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Chapter 1: What are the latest updates on Canada Soccer ahead of the World Cup?
702 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Alfred Robb, Sportsnet 650. However, the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. They're open seven days a week and open late to help you get debt free with no judgment or upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands-Trustee.com. We are now in our two of the program. Alex Gungay-Ruzick from One Soccer is going to join us in just a moment here.
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Chapter 2: What health concerns are affecting the Canadian soccer team's key players?
Let's go now to the Able Auctions hotline. Our next guest from One Soccer, Alex Gangeruzik, joins us now on the Alfred and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Alex. How are you?
I'm doing well. Good morning, guys. Hope you're well.
We are well. Thanks for taking the time to do this. We're very excited about World Cup week getting underway. We're now just four days away from Canada-Bosnia in Toronto. Noon on Friday. And a reminder to all of our listeners, we've got a pre-match show right here on Sportsnet 650 beginning at 11 o'clock in the morning. So as we look ahead to Friday's match, Alex...
There's some issues with this Canadian team, to put it mildly.
Chapter 3: How is Canada addressing its scoring issues before the World Cup?
Let's start on the health front. It was a weekend of mixed messages as it pertains to Moise Bombido at centre-back. What do you know about Bombido's availability as it stands right now for Friday's match against Bosnia?
Yeah, well, that's the million-dollar question. The thing is now, since it's World Cup time, there's obviously a lot of mind games, a lot of mixed messaging, a lot of you know, it's the World Cup. You don't want to go in here and completely reveal your hand, let's just say. So for Moise Bambito, we know obviously he's not 100%. I think that's the one thing.
He didn't look 100% against Uzbekistan in the friendly on Monday. The fact that he didn't play against Ireland was a huge red flag. It sounded like on Saturday they played a bit of a, you know, intra-squad sort of game against Vermont Green. Or scrimmage, I guess, would probably be the more appropriate word. He played, it sounded like he didn't look good. So we know he's not 100%.
Chapter 4: Who are the players expected to step up in the absence of injured stars?
But from Jesse Marsh's perspective, obviously he wants to keep things open because even if Bombido is too injured to be in the squad, they have until Thursday to 12 Pacific, 3 Eastern to name a replacement, obviously 24 hours before their first game. By the way, a disadvantage for the host team since they all play so early. Less time to make these sorts of last-minute replacements.
So he wants to take as much data available to him, but it doesn't look good is what I would say. So obviously, I imagine there's a lot of conversation. Someone like Ralph Preso, the Vancouver Whitecaps, will be on standby. I think the fact that Bombido...
isn't a hundred percent kind of puts priest on the edge anyways to replace marcelo flora is something we're still waiting to find out but uh it's clear that something's up with bombito and now we'll see over the next few days what marsh really uh was kind of hinting at what he kind of joked yesterday yeah i still haven't made that replacement yet how concerning is all this flora is bombito those are those are pretty important players
Well, Bombido really is the biggest one so far because he's kind of in that core group, I'd say, of, well, five, six best players on this Canadian team straight up. Like, he's there in terms of the Alphonso Davies, the Jonathan Davids, you know, Ismail Kone, Tejan Buchanan. He's in that group, and arguably of them, he's Canada's most important player.
You could probably have a convincing argument to make because of, how quick he is, how strong of a defender, with how Canada's going to play, which is high-pressing, aggressive. He's the sort of guy that can make a system like that tick, and not having him on the field makes Canada worse defensively.
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Chapter 5: What strategies is Canada implementing to improve its defense?
So absolutely, it's a concern with Bambino, and it's just a concern in general because... Now you're looking at the core of this team being affected by these injuries. Ali Ahmed is another one that, you know, he doesn't look like he'll be 100% for the World Cup opener. And Canada's missed him in these past few games, not having that presence on the left wing.
Marcelo Flores, like mentioned earlier, we hadn't seen a lot of him. So it's not as if you're talking about a huge, huge loss of someone who's
central this team but he was a wild card he was an x factor i got a kind of guy that could break open world cup games we don't have to talk about davies how important he is with just you know he's canada's best player full stop he is at canada's most talented player and just not having him on the field will will make canada less dynamic so it definitely hurts because the way i see it is canada's losing a lot of ceiling raisers with all these injuries the
They've still got a solid squad, but they're missing a lot of guys now that could help them win World Cup games, that could help them tip over the top when it comes to getting decisive results.
Let's say, and it seems likely, that Bombido does not play, at least in the opener against Bosnia. Is it a given that Luc de Fougerolle steps in at center back? And if so, how much can we realistically expect from a very talented guy, but also a guy that just turned 20 in October?
