Thoughts in advance of Canada v Mexico

- So, occasionally doing research is a mistake. Here I was trying to feel better about Canada’s chances on Wednesday night. Sure, they must win in Mexico – but at least the match isn’t at Azteca. Well, as it turns out, upon closer inspection, Canada is no better off at Tuxtla Gutierrez.

In the last five years, Mexico has 17 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss on home soil (with 70 goals for; 12 goals against). At Azteca, 6 wins, 0 draws, 1 loss (16 goals for; 4 goals against). Elsewhere in Mexico, 11 wins, 2 draws, 0 losses (54 goals for; 8 goals against). If anything they’ve performed better away from the big city. Away from Azteca, they’ve had an average goal differential of 3.5, more than double their average differential at Azteca. (Of course, they tend to save Azteca for tougher opponents; the average FIFA rank of their opponents there was 20 spots higher.)

Worse news: Mexico has pounded on middling teams like Canada everywhere they’ve hosted them. Against teams ranked 56 to 106 (25 spots either side of Canada’s current rank) they are 7-0-0 (22 goals for, only 4 against).

- I was amused by Dale Mitchell’s comment, that he is, “contemplating getting [Dwayne De Rosario] out on the wing to try to get him in a 1-v-1 situation”. Like the Titanic’s Captain was contemplating steering around the iceberg.

Luckily, Mitchell may have no choice but to improve his squad choices against Mexico. As far as I know (as of 11 pm Tuesday) he will need to add Issey Nakajima-Farran and Oliver Occean to the match day squad in place of Patrice Bernier and Tomasz Radzinski. By my count, that is two attacking players added and one subtracted (I’m sure Mitchell would prefer fewer, but I digress).

- The real coffin nail from the debacle on Saturday was that Honduras gained 3 road points. In a sense, Canada would have been better to lose to Jamaica and draw Honduras. In all likelihood Jamaica would never have reached 9 points regardless; whereas, Honduras is now virtually guaranteed 8 points, and with even a little luck they’ll take ten.

- The lineups are pretty speculative: they assume Issey is healthy and Mitchell is an idiot.

Ideal Lineup

---------------Hirschfeld

--------Serioux------Klukowski

Stalteri----------------------Brennan

-------Hutchinson--de Guzman

Issey---------------------De Rosario

---------Gerba------Friend


Mitchell-being-Mitchell Lineup

---------------Hirschfeld

--------Serioux------------Hastings
Stalteri---------------------------Klukowski

-------Hutchinson----de Guzman

------------- De Rosario
Issey------------------------Brennan

---------------Friend