previously playing in the Ontario provincial league with the other part-time warriors that dot Canada’s obscure soccer landscape.

According to perpetual newsbreaker of obscure Canadians Dino Rossi, Abney is twenty-four years old, and nobody will be shocked to hear that he has no international resume. I don’t follow the Ontario provincial leagues (surprise surprise) and so I don’t know a damned thing about this kid except what I got out of the Voyageurs thread: most interestingly, he has a blog with six posts but a pretty engaging writing style. He may be even less prolific than I am but he’s also getting paid to play football while I sit in an office staring at the clock all day, so he’s ahead of me there.