That headline neatly describes Canada's 3-0 loss to the United States in the Beijing Olympics qualifying match, Thursday night in Nashville.
The Americans were bigger, faster, stronger, more daring, more determined and better prepared. Our scrappy red-shirted youngsters probably could have overcome any two of those things – maybe even dragged three of them to a penalty-kick shootout, and gone to Beijing on a lucky goalpost.
But all six? A score like this is never good news, but is it actually kind of a tribute to how gritty and determined the Canadian lads were. They fought their hearts out, but got waxed and exposed by a much better team.
Four Americans, in particular:
- Freddie Adu: It took a while, but the kid has really arrived. From Ghana to Benfica, via D.C. United and the Salt Lake Seagulls, Adu has grown both physically and in his talent. He scored the Americans' first two goals, both on direct free kicks. The first may have been largely down to a goaltending mistake, but the second – a sand-wedge lollipop into the top right corner – was delicious.
- Jozy Altidore: Tough, fast, brilliant, and evolving into an A-1 dirt disturber, as well. If this were wrestling, Altidore would be a card-topping bad guy. What do you want to hate more, Canada fans? The blatant dive or the shoving match with our goalie? But he's so dangerous and so fast – a huge, huge problem for any younger, Olympic-level defence. Side note: There's already a dark, smouldering rivalry between Toronto FC and New York Energy Drink. After this latest arrogant strut job, how do you think TFC fans are going to greet Altidore when New York comes to BMO Field on May Day?
- Maurice Edu: Feeding Adu on the left side, in the kind of act play-by-play announcers hate, but soccer fans are enjoying a lot. A midfielder who can win the ball, and go straight forward – with speed and smarts. It was very much a split experience, being a fan of both Canada and Toronto FC, to see TFC's MLS rookie of the year putting so much unanswerable heat on the brave but faltering Canucks.
- Marvell Wynne: Is he really that much bigger, or are the Canadian kids just that much smaller than MLSers? Prototypical attacking defender, who just by the way, can defend, too. Also with TFC. Canada could really have done their Toronto pro counterparts a huge favour by winning this match, by the way. The Olympics go in August, and neither Edu nor Wynne will be anywhere near a TFC jersey for several weeks.
For Canada, it was a far more anonymous effort. Under utter siege for the first 20 minutes, they dug in and defended pretty well. But you couldn't point to any one player. Everyone was just far too busy back there. There was very little link to the strike force, and when a red shirt did pop up with the ball at the centre line, there were usually about five Americans there to shut it down.
Goalie Josh Wagenaar, unfortunately, guessed wrong on Freddie Adu's first free-kick goal. The ball wobbled in, low and bouncing, and Wagenaar appeared to react to a deflection he was clearly anticipating. But there never was a deflection, and the ball squibbed and bobbed all the way to the back of the net after the Canadian ‘keeper took himself out of the play.
Nothing much any goalie could have done about the other two goals. Adu's second free kick was perfect, and the third – powered home on the left side by Sacha Kljestan – was the inevitable sad result of a system-wide defensive breakdown.
In the aftermath of the defeat, Canada coach Nick Dasovic – a plain-spoken man not known for his tolerance of mistakes – laid a big chunk of the blame squarely on the Canadian Soccer Association. It's one of the highest-profile attacks yet on Canada's reeling soccer bureaucrats.
And, certainly, you can argue that the money and the preparation weren't there. You can easily question why England's tiny third-division Yeovil Town couldn't be convinced to release creative young Canadian speedster Jaime Peters for national-team duty. (Okay, Peters' contract is owned by much-larger Ipswich. But wouldn't Ippy want their prospects to be playing internationals?)
The deeper truth is that the Americans were better. In one single match, we neatly saw the size of the gulf Canada's incoming Technical Director, Stephen Hart, has been hired to close. Certainly, taming the CSA mistake machine will take a huge part of his energy.
Finding – and not losing – the next generation of Canadian soccer talent is going to be a critical job – and a daunting one.
For now, despite that wonderful 5-0 win over Guatemala earlier in the tournament, this is exactly where we are.
Onward!
