I haven’t posted in ten days. An unfortunate combination of illness and panic at work has felled me. But I would be even more remiss in my duties than usual if I failed to mention this.

Dale Mitchell has taken the pipe.  He’s gone. Our long national nightmare is over.

Right?

There’s been speculation about the direction Canada will go in the post-Mitchell era. In my post below, I speculated on Mitchell assuming some of Hart’s responsibilities as technical director, as had been rumoured at the time. Turns out that Mitchell’s just gone, and Hart will probably have to go on as technical director. Which means either we bump up someone else to take Hart’s spot and move Hart back into management, or we just bump somebody up to take Mitchell’s spot.

The hot rumour for interim manager? Tony Fonseca, and good god almighty I wish I were making that up.

For those who weren’t following the CONCACAF U-20 tournament, Fonseca led Canada to a disappointing single win, dropping a couple winnable matches to Costa Rica and the hosts Trinidad and Tobago. By all accounts the boys didn’t play badly and noone was under the impression that this was a crop of top-flight youngsters ready for prime time. But there’s a natural concern about succeeding Mitchell with another guy whose team so recently bombed out at a lower level.

Whoever takes over is probably going to be in Stephen Hart’s role all over again, carrying an interim title into the Gold Cup while the CSA searches for a more permanent replacement. I truly understand economising and taking whoever’s available while you try and find a long-term solution, but honestly? I’d have been happier riding Mitchell into the Gold Cup and replacing him directly with a proper long-term manager rather than pulling the trigger on him a few months before a major tournament and relying on the good fortune of some CSA lifers to keep us from humiliation.

Plus, with the “Fire Mitchell!” chant out of our repetoire, we’re going to have to work on something new for the Gold Cup.

Edit (6:31 PM Pacific): over at the 24th Minute, Andrew Bucholtz suggests that I probably regret my earlier decision to trust the CSA more than I trusted Duane Rollins. Regret? Yes, I look like an idiot, but Dale Mitchell is cashing EI cheques. There’s a tradeoff I’ll take every day. Besides, frankly, I always look a bit like an idiot anyway.

The Republic of Ireland is a mid-sized industrial nation. They have a population of about four and a half million and a population with a lot of interest in a lot of sports. They have a domestic football league but a minor one that hasn’t produced a single soul on their national team. They’re also ranked 26th in the world and have qualified for the World Cup in 1990, 1994, and 2002.

I guess what I’m saying is, what the hell?

Like Canada, Ireland’s football world is dominated by its larger neighbour and its best players play in foreign leagues. Gaelic football accounts for a third of every spectator in the country at sporting events, and association football doesn’t crack the top two for either attendance or participation. Unlike Canada, they play in the best division in the world against strong teams and, unlike Canada, they’ve been successful at it.

The trick is to figure out what the differences are. Ireland’s had better management, with longtime bosses Eoin Hand, Jack Charlton, Mick McCarthy and Brian Kerr running the team between 1980 and 2005. But they haven’t been afraid to pull the trigger on anyone who’s lost the team and Kerr, the successful junior manager who moulded an entire generation of Irish youngsters, was axed after a failed qualifying campaign for 2006.

Some federations don’t approve of the idea of hiring good managers and then letting them go once they’ve worn out their welcome, but the Irish isn’t like most federations. It’s imperfect, occasionally corrupt, and has a closet packed to the brim with skeletons, but it’s dedicated to advancing the top levels of the game and they’ve never been afraid to shake things up.

Before the 2002 World Cup, Mick McCarthy and the Irish team was training on the Northern Mariana island of Saipan. It was a shambles. The FAI (stop me if this sounds familiar) had chosen their own perks over the success of the national team. They’d stuck the players in business class the executives had flown first class all the way. Training materials were substandard and arrived late, and the venue was utterly unsuitable for a professional squad preparing for the tournament of a lifetime. Ireland captain Roy Keane absolutely lost his mind, teeing off on Kerr, the Football Association of Ireland, and basically everybody who looked at him funny before going back home and skipping the tournament.

