April 14, 2005 U-17 friendly
Massive Attack from Voyageurs message board.
Final Score: Canada-Scotland 2-2 (0-2)
Canada's Goals: Both by Marcus Haber
Venue: Ontario Soccer Centre (Outdoor Field Turf), Woodbridge ON
Canada played really well tonight. Canada dominated possession the entire match. Scotland rarely got into the offensive half of the field. Both of Scotland's first half goals were scored off of corner kicks, against the run of play. Canada's starting keeper, Jaswinder Gill, seemed quite timid. He should have been more aggressive on both goals. In the first half, Canada would get close to the 18 yard box before their attacks would break down. Canada's best chance in the first half came off a free kick into the box that Marcus Haber headed to the net, which required a nice save from the Scotish keeper.
Canada started the second half with a new keeper, Adam Street. He was a late replacement for Marc-Andre Laplante, and is apparently only 13 years old. He was forced to make an excellent save early in the second half. He was much more aggressive than Gill on corners. In the second half, Canada continued to dominate the play. Before Canada scored its first goal, two seperate appeals for penalties were waved off by the ref. But finally a goal would come. Marcus Haber, the tallest player on the field, headed in from a corner. Five minutes later, Haber would score again, this time he simply had to tap in a re-bound.
Overall the match was very physical. The Scottish players were all bigger than the Canadian players, with Haber being the lone exception. Canada were actually playing positive soccer, while Scotland simply tried to get by on brute force.
Players that impressed me:
Marcus Haber - scored the 2 goals and looks like he handles the target striker role really well.
Adam Street - a pretty good shop stopper. Needs to get a little more distance and accuracy on his kicking though.
Kennedy Owasu-Ansah - played right-back and looked calm in defending and moving up.
A couple of the midfielders played well, but I can't remember their numbers. They were doing those Brazilian dummy moves pretty well.
Overall the team played well. Looks like Stephan Hart can take a few of these kids to Mexico for U-17 qualifying if necessary. Its not often that you get to see a Canadian team come from behind and actually tie a match.
Note: Edited to correct second half keeper.
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Edited by - Massive Attack on 04/15/2005 07:43:09
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