Yeah, well, I think Luke DeFugio has done enough to earn that opportunity. I mean, the credit to him, like he said, 20. He only has one full professional season under his belt. He's mostly played, you know, academy football to this point.
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Chapter 6: What are the expectations for Canada in the upcoming World Cup matches?
Had a cup of coffee with Fulham a couple of seasons ago. But to his credit, whenever Jesse Marshall is called upon him, he's been excellent. Like Gold Cup, he really put in some good performances last summer. Throughout the fall, while Blombido has been hurt for a while, we saw a lot of good from DeFugio this week. You know, we're two weeks out from a World Cup.
He's arguably been Canada's best player across these friendlies. As for the second question, we don't know, because obviously playing Uzbekistan and Ireland and these sorts of tune-up families is a big difference between playing Bosnia in front of a sold-out home crowd, hopefully, for a home World Cup. It's just such different stakes. And you don't know how you're going to react from it.
But what I will say, given what he's shown, he seemed to have this strong mental makeup. Like he seems to be someone who's kind of unafraid of these sorts of big occasions. So I feel relatively confident that he'll do well. But like you mentioned, he's 20. You just don't know how that first showing is going to go on a big stage. So it's obviously a bit.
Chapter 7: How does the coaching strategy impact the team's performance?
maybe at least from an outside perspective. You're looking at him and then a center back in Derek Cornelius who hadn't played a whole lot at the end of the season. You think, okay, that's maybe not fully ideal, but we're going to have to bank on it because that's kind of where things are at for Canada.
What's going to be the bigger challenge for Canada? Scoring goals or defending?
I'd say scoring them because scoring them, it's been an issue for a while now. Somehow, defensively, for all these injuries they've had, like I mentioned earlier, Bambino missed a year. Derek Cornelius, you know, he had some injuries. And, of course, he hasn't been in form. Despite all that, Canada's been good defensively. They've continued to get results. It's just they can't score.
I think it's something in their last, you know, since last fall. They ended up playing six friendlies in the fall, and then they played four games, so 10 games. half of them have been draws because they just simply can't score.
Chapter 8: What are the insights from the Canucks news segment?
They can't break open games. Against Ireland, that was one where they should have scored the goals to break it open. You look in the March window where they drew Tunisia and Iceland. Both games just left there thinking off. Only they could have created a bit more chances and broken open those games. Ditto in the fall. So I absolutely think that goals are the problem with this team.
If you date back to the end of Copa America, which is almost two years now, They've only outright lost two games that spent. Obviously, Guatemala, they lost a penalty. So that doesn't outright count as a loss because, you know, what was in regulation that counts as a draw. But that shows that heading into this tournament, I'm not worried about Canada's ability to get draws.
I'm worried about their ability to turn some of those draws into wins. So absolutely, it's the goal scoring for me.
Who are they going to rely on to create these chances? Against Ireland, the guy I noticed the most was Liam Miller, but that might have just been his hair. Hard to miss him with this.
No, absolutely. Liam Miller's going to have to be one. Obviously, with Ali Ahmed not being 100%, although it sounds like he'll be able to play in some form, because Ahmed does a lot of important lifting when he's on the field for Canada, so obviously that's
him missing these last few games has been felt but william miller's gonna have to be one with his dribbling with his energy he gets into good positions just sometimes for him it's always been about the decision making are you shooting instead of passing or passing instead of shooting we saw that a few times against island where again you can't approach the guy because he had confidence he had energy but there's a few shots where you're thinking okay if you're shooting from there you have to hit the target or you have to make that that right you can't put it into the upper deck
No, especially not on a four-on-three where you've got three players around you who would very much love to shoot the ball. So that's obviously one. Tayshaun Buchanan as well in the other wing. He's getting in a lot of good spots, but it's a bit tougher for him at times because he's a bit of a shoot-first player. Sometimes he wants to take the ball and just drive.
But as a winger in this sort of Canadian system, you need to find these crossing opportunities for your striker. So I want to see a bit more from Tejan Buchanan. And I think a lot of onus is going to have to go on the midfielders too. Ismael Kone in particular, he has the tools to be extremely creative, to break open games easily.
Because up front, obviously the way the system is designed, Jonathan David is being asked to create a lot of chances. And to his credit, he's doing a good job of that side of his game. But as we know, he's a good finisher. We want to see him in the box. We want to see him pushed up. And the midfielders and wingers can help with that.
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