If that had happened in Canada, it would have been more of the same. In fact, judging by Julian De Guzman’s anger it very nearly did happen in Canada and the CSA seems content to snooze through it. The FAI did something about it. The team’s been less successful in recent years, partially thanks to bad play and partially thanks to bad luck. But, unlike Canada, they’ve always managed to be in the thick of things. They even managed to resolve the nightmare that was their national league structure in 2005, enduring some short-term pain to put together a proper national league.

Ireland has every reason in the world not to be a success. But they are, because even though they’re a bunch of corrupt amateurs who sold off World Cup tickets in the mid-90s Jack Warner style, they also put the football team first.

Think about that when you go out on St. Patrick’s Day. So far we mostly know them for drinking, but maybe we should learn their lessons from football instead.

First off, let me make it perfectly clear. I don’t think Dale Mitchell is going anywhere. Since Mr. Rollins’s report from the weekend, CSA media rep Richard Scott responded to the allegations via e-mail about as unambiguously as it’s possible to, saying:

Dale is our men’s head coach – so that includes friendly in May vs Cyprus, other friendlies/training camps that are always part of planning process, plus upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup for which we have just learned venues (draw yet TBA).

That’s up there on the “I did not have sex with this woman” scale of denials. Check out the Voyageurs thread for some analysis from the gallery, but the CSA has no reason to lie about that. If the board is so torn that a move has to be kept secret, what chance does a management change have of getting through anyway?

There is a CSA board meeting over the weekend, so if Mitchell’s going to take the pipe, this is the time. But so far it’s the word of an anonymous source against an official statement from the Canadian Soccer Association.

I understand why the CSA’s been backing Mitchell so hard. 2007 was the most chaotic year in the Association’s history, with the demise of Kevan Pipe, the brief flicker that was Colin Linford, and the transition between Yallop, Hart, and Mitchell on the senior team. Chaos is bad for a football team, particularly chaos right before a World Cup qualifying campaign. Putting a bullet in Mitchell’s head in 2008 would have sent the signal that the CSA still didn’t have their ducks in a row, and nobody wants to do that.

Secondly, who is the CSA going to put in charge? The Association is even more short on cash than usual since to the 2007 management debacle and the Under-20 World Cup which the Association somehow managed to lose $1.7 million on despite hosting the most successful tournament in history, and they’re not going to dream of paying a major world football manager as well as the rest of Dale Mitchell’s contract (running through 2010).

For financial reasons, Stephen Hart is the only plausible candidate. He’s also the least qualified, and his reputation rides entirely on the 2007 Gold Cup where Canada lost, unjustly, to the United States in the semi-final. That’s the extent of his management experience in senior football. He’s done quite a bit for the national team in the youth ranks, managing the U-17 team from 2001 to 2007. But when he was put in charge of the senior team for the Gold Cup, it was a massive surprise. When he did well, it went way against the grain.

Stephen Hart’s main job qualification is that he’s not Dale Mitchell, which is important. Dale Mitchell doesn’t have the respect of his players, and when half your team criticises you in the media and not one core guy steps forward to defend you, that’s serious. In spite of Hart’s success, the manager had been chosen and the Association would never, ever dream of going back on its word on management.

It looks like a mistake. But that was a dysfunctional qualifying campaign by any standard, and management was only one factor. If the CSA had stuck with Hart we could be talking about Hart’s replacement today, while Mitchell sits on Sportsnet as the alienated, respected former player screwed by the Association, and we’d be bringing in Colin Miller or Sean Fleming or any of the other castoffs rattling around the Canadian system.

I’d back Hart if he was appointed, not because he’s good but because he’s a change and the team wants Mitchell out. He’s not the best choice, but he’s the only choice. The rumour is that Mitchell’s “reassignment” involves taking on many of the tasks associated with the technical director, and the implication is that the Hart’s going to be getting a new office.

Hart’s the only candidate, but we all have our favourites. Rene Simoes is looking for work again, having got the axe from Fluminense a couple of weeks ago. Simoes was Linford’s pick for manager back in 2007 until the CSA shot it down as too expensive. Jamaica happily leapt on our leftovers but Jamaica played terribly under the Brazil-born manager. His Fluminense experience was even less successful, but we wouldn’t be Canada fans if we didn’t leap on every big name that glanced in our direction, no matter how far past his prime he might be.

