CNSL International Friendly game Thursday June 27th, 1996
Here are the details of the CNSL game played Thursday June 27th, 1996 at North York's Esther Shiner Stadium at 7:30pm between Toronto Italia and Vejle from the Danish First Division. This was a Friendly game.
Toronto Italia (blue socks and shirts, white shorts and numbers)
................................................1 Joe Ciaravino
2 John Annisi...3 Franco Spadafina...4 Richard Alexander...5 Tom Perks
7 Miguel Ferreira...6 Jack Zomparelli...18 Phil Ionadi...11 Marco Antonucci(cpt)
...............................8 Luca Centurione....10 Lalo Maradona
subs: 15 Marco Vaiano...00 Mike Ivanescu (gk)...20 Nick Maxwell 9 Ryan Gamble 16 Andrew Crawford 14 Garvin Houston
Vejle Denmark (white socks, shorts, and numbers, red shirts, yellow ads on chest and back shoulders) Jan Larsen wore red socks!
..............................................1 Eric Boye(cpt)
.......6 Thomas Gravesen 15 Dan Sorensen 2 Jan Larsen
19 Jesper Sogard.....18 Jesper Mikkelson...14 Jens Madsen...5 Edouard Demenkovets
....................3 Bo Harder......4 Dejvl Glouevshi......8 Jacob Olsen
11 Brian Christensen...12 Kim Norholt...13 Kurt Eritsen...16 Bertel Dorf(gk)...17 Klaus Bskildsen...19 Jesper Sogard...20 Peter Grouiard
Officials: Referee Andrew Jasevski, linesmen Les Wilcox & Glen Sharkey.
1st half (Italia defends west goal in first half, so Vejle gets to run into the sun).
2 min Italia Ionadi gets called back on handball while receiving cross.
9:24min Vejle GOAL Sogard crosses to Glouevshi who takes header from 5 yards that bounces in.
23 min Vejle Mikkelson takes a shot rather than cross and is wide to far right side.
25 min Vejle Larsen's cross is caught by goalie.
27 min Italia gets first chance of game but ref whistles down cross after freekick. Both goalie and Italia forward jumping for it.
29 min Italia goalie makes point blank save on #12(?!).
30 min Vejle GOAL Madsen jumps over everyone for header from 5 yards after receiving corner kick cross.
34 min Vejle Glouevshi gets breakaway but pulls up instead of trying to beat goalie.
36 min ref makes Italia's Alexander shake hands of Vejle player whom he knocked down and should have got yellow card.
42 min Vejle Sogard passes ball through to Mikkelson who can only poke it to goaltender who dives for save.
45:00 ref ends half.
2nd Half
Italia sub Maxwell replaces Annisi
Vejle subs Eritsen replaces Mikkelsen....Christensen replaces Harder....Norholt replaces
Glouevshi....Holm replaces Demenkovets.
53 min Italia sub Vaiano replaces Spadafina....goalie Ivanescu replaces Ciaravino.... Crawford replaces Centurione
60 min Italia Houston shot on tight angle, goalie dives forward to squeeze it. Hey I didn't notice when he came into game!
65 min Vejle Eritsen blasts shot that goalie tips wide.
68 min Italia sub ???????? replaces Maradona who'd moved back to play midfield after the first substitutions.
72 min Italia sub Gamble replaces Ferreira.
74 min Vejle sub Bskildsen replaces Gravesen.
79 min Vejle Norholt's shot blocked by diving goalie,
84:19min Vejle GOAL Christensen takes sizzler to top right corner from 15 yards out on left side.
91 min Italia Crawford dekes defender but fires over net.
91.42 min ref stops game.
Final Score Toronto Italia 0 Vejle Denmark 3
It was almost like watching two different games. In the first half, Vejle dominated; seldom letting Italia out of their own end. There were actually too many chances for Vejle for me to write down. I thought the CNSL was completely out of their element. In the 2nd half however, when both teams made a lot of substitutions, I thought the Italia subs were actually better than the Vejle ones.
I talked to Frank of the League on the weekend after Vejle played Toronto Supra and he said Vejle used all their starters and Supra actually opened up a 3-0 lead with Supra regulars before coasting to a 3-2 win after bringing in their subs. With Vejle travelling to St Catharines the next day I thought the CNSL might win but the score was 4-1 for Vejle.
The Danish League is not ranked one of the strongest in Europe. Most of the National Team players play outside the country. The CNSL would rank as a 3rd division in North America. I'd put the parity as something like this:
....................................Europe.............................................North America
1st division................ Italian League (eg Parma).............--------------
2nd division............... Danish League (eg Vejle)..............MLS
3rd division................lower divisions................................A-League (Toronto 1997)
4th division................ Semi pro..........................................USISL, CNSL, CISL.
Last year the CNSL put an All-Star team together and played like an A-League team against Parma of Italy. The score ended 5-0 for Parma but it was a competitive game.
Toronto was recently awarded an A-League franchise for 1997 so I'm just using them as a comparison.
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