Almost exactly a year after its original kickoff date, the Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying tournament gets underway this week as eight under-23 national teams from the region prepare to do battle for just two places at this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.
One of those eight teams is, of course, Canada, and this might be their most hotly anticipated Olympic qualifying campaign in years. The Canadian under-23 player pool is deeper than ever, with talented youngsters making themselves known around the globe (as well as, for the first time, here at home in the Canadian Premier League). This year’s team, coached by senior team assistant Mauro Biello, has some exciting talent in every position.
A dive into Canada’s Olympic Qualifying roster
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Canada Soccer
After a painstaking process of weighing pandemic restrictions, club commitments and injuries, Canada Soccer has finally announced its Olympic qualifying team. The U-23 side features no Toronto FC players as the club’s recent Covid-19 outbreak at training camp played a major factor.
Canada opens the competition in Guadalajara, Mexico on March 19 against El Salvador. They subsequently play Haiti on the 22nd and finish the group stage against Honduras on March 25. The top two teams in the group will advance to the semi-final round. The winners of those semi-final games qualify for the Olympics. All of Canada’s matches will be available on OneSoccer.
In a sports city as rabid as Vancouver, fans love a good old fashioned goalie controversy. Whether it’s Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider with the Canucks, or more recently between David Ousted and Stefan Marinovic with the Whitecaps, it has a way of getting people talking.
As the Vancouver Whitecaps prepare for the 2021 MLS season, there’s potential for another goalie controversy.
2020 was a disappointing season for the Vancouver Whitecaps, but was even more so for goalkeeper, Max Crepeau. The Whitecaps keeper had a breakout season in 2019, with a career high in wins, shutouts, saves, minutes played, and games started, but the pandemic shortened 2020 campaign was a disaster for Crepeau.
Canada Talk: Feelin’ Familiar
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Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
Well, I don’t think any of us saw this coming. Who could have guessed last year that shortly after Canada had announced it’s preliminary Olympic Qualifying roster that a worldwide pandemic would halt all games and cause the CMNT to not hit the field in friendly nor competitive match for well over a year? My money is on probably no one. Casting our minds back to the days before zoom calls and social distancing were commonplace terms,
Canada soccer, at least in terms of the men’s game, was coming off of a high back in early 2020. Bar a semi-deflating defeat in the away leg to the United States, Canada was having a good run of games, having defeated their longtime rivals in the Nations League for the first time in a competitive match since 1985, along with a pair of victories against Barbados and an inspiring showing against Iceland in unofficial friendlies. While the overall results of these g