Whitecapsfanblog

Today was the draw for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.   While I have become a bit disenchanted with the World Cup because the tournament has been rather poor the last couple of times, I must admit I found the draw to be very exciting.

The World Cup, however,  now has too many weak teams in the finals which dilutes the quality of the football.  I far preferred the WC when there were only 24 teams.   Even when there were 24 teams there was always a team or two that had no hope (Canada being one in 1986).   This time we have multiple teams with absolutely no hope of doing any damage whatsoever.

North Korea is a very poor team indeed and should simply not be allowed to play in the finals.  I can only imagine how terribly they are going to get beaten by Brazil, Cote d’Ivoire and Portugal. True, they did make it to the Quarter-finals in 1966 in the English World Cup, but they have not been in the WC since and will surely embarrass themselves by being mere cannon fodder for the other teams in their group. Because they are in the “Group Of Death” this time around, the other three teams will be merciless in running up the score against them because second place may well be decided by goal difference.   We can also look for the entire team to defect so they can escape the prison camp that is North Korea.  Wait, no, they will play poorly because they will be so worried about the threats made to their families back home if they do defect that they will be in no mood to worry about the score.

Another loser team will be New Zealand.   Then there is Algeria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Honduras, and the host nation itself,  South Africa.  Were SA required to qualify they would not have made the World Cup at all.  They are a poor team that is in a shambles.  Unless they get their act together they may just embarrass themselves as well. Frankly, none of these teams deserve to be in the finals.   None of these teams is going to quicken our pulse as football fans.

The first World Cup that I watched with interest was the 1982 World Cup.  That World Cup had 24 teams and was superb.  1982 featured two group stages and produced some astonishing Football.   The 1986 World Cup also had some stunning moments.   It all went downhill when 32 teams were allowed in the Finals in France 1998. Germany 2008, with 32 teams in the tournament,  featured games which were so abominably poor they were not worth watching.  Poland v Ecuador was one such riveting match, and Ukraine v Switzerland was enough to put you off of football for good.

I fear we will see some very poor matches indeed in South Africa 2010 because too many poor teams have been allowed in to the tournament.  When the standard in these games is below that of games we might see in the English Championship,  one has to wonder what FIFA is thinking about (other than money, of course!).   The tournament should go back to 24 teams.  I know there is a snowball’s chance in hell this will happen, but if it did happen it would guarantee quality games and a quality World Cup.

I know I am dreaming, but The World Cup should be about football excellence, not mediocrity.

Whitecaps coach Teitur Thordarson (TT) has accepted a new one year deal to coach the Whitecaps.  TT has been a tremendous success when you look at his record.  We won the championship in his first year in 2008, and he took us all the way to the final this year only to be cruelly cut down by poor refereeing in the final.   While one could argue that he inherited a good team in 2008, he did select the team wisely and brought in some very good players, notably Charles Gbeke and Wesley Charles, who were key in winning the championship.  His taking the 2009 team to the USL-1 final was arguably a greater achievement, because the team was quite poor in reality, especially defensively.

TT is popular with the fans and is a very likeable character.  He coaches his team to play attacking and exciting football, which is what we fans want.  The Whitecaps learned a lesson  when it hired successful but conservative Bob Lilley as coach.  Lilley brought us a championship in 2006 but played a pretty boring brand of football.  He was let go after a dour and unsuccessful 2007 season, after which it was clear that the Whitecaps fans wanted a coach who would attack, attack, attack.   After all, What is the point of playing boring football at our level?

I admire TT tremendously.  He is a good technician, though his failure to organize the team defensively and to settle on a central defensive pairing this year caused me concern.   While TT was hired to attack, what will make or break him in terms of success next year, or possibly in MLS the year after, will be his ability to get our defensive woes under control.

Just as all was going according to plan for Toronto Football Club, the Canadian Football League franchise the Toronto Argos want to ground share with TFC at BMO field.

Recently TFC came to an agreement to get the dreaded Fieldturf out of BMO field in favour of natural grass.  This is what the players, the fans and the Club itself wanted.  Now the Argos want to trample all over this success by tearing up the field with their pointy-ball cleats.   Nothing could be worse for a grass soccer pitch than the game of pointy-ball.  It tears up the middle of the field and makes it bumpy and uneven.  Nothing could be worse for the beautiful game.

Sadly these kinds of decisions involve government officials who know nothing about sports.  Will they understand how it will damage the beautiful game if the Argos get their way?

In our 2008 Championship year our pitch was torn up before the Quarter-Final with Minnesota by a SFU pointy-ball match.   The field was a shambles.  Luckily we won, but the field was poor, and consequently so was the game.

The point is that if the CFL plays its games in BMO field it will ruin the pitch and Toronto FC will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory where BMO Field’s playing surface is concerned.   I hope that TFC fans will rally against this proposal and defeat it.

The newly formed NASL (North American Soccer League) struck another blow to the USL-1 today as the Rochester Rhinos opted to leave USL-1 and join the NASL.    If the result of the war between USL-1 and NASL was ever in any doubt, I can’t see the USL-1 recovering from this blow.   Rochester was the marquee franchise of the USL-1.  Though it has suffered some financial blows and ownership troubles more recently, Rochester built its own soccer specific stadium at a time when many Major League Soccer teams could not get it together to do so.   The NASL now has 10 teams in its league, and USL-1 only has four: Portland, Puerto Rico, Austin, and Cleveland.  To further add to USL-1’s troubles, it also lost the Charleston Battery to its own second division.

Now that Rochester has come over to the NASL, look for Puerto Rico and Portland to come over as well.  My guess is the stronger USL-1 teams will join the NASL and the weaker ones will follow Charleston down to the USL second division. The NASL will now essentially be division 2 in Canadian and American football to the MLS.

It looks like game, set and match for the NASL.  Next year is looking much brighter indeed for Whitecaps fans.  I won’t be entirely happy until I see Puerto Rico and Portland involved, however.  These are keen rivals of ours and it would be a shame to miss out on watching them in our last year before MLS.