With the international break this weekend, make sure you get yourself to Hampshire's finest non league club, Farnborough, as they're in fa trophy action against Banbury in the best stadium in non league (excluding former league sides). Alas I cannot make it so you guys are gonna have to go on my behalf
With the formality of England's qualification out of the way, I expect all of you to tune in to Canada's qualifying match against Costa Rica, which begins at...2am GMT. It's a balmy 1 degree Celsius in Edmonton and likely to be colder when kickoff arrives, and represents a homecoming for Alphonso Davies, who was raised in the city. Commonwealth Stadium is large, open, frigid, and generally unsuited for football. It should be a madhouse.
In canada at the moment. Temp certainly vaires 1 degree in Quebec then 16 degrees in Toronto. Certainly recommend ice hockey for those who have always been curious. Certainly puts our footballers to shame when a player gets a puck to the face under the helmet and then skates off.
Yeah, we have about 50 different climates. Vancouver is warm and rainy (as always), it's coolish and rainy here on the East Coast (as always), and northern Alberta is a frozen wasteland. I will say, though, that hockey players aren't really worth emulating. The secret to their incredible fortitude involves a lot of cocaine and painkiller abuse...it's kinda an open secret that no professional league has more drug problems than the NHL.
I've gotten into the wine, so you're going to get even more commentary on this one than usual! Aren't you all lucky!
The frozen artificial turf in Edmonton is jumpy, but it also seems to be angled toward the Costa Rica goal. Eight minutes in, they might have 5% possession, and that's not an exaggeration.
22 minutes in, there have been two separate instances where the teams stopped play to push and shout incoherently at one another. This is not a repeat from literally every CANMNT qualifier to date.
Have to question the decision to play in Edmonton. I'm sure the cold is an issue for Costa Rica, but playing on a sheet of frozen concrete is also affecting a Canadian team that wants to get out and run. Ball doesn't bounce consistently, and that's more of an issue for the team that wants to attack.
0-0 halftime. Canada has had the vast majority of the ball, but the only meaningful chance involved a Costa Rica defender heading off his own crossbar. The pitch is a real impediment.
I feel like I should get the wayback machine fired up, so...here was the first Canadian Men's National Team Update on here, in October of 2012: https://not606.com/threads/world-cup-qualifier-matches-thread.173462/page-2#post-3610258 ...and the inevitable outcome: https://not606.com/threads/world-cup-qualifier-matches-thread.173462/page-13#post-3625976 And now we're on the ****ing precipice. I never expected it would lead to this. We're a couple results from the World Cup and that's utterly incredible.
Cheers Shad. Grandson travelled up from Calgary to watch this game. I'll be interested to hear his take on the game.
Top three qualify automatically. Fourth goes to the inter-confederation qualifier. Canada's virtually a lock to finish in the top four at this point: they're seven points and 9 GD above fifth. Panama's 2 points and +6 GD behind in fourth, after rallying from 2-0 down in the 77th minute to win today. If not for that result, Canada would be all but guaranteed qualification already.
One year to go, to the start of the Qatar World Cup. Some good looking stadiums, but built at what cost to human life.
If my maths is correct, the total capacity of those stadiums is roughly 385,000. That's higher than the total number of Qatari people on the planet. Might as well have given the World Cup to Cornwall.
