I see Dan posted the U.S. 30-man Gold Cup squad list, so I figured I’d post Canada’s:

Lars Hirschfeld GK 10/17/1978 Cluj (ROM)
Greg Sutton GK 4/19/1977 Toronto FC
Kiriakos Stamatopoulos GK 8/26/1976 Lyn FC (NOR)
Asmir Begovic GK 6/20/1987 Portsmouth (ENG)
Adrian Cann DF 9/19/1980 FC Esbjerg (DEN)
Atiba Hutchinson DF/MD 2/8/1983 FC Copenhagen (DEN)
Dwayne De Rosario MD/AT 5/15/1978 Toronto FC
Richard Hastings DF 5/18/1977 Inverness CT (SCO)
Andre Hainault DF 6/16/1986 Houston Dynamo (USA)
Josh Simpson MD 5/15/1983 FC Kaiserslautern (GER)
Patrice Bernier MD 9/23/1979 FC Nordsjaelland (DEN)
Kevin McKenna DF 1/21/1980 FC Cologne (GER)
Mike Klukowski DF/MD 5/27/1981 FC Brugge (BEL)
Nik Ledgerwood DF/MD 1/16/1985 1860 Munich (GER)
Daniel Imhof MD 11/22/1977 Bochum (GER)
Adrian Serioux DF 5/12/1979 Toronto FC
Marcel De Jong DF/MD 10/15/1986 Roda JC (NED)
Issey Nakajima-Farran MD 5/16/1984 FC Nordsjaelland (DEN)
Ali Gerba AT 7/27/1982 MK Dons (ENG)
Dejan Jakovic DF 7/16/1985 DC United (USA)
Kevin Harmse DF/MD 7/4/1984 Toronto FC
Simeon Jackson AT 3/28/1987 Gillingham (ENG)
Chris Pozniak DF/MF 1/10/1981 Dundee (SCO)
Jaime Peters DF/MD 5/4/1987 Ipswich Town (ENG)
Nana Attakora-Gyan DF 3/27/1989 Toronto FC
Ante Jazic DF/MD 2/27/1976 Chivas USA (USA)
Julian De Guzman MD 3/25/1981 Deportivo La Coruna (ESP)
Paul Stalteri DF/MD 10/18/1977 Borussia Monchengladbach (GER)
Olivier Occean AT 10/23/1981 Lillestrom (NOR)
Will Johnson AT 1/11/1983 Real Salt Lake (USA)

Rob Friend is injured. David Edgar is out of contract and begged out which is disappointing. DeRosario said he’s turning down the call, but is on this list anyway, though I’d be shocked if he made the 23.

I want to see the better veterans: Hutchinson, McKenna, Klukowski, DeGuzman and Stalteri. Plus as many kids as we can get into the action: Johnson, Attakora, Peters, Jackson, Jakovic, DeJong, Ledgerwood, Hainault, Simpson and Begovic.

That’s 15. Add Stamatopolous, Hirschfeld, Imhof, Nakajima-Farran, Gerba, Bernier, Harmse and Occean and I think we’re good.

I could live with Serioux, or Sutton, but I really don’t want to see Pozniak, Cann, Hastings or Jazic.

cheers,
hobbes

Both Mexico and the US are taking less than full strength teams to this year's Gold Cup. That makes me think this is a good opportunity for Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador or Honduras to win the competition.

There are a lot of European based players on Canada's team, I know their clubs are obligated to release them but are there any problems expected from some clubs trying to convince their players not to honor the call up? Well beside DeRosario who Hobbes already wrote was intending to not honor the selection.

I haven’t really heard any rumours of problems. I think it’s early enough that it shouldn’t interfere with the pre-season run up. That being said, it seems clubs complain no matter when you call a player on international duty.

DeGuzman is out of contract and it’s possible he won’t come, but he may also want to put himself in the shop window, so to speak. I think he’ll play. The MLS teams may be a bigger problem, but they will all be losing players during the Gold Cup, so I can’t see how they can complain really. Toronto’s going to be without Marvell Wynne for weeks, I can’t see how they can gripe about losing Attakora.

A Vancouver paper is reporting that we’ve called up Charles Gbeke from the Whitecaps. If true, this is horrible. Gbeke is a 31-year-old with one cap. What is the point? Especially considering his 20-year-old teammate Marcus Haber plays the exact same role with the same team and is having a better season. We’re short on target forwards, but this makes zero sense to me.

