September 12, 2007 Men's National Team--Canada vs Costa Rica [Canadian fans protest] (from Globe and Mail)

Result better than the crowd
LARRY MILLSON

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

September 12, 2007 at 11:20 PM EDT

TORONTO — The result — a 1-1 draw — was all right in last night's soccer exhibition game against Costa Rica. But the crowd for the Canadian national men's first game in Toronto since 2000 was a big disappointment.

BMO Field, so often filled to its capacity of more than 20,000 for the first-year Major League Soccer team Toronto FC, had plenty of empty seats last night with an announced attendance of 9,325.

And many of those who did show up wore black T-shirts adorned with slogans such as "Support our national teams … Sack the CSA" in protest of the way the Canadian Soccer Association is run.

"I thought it would be a sold-out crowd, but there's a lot of things that are going on right now," said Toronto native Dwayne, who scored the tying goal in the 54th minute.

Canada controlled the play for most of the game, but Costa Rica scored on what was its only good chance when Victor Nunez connected in the 48th minute.

De Rosario's goal, a left-footed bolt on a pass from Julian De Guzman, came after Costa Rica was reduced to 10 men in the 49th minute when Randal Azofeifa picked up his second yellow card of the game.

The wearing of black was meant to symbolize the frustration supporters of Canadian soccer feel about the state of the game in the country and the fear that without significant change, there is little hope for success at the international level.

"I think it's great the fans have a say," Canadian forward Tomasz Radzinski said. "We want to have a say as well. We've been trying to change things over the last five or six years.

"It's slowly changing. In the last year, maybe it's been going in the right direction. Next time, I'm going to wear a black shirt as well."

It was the national squad's second game under head coach Dale Mitchell. The team recently played a 1-1 draw in Iceland.

Mitchell said last night was more like a qualifying game than a friendly match.

"Certainly there were chances there for us to win it, five or six decent chances," the coach said.

"I'm a little disappointed with the result.

"The game was slowed down very professionally by the Costa Rican team when they went down to 10 men and we lost a little bit of momentum there. We couldn't really take advantage of it in the second half."

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