Photo by ISIphotos.com
The Canadian national team took a major step toward qualifying for the CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory against El Salvador on Tuesday night in Columbus, Ohio.
Ali Gerba scored his second goal in two matches to give Canada the victory and move the Canucks into first place in Group A.
Costa Rica kept its quarterfinal hopes alive with its own 1-0 victory against winless Jamaica. Midfielder Celso Borges provided the lone goal for the 'Ticos', who were able to hold off a 10-man Jamaica squad that played short-handed after Rudolph Austin was sent off for kicking Borges in the head.
Costa Rica will need a win against Canada on Friday to salvage its hopes for the quarterfinals, while the Canadians will need a point to secure first place and a cushier path in the quarters.
What did you think of last night's Gold Cup action? Starting to think that Canada is for real? Surprised to see Jamaica winless? Looking forward to see Ali Gerba play for Toronto FC?
Share your thoughts below.
Canada’s 2nd home game in WCQ was barely that, whereas the first game vs. Jamaica the crowd was predominantly pro-Canada at BMO field, the game vs. Honduras had a crowd that basically favored the away team. For all the crap BMO gets for having an artificial turf, Saputo showed their incompetency by scheduling an Impact game the day before the qualifier. For a brand new stadium the pitch was covered in gopher holes and other gigantic patches of turf were coming up left and right.
Not to mention Dale Mitchell is an idiot who got the tactics wrong!
Deguzman and Hutchinson dominated in midfield.
Kind of glad that Jamaica lost again. Want Ricketts Back at the galaxy as soon as possible. Saunders played well against New England but Ricketts is an absolute beast. Don’t mean to wish any ill will on Ricketts’ performance in the tourney, but I do want his services back in LA.
zongzap, since when are Telefutura and Galavision obscure channels?
Kind of hard to watch these games since they’re on a somewhat obscure channel. Same thing for tonight’s first game. Tried to watch on the internet but it was too painful
Jamaica won its last 3 world cup qualifiers including wins over mexico and honduras. then they won 5 straight in Gold Cup qualifying. What has happened in this tourney thus is shocking.
Jamaica is such a let down the dominated both Canada and Costa Rica but somehow lost the game , i love Bob Marley but i cant support the Reggae boyz anymore LOL.
According to the 24th minute we could see De Guzman running the mid-field for TFC. If he doesn’t get any decent offers from Europe by the end of the Gold Cup … he will sign with TFC. Woo Hoo!
Canada dominated El Salvador from start to finish with some excellent technical soccer. The game should have been at least 3-0. De Guzman and Hutchinson are an incredible midfield pairing. Now if they can find someone other than Gerba that can score
—————
They also have Simeon Jackson, one of the top young league strikers in England.
But they’re playing a modified 4-5-1/4-3-3 which usually only leaves one striker in the box. The two other forwards are wingers (Josh Simpson and Will Johnson last night.)
So it’s not an issue of Gerba doing all the scoring, it’s the system they play working the way it’s supposed to . If they were missing a ton of chances, Gerba wouldn’t have 15 goals in only 25 national team games.
“@eric
he can’t switch back to canada after the new fifa ruling because he played in the Olympics for the dutch, and I believe that counts.
Posted by: Geoff | July 08, 2009 at 12:14 PM”
Actually the Olympics count as a youth tournament so Jonathan De Guzman can still switch. It’s the same reason Castillo can switch even though he played for Mexico in the Olympic qualifiers.
Was in Columbus for the games last night. Canada look the class of the group– at least last night. Not impressed with any of the other teams. Particularly disappointed with Costa Rica, they played awful and were getting dominated until the stupid red card.
^^ For WC 2010 qualifying.
Our (Canada) issues are deep – The CSA (Canadian Soccer Association) is incompetent for starters, and it all goes from there.
They hired and incompetent coach, did virtually nothing in the build up in the way of Friendlies to get the team ready.
@TK
Agree 100% with your comment to me.
I think Canada’s big issue in qualifying has been performance at home. To even have a chance at advancing from a semi or final group in CONCACAF, you’ve got to be a near lock to win at home. That’s especially true in the semifinal round when there are only 6 games. They were sunk as soon as they took 1 point from their first two home matches. I don’t follow their team close enough to know why they have such a hard time at home–maybe the venues just aren’t as intimidating as the rest of CONCACAF? Hard to believe that watching a Toronto FC game–maybe there’s another theory.
Damn those El Salvador jerseys are crazy. It’s like 1996 in MLS or something up there. Well, maybe not that weird…
@eric
he can’t switch back to canada after the new fifa ruling because he played in the Olympics for the dutch, and I believe that counts.
@gaucho:
Remember though, that Jamaica drew Canada thanks basically to a keeper’s own goal and later defeated a Canadian side already eliminated and fielding a B roster. Without Pat Onstad’s horrific lapse, things could have been much different.
Gaucho, it’s not unreasonable but also unsurprising IMO also. These teams are all close enough in talent to have ups an downs where this can happen.
To be honest I wouldn’t have been surprised if Jamaica had 4 or even 6 pts in the group, I’m also just equally unsurprised they have zero.
Funny how Canada can always perfrom better in the GC than in qualies. Less pressure/expectations maybe?
Ives – Costa Rica does not need to beat Canada to make the quarter-finals. It could even lose that game and perhaps still qualify with 3 points, which is the most points that the other two 3rd place teams(likely Haiti and Panama) will likely get. Since two of the three 3rd place teams qualify for the quarter-finals, a team with 3 points and a respectable goal difference like Costa Rica will probable maintain could advance (Haiti and Panama still have to play USA and Mexico so multiple goal losses are very possible for those teams). The USA showed that winning 1 game and losing 2 games can still get you 2nd place in the group stage in a tournament like the Confed Cup.
@Curt
FSC has English language rights to the entire tournament, the Univision family of networks has Spanish rights to the entire tournament. The game tonight is on FSC and Telefutura at 9pm ET.
I really wish I spoke spanish. The commentators sound awesome.
Hey Ives,
Have you heard anything about Jonathan De Guzman switching back to Canada after the new FIFA ruling?
With all the passion Canada has for their club teams it is really too bad that their national team did make it to the qualifying round of World Cup. The two games between US would have been awesome. The more Canada improves the more it helps US, MLS and CONCACAF. I dread that if Mexico fails to qualify for WC then we stand a chance to lose our half WC ticket dropping from 3.5 to 3 which would suck.
Will tonight’s US v Honduras game be on ESPN?
@TK
It’s not an unreasonable question considering Jamaica took 4 points off Canada in the semifinal qualifying round and failed to make the hex on goal difference in the strongest semifinal group.
I was more surprised to see how poorly Costa Rica played. They were very lucky to get away with 3 points from a 10 man Jamaica team. Neither team could finish all night.
Canada looked quite good. Maybe this is their year. I was watching the Spanish language coverage and giggled every time the announcers referred to them as “los Canucks”
It is too bad that Stephan Hart didnt coach Canada for the WC qualifiers…. how he got replaced by Mitchell is beyond me especially after the abysmal under20 tourney Mitchell coached…..
De Guzman was amazing in this game.
Surprised to see Jamaica winless? Why would that be a surprise?
Is this 98?
Canada dominated El Salvador from start to finish with some excellent technical soccer. The game should have been at least 3-0. De Guzman and Hutchinson are an incredible midfield pairing. Now if they can find someone other than Gerba that can score they’ll be a real dangerous team.