It sounds like we were planning on calling in Junior Hoilett (19-year-old who had six goals in the second Bundeliga), but he is injured. He is also eligible for Jamaica. It’d love to see him capped.

The other side to European teams not letting us call in players is that many of them need work permits that are based, in part, on national team participation. Guys like Peters, Hutchinson, DeGuzman (I think), Nakajima-Farran, Simpson, maybe Jackson, all need to get games in to meet the requirement. So that helps.

I don’t really expect us to challenge and I’m not very excited about the tournament since it’s fairly watered down. That being said a win would open doors for us (Confed, maybe Copa America) that would be really exciting. But it also raises expectations and creates a false sense of quality that has hurt us recently.

A Canadian supporter I know who lived in the UK for years is going to cover the entire tournament with an experienced British play-by-play guy and will have camp updates, blogs and live radio for the entire tournament. It’s ambitious, but pretty exciting. We haven’t even heard if there’s going to be TV coverage yet up here. I’m sure it has to be on somewhere, but stranger things have happened.

cheers,
hobbes

Canada released its 23 today.

1- G- Greg Sutton | unattached / sans club
2- D- Adrian Cann | DEN / Esbjerg fB
3- D/M- Mike Klukowski | BEL / Club Brugge KV
4- D- André Hainault | USA / Houston Dynamo
5- D/F- Kevin McKenna | GER / 1. FC Köln
6- M- Julian de Guzman | ESP / Deportivo La Coruna
7- D/M- Paul Stalteri | GER / Borussia Mönchengladbach
8- M- Marcel de Jong | NED / Roda JC
9- F- Ali Gerba | unattached / sans club
10- M/F- Will Johnson | USA / Real Salt Lake
11- D- Richard Hastings | SCO / Inverness CT
12- M- Issey Nakajima-Farran | DEN / FC Nordsjælland
13- M- Atiba Hutchinson | DEN / F.C. København
14- D- Dejan Jakovic | USA / DC United
15- M/F- Josh Simpson | GER / FC Kaiserslautern
16- F- Simeon Jackson | ENG / Gillingham FC
17- D/M- Jaime Peters | ENG / Ipswich Town FC
18- G- Joshua Wagenaar | ENG / Yeovil Town
19- D/M- Kevin Harmse | CAN / Toronto FC
20- M- Patrice Bernier | DEN / FC Nordsjælland
21- M- Chris Pozniak | SCO / Dundee FC
22- G- Kenny Stamatopoulos | NOR / FC Lyn Oslo (on loan from Tromsø I.L.)
23- F- Charles Gbeke | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC

There are a few disappointing omissions, but by and large I’m satisfied with this squad. Without Hirschfeld or Begovic, the goalkeeping will probably be an issue. I’m not overly excited by any of those options.

I’m disappointed Attakora didn’t get called. No TFC players were selected. I wonder if that’s a coincidence.

No Occean which makes the Gbeke call up make a little sense. But not much. I didn’t mention that he got into an on-field fight with his teammate Wesley Charles and is serving a two-match ban. He’s big and a handful and can score, but at 31, I just don’t see the point.

It depends a little bit what kind of formation we want to play, but we really don’t have another option at target forward. Gerba and Jackson both have some size, but aren’t really that kind of forward. An interesting idea, that I’m not sure we’ll employ was sticking McKenna up top. His international strike rate as a forward is amazing. It’s better than a goal every two games and IIRC it’s more than a goal every game and a half.

No Imhof, which I guess means we needed Pozniak, but I’m disappointed he was called. Same with Ledgerwood who can play holding mid if needed, but is more of an outside back.

But Peters, DeJong, Simpson, Jakovic, Hainault, Johnson, Jackson are all there. . . it’s the start of the change over to a younger squad and a good first step at looking at some of the guys in their early 20s to see where they stand.

cheers,
hobbes

Hobbes - you might check to see if you have access to ESPN360.com through your broadband provider. They have carried all of the Confederations Cup matches and a fair number of matches from several leagues. It looks like they may carry the entire Gold Cup as well. They stream live feeds and replay for several days post event. Here's a list of recent games that can be replayed. If you don't have access (unfortunately, you can't currently gain access without participation by your broadband carrier), I'd kick and scream.