José Pekerman is another hot candidate, another guy supposedly Too Expensive for the CSA’s tastes and already under contract to C.D. Universitario de Nuevo León. Unlike Simoes he’s done well recently, and he’s been linked to the job more than once. But if the CSA was looking his way, you have to think he’d have held off on taking a new club posting.

Finally, I’d be remiss in my duties as an amateur pundit if I failed to mention Holger Osieck. He last held a management job in 2008 with Urawa of the Japanese league, winning the Asian championship in 2007 and being sacked in early 2008 after a few bad games. It was self-evident even at the time that Osieck got a raw deal and Urawa was just looking for a chance to bring in a big name – they eventually settled on former Freiburg boss Volker Finke.

As the only Canadian manager to win anything in my lifetime there’s a lot of nostalgia for Osieck, and he could make it work. Osieck’s last Canadian team had a lot of guys like Mark Watson, Jason de Vos, and Tomasz Radzinski; players with big egos, strong opinions, and who thought they were doing Canada a favour just by showing up. Radzinski is still around (and still a brilliant player) but won’t be for long, and he’s mellowed out with age. He might consider Osieck a positive relief following Yallop and Mitchell. Watson and de Vos, of course, were sent to the glue factory long ago, and aside from fringe guys like Jim Brennan and Greg Sutton today’s team has a much stronger character than 2003’s.

But Holger wouldn’t come back. He’s sixty, he’s done enough in the game for one lifetime, and he could get a lot better jobs than Canada’s if he had a mind. The rumour is that his salary demands would be in the seven figures, which would cause the board to laugh so hard milk would shoot out of their noses.

Like it or not, unless the Association wins the 6/49, we’re stuck with either Dale Mitchell or Stephen Hart. Let’s just hope we’re picking the lesser of two evils.

Freelance sports journalist Duane Rollins (MediaGuy on the Voyageurs’ board) is reporting that Dale Mitchell is on the way out. To put it politely, he’s being “reassigned”. His supposed responsibilities will include those currently being undertaken by the technical director, so if accurate it seems certain that Stephen Hart is going to be his replacement.

Proper post tomorrow.  Getting rid of Mitchell is inherently a step forward, of course, but bringing in another CSA Old Boy in Stephen Hart would be only a marginal upgrade. On the other hand, the 2007 Gold Cup still rings in a lot of our memories. On the other hand, while we hear about the players refusing to play for Mitchell again most of those that have spoken out (De Guzman, Brennan) are upset at the organisation, not the man. On the other hand…

This is a tricky one. But I hope it’s true. The CSA is officially denying it but Rollins has a good reputation and he’s sticking his neck way out on this one.

With the Team 1040 in Vancouver reporting that the Whitecaps will be granted an expansion franchise, things are beginning to look up for club soccer in Canada.  With a healthy MLS franchise in Toronto, the Whitecaps moving up to MLS in 2011, the Montreal Impact continuing to grow, and Eugene Melnyk pining for an MLS franchise in Ottawa, it appears as if the Canadian public, or at least rich guys with a lot of money, are interested in soccer in Canada at the club level.

Eugene Melnyk, the owner of the Ottawa Senators, no doubt gazes at the money-printing success of Toronto FC andnd wants to have a similar cash-cow in Ottawa.  It is my belief that Melnyk’s interest in MLS is not soley based upon the potential dollars, as the sports fan in him would probably love to add a soccer club to his NHL, OHL, and Thoroughbred horse racing properties.  If an MLS franchise was successful in Ottawa, the citizens might benefit from having the franchise and the soccer-specific stadium, while Melnyk would benefit (as a sports fan and as an owner) as well; everyone’s a winner.

Despite the strong ownership Melnyk would bring to MLS, I have to say that I am concerned at the possibility of Ottawa acquiring an MLS expansion team in the near-future.  There are a number of reasons: My own impression that Ottawa is a poor sports town, the success of the Montreal Impact in Montreal, and the absence of a major soccer franchise (and thus, a soccer following) in Ottawa for nearly two decades.  To put it succinctly, it is my belief that Montreal is clearly the best candidate for future Canadian MLS expansion, and Ottawa does not match up.

