Day After/Heading Home

I was fortunate to receive some objective feedback on this blog and so will be trying a few different things with the next couple of posts.

Another win!  Canada 3-0 over Puerto Rico.  The game took place in San Juan and it was apparently Dante hot in the Juan Ramon Loubriel Stadium.  We started out slowly - I like to think the guys were pacing themselves due to the heat and humidity.  But they did play stinkball for the first half-hour gifting multiple opportunities to the Puerto Ricans to open the scoring.  They were trying a lot of long passes and most soccer purists hate to see that type of game played.  It's a little like swinging for the bleachers in baseball  - looks fabulous if you connect but is quite putrid if you don't.  As the game moved on into the last ten minutes Canada started having more control and time.  After some real pressure in the PR end Iain Hume sent the ball into the low corner of the net in the 41st minute.  The first half ended with our guys controlling the tempo and not looking gassed.

The second half started off the same - Canada looked poised but were still having the occasional andropausal moment and giving Puerto Rico good looks at the net.  Fortunately the PR lads finish like the over-50 soccer team I play on and they were not able to tally.  The rest of the half was uneventful until the  84th minute when David Edgar took a free kick from just outside the 18 yard line.  The Puerto Rican keeper punched it out and Simeon Jackson pounced on the rebound to bury it.  PR folded at that point and Toss Ricketts added one more in garbage time.

Analysis

We don't look good but we have 6 points from two games.  We got a road win - more importantly we scored on the road.  Neither of these teams we played against is very talented - I already wrote about St Lucia.  The Puerto Rico team has played ONE friendly in the last 12 months and has only 5 players playing professionally.  But.  It's a start.  And we get to do it all over again in October.