Sun, Jun 21 2:25PM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: Egypt vs. USA
Sun, Jun 21 2:00PM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: Italy vs. Brazil
Sat, Jun 20 4:30PM MLS MLS: LA Galaxy vs. San Jose Earthquakes
Sat, Jun 20 2:25PM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: Iraq vs. New Zealand
Sat, Jun 20 2:00PM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: Spain vs. South Africa
Thu, Jun 18 2:25PM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: Egypt vs. Italy
Thu, Jun 18 9:30AM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: USA vs. Brazil
Wed, Jun 17 10:00PM MLS MLS: D.C. United vs. Seattle Sounders FC
Wed, Jun 17 8:40PM Copa do Brasil Copa Do Brasil 2009 - Corinthians vs. Internacional (SPA)
Wed, Jun 17 2:25PM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: New Zealand vs. South Africa
Wed, Jun 17 2:00PM FIFA World Cup Qualifier - Saudi Arabia vs. Korea Dpr
Wed, Jun 17 12:30PM FIFA World Cup Qualifier - Bahrain vs. Uzbekistan
Wed, Jun 17 9:55AM FIFA FIFA Confederations Cup: Spain vs. Iraq

Hey James, thanks for the info, but to the best of my knowledge ESPN360 isn't available outside of the U.S.

I can't even get Justin TV to work properly on my Mac. I feel confident that the games will be accessible somewhere. I'd like to watch them on TV, but normally we'd have that information out.

cheers,
hobbes

Yeah. Well actually I misspoke, the US matches and elimination rounds will be on Fox Soccer Channel and therefore via their broadband service on 24 hour delay ($4.99/match). Unfortunately, it isn't available outside the US either and I can't find word of matches for the other groups.

You'd think Canada would be just another US state by now, but alas no such luck for you. B)

Your situation is reminiscent of just a few years ago when I was relegated to watching major matches on the local spanish broadcast in my upstairs bedroom on a 13inch portable while trying to tilt the rabbit ears around. It's improved so much here since then.

Best of luck in the tourney!

In a lot of ways we have better TV coverage of soccer than the U.S. does and we too have come a long way. We have MLS and FIFA tournaments on over-the-air broadcasters (can you imagine NBC or ABC airing the Confed Cup?) and I can watch the Champions League, Canadian intl matches, MLS, USL, Euro championships plus a few EPL, French first division and Serie A matches a week on basic cable (50 channels). If I spent money on digital and got 200 channels I could watch any EPL game I want, plus all of what Gol TV, Setanta and Fox Soccer show plus some other random things I wouldn’t probably have time for.

I’m confident we’ll get the tournament (Fox or Gol showed the whole thing — except the Canada games which are Sportsnet’s property — last time), but it’s odd there has been no announcement and no promotion yet. I still have faith that it HAS to be televised somewhere.

Good luck to you as well and thanks for the info.

cheers,
hobbes

Well the matches are on. Asmir Begovic appears to be leaving us for Bosnia and may even start in their next qualifier.

Lars Hirschfeld begged out of the Gold Cup because he was finalizing a transfer to recently relegated Energie Cottbus in Germany. Their starting keeper is moving on, so he should be their starter. I think it’s a very good move for him and I’m glad he’ll be back to playing first team soccer.

Also Josh Simpson transferred to a team in the Turkish top flight I’ve never heard of.

We’re playing a training match against Guatemala Tuesday afternoon in Oxnard.

cheers,
hobbes

Ask & you shall receive:
Manisaspor

In pre-tournament friendly action:

Canada 3 Guatemala 0

Gerba had two and Bernier had one at 2, 54 and 65.

It looked pretty close to a dry run at a starting 11, with:

--------------------------Wagenaar
Stalteri-------------Jakovic---McKenna--------Klukowski
------Peters------------Hutchinson-----------DeJong
---------------------------DeGuzman
--------------------Johnson---------Gerba

It looks like Guatemala started: Ricardo Trigueño Foster; Gustavo Cabrera, Luis Ricardo Rodríguez, Cristian Noriega y Carlos Gallardo; Miguel Fernández, Fredy Williams Thompson, Luis Wellington Bradley y Mynor Dávila; Selvin Joel Motta y Tránsito Eduardo Montepeque

cheers,
hobbes

AP's story on Canada's win over Guatemala:

Ali Gerba scored twice in Canada’s 3-0 victory over Guatemala on Tuesday in a warmup game before the Gold Cup.

Patrice Bernier also scored for Canada, which plays Jamaica on Friday to open the Gold Cup tournament.

Gerba’s goal in the fourth minute set the tone. He headed home a cross from Marcel de Jong.

Later in the half, de Jong hit the crossbar.

Bernier’s first international goal made it 2-0 in the 55th minute. Ten minutes later, Gustavo Cabrera’s foul inside the area gave Canada a penalty kick that Gerba converted.