The poor-sports-town conjecture, it must be said, is based almost mainly upon Ottawa’s lack of support of their two previous Canadian Football League franchise.  That may be unfair, as the Rough Riders had terrible ownership at the end of their history, and the Renegades were an expansion franchise who then ended up with the same terrible ownership at the end of their history (I sense a pattern…).  My pre-concieved notions, if true, can easily be overcome if they are not already.  The Senators have had a fair bit of success at the turnstiles and the OHL’s 67s are well-supported.  Melnyk as an owner would lend credibility to an MLS franchise, something the Gliebermans never had with the CFL, and overcome my nagging doubts.

My opinion is that  the The Montreal Impact are indubitably the obvious choice for future expansion, significantly ahead of Ottawa.  The Impact, like the Vancouver Whitecaps, have been around in the United Soccer League for about a decade and have built a following and brand in their respective cities.  Montreal in particular has gained momentum with their new stadium and CONCACAF Champions League run.  50,000 people filled the white elephant that is Olympic Stadium to watch Montreal play Santos Laguna.  An MLS franchise in Montreal would mean simply a matter of building upon the professional soccer foundation that already exists, and with strong ownership from Saputo and Gillett (assuming Gillett doesn’t go under because of his massive leveraging), would be an unbridled success.

Ottawa does not have any of the built-in following that Montreal has; The last major professional soccer franchise in Ottawa disapeared after the 1990 season, and there has not been one in the city since.  Unlike Montreal and Vancouver, the infrastructure, a following,and a brand would have to be built from scratch, which means that Ottawa would be a higher risk proposition.  The preferred, safer route, for Ottawa would be for Melnyk to get a USL-1 franchise, build a following and the brand among the hardcore soccer fans in the Ottawa area, and, once you have that following, then attempt to obtain an MLS franchise.  It certainly isn’t the sexy route, and the main problem for Melnyk would be convincing the three levels of government that spending money on a stadium for a USL franchise is worthwhile, but it is the safer, long-term route.

When it comes to future MLS expansion in Canada, my biggest fear is that Ottawa will secure a franchise before Montreal does, that franchise will struggle or fail, and MLS will never look to Canada again despite Montreal being a first-rate city in terms of what it could bring to MLS.  Montreal not being in the MLS would be a significant blow to the potential of Canadian soccer at the club and international level, and hopefully Gillett and Saputo obtain a franchise in the next round of expansion.  As for Ottawa, it could work, but I am not as convinced as I am with Montreal.

The Addictive Powers of Football (Worldwide Soccer) Manager

CanadaKicks found a gem of an article from CNN; apparently Football Manager is addictive.  My initial reaction was “of course it is, how else would I have managed Canada in the 2032 World Cup:”, and then I realized the article was serious and thought, “That’s preposterous, sure, I put days into the games, lost track of time, kept clicking continue even though I had other things to do, obsessively thought about my ongoing files while not playing the game, did play-by-play commentary while playing, and did analytical commentary of my games when in the shower, but it’s not like I couldn’t stop; I haven’t played in over a month”.  Is it really addictive?

Ahh, my 2034 World Cup team, now that brings back some memories, and heartbreak, much like Canadian soccer in general.

Simeon Jackson does what you want most from a striker: he scores goals. Sixty-one goals over his professional career, and that’s at the age of twenty-one. By the time he was twenty-one, Rob Friend wasn’t even a first-teamer.

Unfortunately, he’s been playing against nobody in particular. Jackson is currently the best player on his Gillingham squad, having over twice as many goals as second-place striker Andy Barcham and is behind only veteran strikers Grant Holt of Shrewsbury Town and Charlie MacDonald of Brentford for the League Two lead. You could hardly ask for more, but it is only League Two. He’s the prototypical big fish in a small pond.

His results have been mixed against stiffer competition. In an FA Cup tie against Aston Villa in January he scored a spectacular goal, skinning a pretty good defender in Zat Knight, and got plenty of press as a result. On the other hand, he has yet to put up any numbers internationally, and in seven career U-20 starts he mustered precisely no goals and one yellow card.

Of course, he was hardly the only player in that vintage of U-20s who couldn’t score a goal if you put a pound of bacon in the back of the net. And we all remember the excuses from our abortion of a World Cup: the midfield wasn’t giving the strikers service, the problem was a lack of consistency rather than a lack of skill, the coaching was hopelessly faulty, and so on and so forth. The fact is that on the biggest stages he’s yet faced, Jackson has an iffy record.