Tempers flared late in the first half after Guatemala’s Fredy Thompson took down Julian de Guzman. Both players were substituted.

A good win for Canada over a Guatemalan team who played Mexico to a 0-0 tie a few days earlier.

A good start for Canada with a 1-0 win over jamacia on a wonderful volleyed goal by Ali Gerba. I describe the goal in more detail in the CONCACAF forum but it was a beauty. Looked to me though that in this game Canada lacked some flow to their passes. A below average game from DeGuzman and without DeRosario, he didn't have too many other players to play off of.

Another 1-0 win for Canada as a poor clearance came out to Bernier who miskicked the ball and it went straight to Gerba who opportunistically pounced on it to score. I thought Canada had several other pretty good chances to add to the score, Johnson and Hutchison especially but they couldn't. El Salvador's best chance was a long range shot by Correas trying to surprise Canada's goalkeeper. So another workmanlike win and Canada are the first team in the quarterfinals. Defensively this is a tough team to beat but other than Gerba they don't seem to have many offensive options.

It’s been an interesting weekend on the Canadian front.

Dejan Jakovic is questionable for the quarter-finals due to injury, but I have faith that with a week off he’ll be ready to go.

In the big picture, the biggest news (potentially came last night) when a Vancouver talk radio program interviewed Asmir Begovic. The keeper who got a pair of EPL starts and was the Adidas poster boy for the 2007 U20 World Cup was apparently considering switching back his nationality thanks to the new FIFA regulation. Bosnian manager Miroslav Blazevic had said that Begovic had committed to playing for Bosnia recently in the press.

Last night Begovic basically said that his Portsmouth teammate Niko Kranjcar has been hyping him to Blazevic and there’s been a lot of pressure from the Bosnian FA, but he doesn’t plan on changing.

He was critical of the CSA and feels there is uncertainty in the program, especially about who the new manager will be. He likes Hart and Hart has told him he’s in his plans for the future and that’s good enough for him. He doesn’t want to give the CSA an ultimatum and he appreciates that they haven’t pressured him. He decided to skip the Gold Cup for personal reasons (I think he was either getting married or having a kid this summer, his g/f was around a lot during the U20s and poor Will Johnson seemed to perpetually be the third wheel).

He also said he never told Blazevic he was changing. He said what he said was taken out of context and that “I don’t speak Bosnian very well anymore.”

So that’s all very promising. But too many of us remember Owen Hargreaves going on national TV and pledging his future to Canada and not Wales. A few months later England came calling and the rest is history.

I think clearly Hart has the ear of the team. When asked directly they all praised his tactics and the spirit that’s in the team at this Gold Cup, while also being careful not to slam Dale Mitchell. More than a couple noted that Hart was around in WCQ and it’s an over-simplification to say that’s where the diffirence in our play lies.

I’m definitely leaning towards Hart as the best choice, but there are still some reservations. But he’s winning Gold Cup matches. He’s winning friendlies. There isn’t much more you can ask of him.

cheers,
hobbes

P.S. the Hart love-in continues:

Looking at the ages of the other goalkeepers in Canada's pool for this Gold Cup, it looks like Begovic is the hope for the future so I can understand hobbes excitement that he says he is inclined to continue playing for Canada. Let me ask hobbes about Daniel Fernandes, the Portuguese-Canadian goalie who I believe has played for Portugal's youth teams. Any word on whether he may be interested in playing for Canada now that the FIFA eligibility rules have changed?

Yeah Begovic is definitely the keeper of the future, though I think Hirschfeld is still the keeper for the here and now – unless Begovic is a regular starter by the start of the next cycle.

We’re actually kind of loaded for young, young goalkeeping talent. There’s a crop of youngsters with a lot of real promise. We just need one of them to pan out. Adam Street of West Ham is probably the best of the bunch, but Robert Stillo from Genoa looks quite good and I’ve heard good things about Michal Misiewicz (Sundeland) and Keenan Gracey (Wigan). Julien Latendresse-Levesque was with Metz for a few years and was well regarded, but has returned home and is with the Vancouver Whitecaps academy.

All of that being said I saw Roberto Giacomi as a 15 year old and thought he was going to be fantastic. He went to Rangers for three years and now he’s 22 and can’t get off the bench for a Norwegian second division side. All of the players mentioned above could flake out.