He’s got a future somewhere on this national team. Dale Mitchell picked him for our last qualifying match, even if he didn’t play, and with the form he’s shown since you could knock me over with a feather if he didn’t end up on our Gold Cup roster. And, let’s face it, being able to pile in goals against mediocre competition is a good skill for a Canadian striker to have: if Jackson is only ever good for putting away guys like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, he’ll have more than covered the bet.

Born in Jamaica, Jackson looks like he’s going to be our reverse David Hoilett, although Jackson did move to Canada as a youngster and has pretty well grown up in red and white. I’m not hugely high on Jackson (or Hoilett, for that matter), but he’s been getting it done against professional players and that’s more than you can say for any of our other young strikers. He’s sure done a hell of a lot more than his old teammate Andrea Lombardo did.

Being a small, pacey player, Jackson fills a weakness for us; Occean, Friend, and Gerba are all big target men. But Dwayne de Rosario, Tomasz Radzinski, and Iain Hume all played a lot of striker as young men on their clubs and all are mostly used at midfield for Canada, particularly on the wing. With Radzinski probably out of the picture by the next World Cup cycle, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jackson forced into that sort of role with Canada. It would hardly be the first time Canada’s played a man out of position.

Short-term Outlook: A callup to the Gold Cup roster, a match or two, and not much achieved besides giving us all hope for the future.

Long-term Outlook: Modestly successful international career. Bangs in a couple, fades into obscurity, I write a “Whatever Happened To Simeon Jackson?” post in 2015 or so.

I like Simeon, I really do. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Canadian soccer players, it’s that you better not hold your breath until they start playing some good games against good players.

It’s that time again. Every two years, the football federations of North and Central America get together for that biennial tradition, Let’s Screw the Little Guys.

There had been talk that BMO Field might get to host a couple of matches of the 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Unfortunately, Jack Warner and his cronies made sure that wouldn’t happen: most likely the idea of a bunch of soccer-mad Torontonians snapping up tickets in record time and ensuring a dramatic, exciting, and lucrative crowd no matter who was playing made too much sense to the suits in the federation.

Instead, CONCACAF has opted for the shotgun approach. Thirteen total venues. Thirteen! The schedule hasn’t been released, but assuming that a) they’re still going three groups, four nations per group, and b) the group matches are spaced apart equally, we can all look forward to a transcontinental journey in the name of soccer.

Suppose you’re die-hard Canada fan living in Vancouver who wants to hop on the Greyhound and follow les rouges on a championship run. Well, depending on the draw you could go to Los Angeles for one group match, Columbus for the second, and Miami for the third. So having crossed the continential United States diagonally, you see your boys have qualified for the quarterfinals. In for a penny, in for a pound, so you hop on a coach for Philadelphia to see your squad prevail in a tense match. You’ve come too far to back out now, so off you go to Chicago for the semifinal, and when they win that you just have to go to New York to see the final match and your side go on to Gold Cup glory.

Then you go back to Vancouver, having completed a total round trip, stadium to stadium, of 16,808 kilometres, and inform your children that not only are they not going to university but you’ve actually sold them to medical science in order to pay for your trip which included, assuming you travelled by Greyhound the whole way and took the maximum 14-day advance booking discount, US$566.25 before tax in bus fare.

Great job, Jack Warner. Issued a mandate to price out all but the wealthiest fans from your premier tournament, you have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Have a city host a group like you did in 2007? No, that’s too logical for CONCACAF! Better to spray all your matches across Hell’s half-acre!

This is, of course, terrible news for all the small nations. Not many fans can afford that sort of travel investment, and the casual fans will be turned off by the logistical nightmare. If you live in Trinidad and Tobago, you might have been able to go to Seattle and watch the group matches, if you were drawn there. But going to Seattle, then Washington, and then Boston, with either turnarounds turning your life into one long bus trip or spending thousands of dollars on airfare? How many people are going to do that?

The Americans will be fine because it’s an American tournament, and the Mexicans will be fine because there are Mexicans everywhere. If you support any other nation, though, the message is “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.”

Last night, laying in bed, I spent another couple hours with Atiba Hutchinson.