Dani Fernandes actually played for our youth teams, got snubbed by Mitchell for a U20 WYC and then when he went to PAOK the Portuguese gave him a few call-ups for the U21s. He’s had two senior international caps. He wasn’t quiet about how ridiculous it was that Portugal seemed genuinely excited about him, while Dale Mitchell couldn’t be bothered to give him a call (interestingly he and Mitchell both grew up in East Vancouver, maybe it’s two stubborn personalities butting heads).

I don’t think there’s any way Fernandes comes back unless he isn’t cap tied and doesn’t seem to be in Portugal’s plans. He just got his first start in a friendly against Estonia (he played the last 30 mins against Finland in Feb), so I think he’s getting more opportunity now that he had previously.

cheers,
hobbes

Thanks for the explanation hobbes. Do you think Stamatopoulos is Hirschfeld's main competition for the starting goalkeeper job?

One more question for you, do Imhoff and Ledgerwood play for their respective German clubs? Are they legitimate candidates to start on the national team?

Right now I think Begovic might as well be No. 2. I like Stamatopoulos. You know what you’re going to get with him. He’s a little limited, but he’s steady. I don’t rate Wagenaar and Sutton can run very hot and cold. But Stamatopoulos is 32 next month, he may not even be playing in 2014. Same with Sutton actually. At 31 and clubless, you have to wonder about how many more years Sutton has in him.

Imhof has been a regular with Bochum. He played in nearly every match in 07-08 and probably 3/4s last year or there abouts. We really needed him this cycle. At 31 I’m not sure how much he has left to offer. But as long as he’s in the Bundesliga and wants to play for us, I think he deserves to be called.

The way Bernier is playing right now, I can’t see him losing his spot in the midfield, so I don’t know if Imhof would start. But we don’t have a lot of central midfield depth. If we were doing a hypothetical 23 or something, I’d have to say Kevin Harmse is almost a lock as a holding mid out of necessity . . . Jakovic has become a defender, we lost Nsaliwa. We’ve recently used a guy from the Swiss third flight, Tyler Hemming from the Charleston Battery and Adrian Cann out of position to fill that d-mid depth spot.

Ledgerwood started 16 games last year for 1860 Munich and probably got off the bench 8-10 times. He’s battled a lot of injuries over the years. Hopefully he can get a lot of games with FSV Frankfurt next season. He hadn’t played much at all for 1860 until last season. 1860 used him as a defensive mid more or less, but he’s always been an outside back for us. He was comfortable on either side of the back four and honestly I don’t even know which is his natural side. He and Nana Attakora are the names most often mentioned when it comes to replacing Stalteri at RB.

Ledgerwood was fantastic as a youth international. He captained the U20s and was better than Hainault and David Edgar IMO. Not fancy, didn’t get forward a ton, but he read the game well, had some pace and played his way out of trouble. He kept it simple. I’d love to see what he can do at the next level, but he never seems to be healthy when we’re looking to call him in.

cheers,
hobbes

Daniel Imhof officially announced his international retirement today. It makes a certain amount of sense. He’s not getting any younger and is going to focus on his club career. He noted he’ll be 36 in 2014 and he and his wife are about to have his second child. He added: “If they should need me again, I will be willing to talk.” He’s been a good servant for his country and I always liked him.

In stranger news Jacob Lensky has signed with FC Utrecht in the Dutch Eredivisie. As you may recall Lensky retired at 19 after two years at Feyenoord. Then he apparently had a change of heart, signed on for Vancouver (his hometown team) talked about how excited he was, reinvigorated, etc and then quit the team weeks after returning. Seattle offered him a trial and he turned them down too.

And now he’s back in Holland. He played 78 minutes in pre-season match the other day.

Another bright hope for the future Junior Hoillet has had an interesting couple of weeks. The 19-year-old who had six goals for St. Pauli last year was set to join FSV Mainz 05 in the Bundesliga. Apparently almost every top-flight German club had inquired about him, but he wanted to join his little brother at Mainz where he was set to fight for a spot in the team.

He was still under contract with Blackburn Rovers (who had loaned him to Germany for the second straight season), but he virtually assured not to get a UK work permit. He has no international caps . . . and then he got his work permit on appeal. Apparenly even Blackburn is surprised and don’t know what to do with him. He may end up being loaned to Mainz after all, but it sounds like Blackburn are going to take a look at him.

Young Adam Straith has a squad number for Cottbus this year. The Vancouver-Cottbus pipeline continues as another promising young stiker — Jerome Baker — and the keeper Julien Latendresse-Lévesque are headed to Germany for at least a month.

cheers,
hobbes