It’s not the real, physical Atiba Hutchinson, of course – if I were actually in bed with him this blog post would be much more interesting. It was more a phantom of a memory from 2007, Canada and the United States, CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal. The United States was up 2-0 before Iain Hume came in and put on the show of a lifetime, scoring one goal and saving another. 2-1 United States, stoppage time in the second half. Maxime Bernier catches the ball in the centre of the pitch about thirty feet back and plays it through. It’s a bad pass – right to the feet of an American defender. But the American bobbles it and Atiba Hutchinson is there. He’s calm, cool, and collected, slotting the tying goal home, and he only shows any trace of emotion once the ball is safe in the net.

And then Mexican referee Benito Archundia comes over and politely explains to Atiba that, in spite of all appearances, the game being played tonight was not soccer, but in fact a sport called Canada Always Loses.

Very popular in Trinidad and Tobago, I understand.

A couple shades from 2004 paid me a visit, too. Canada went into Guatemala needing a win to get to the third stage of World Cup qualifying. Canada lost 1-0 as Guatemala was awarded a bogus penalty on one side and Canada was denied a legitimate complaint on the other. Who was the referee for that one again? Oh, that’s right.

A few more recent faces show up. Pat Onstad and Paul Stalteri in 2008, for example. Onstad allowed a shameful tying goal to the Jamaicans at BMO Field, while Stalteri rang the would-be winning goal against Mexico off the crossbar in Edmonton. But Canada drew both those matches and, really, the Mexican result was great anyway, so they don’t stay long.

They show up a lot on nights like this.

I’d just witnessed the Montréal Impact putting in what would, in any other context, be a disgraceful second half against Santos Laguna. They got through one hundred and thirty-five minutes up 4-1 on aggregate and two away goals to zero, with the best goalkeeper in the United States League, Division One to see them the rest of the way. They ended up dropping it 5-4 on two goals in stoppage time, and that was all she wrote.

God, I would not like to be an Ultra on a night like that. I was rooting hard for Montréal but that was because I’m a Canada fan. If it were Vancouver or Toronto FC in that match I’d be cheering for them just as energetically.

And, because I’m a Canada fan, I spent pretty well the entire match waiting for the other shoe to drop. When Brown and Sebrango scored I admit that I got my hopes up, but deep down inside I knew better. When the second half began and Santos Laguna rampaged around the Impact goal, well..

The consolation is that the better team won. Santos Laguna played a good match in Montréal and were a bit unlucky to lose 2-0, and at home their supremacy was rewarded. When after the ninetieth minute Felix Brillant bodyslammed a Laguna midfielder in the area with no foul, it cast away the last shadow of a doubt that the Impact did not deserve a win. The soccer gods called a fair game last night, and if in their sadism they tore Montréal’s heart out, at least we weren’t wronged by fate.

Still. To play one hundred and eighty minutes of winning football and to lose in stoppage time, heartbreakingly, with a two-goal advantage in the biggest match a Canadian club has ever played.

Canada always loses.

Is it any consolation that this match, once again, shows the ridiculousness of the American soccer season? The Impact had played one competitive match all year before last night, and it was the previous week’s home tie. All credit to John Limniatis for arranging a tour of good Italian teams, and all praise to Joey Saputo for bankrolling the trip, but friendlies are never enough. Santos Laguna were in the middle of their season and, for the most part, in peak form, but the Impact didn’t have it together yet. In the second half, with Santos Laguna moving the ball at will and penetrating Montréal’s defense with trivial ease, that lack of conditioning proved fatal.

God. I could go on about the American leagues all day. And I did, laying back last night, ranting mentally to the ghosts of past Canadian soccer failures. After a few of these stomach-punching defeats, the shock gives way to a sort of pained numbness, like when the anaesthetic starts to wear off after having a tooth pulled. The anger, though, never goes away. I haven’t been a Canadian fan that long, but I’ve seen enough long-time followers to know that much.

That’s the sort of night it was. A night to dwell on everything negative, a night to dwell on our countless failures as a soccer-playing nation and to harp on about the brain-numbing ignorance of those trying to grow the sport. Soon, it’ll be time to celebrate what the Impact did, the class they showed, and they way they proved themselves worthy of the Voyageurs Cup by carrying it against the best on the continent and showing what Canadians are made of.

Soon.

But not yet.