As the Canada – Haiti match coincided with part of the FSR last night I didn’t get a chance to see the full game until today.

An improved performance by Canada – they played at a higher pace and kept Haiti under pressure when they had the ball. Toronto’s Chris Pozniak came into the side to play as the defensive midfield player, while Atiba Hutchinson dropped a bit deeper to play alongside Julian De Guzman in the centre of midfield. Over the ninety minutes the two moves gave Canada a more solid look in the engine room although the price paid was a lack of support to Rob Friend who played as the lone striker. 

Dwayne De Rosario’s two goals inside five minutes just after the half hour mark of the first half put Canada in the driver’s seat. The first came after a Stalteri cross that bypassed striker Rob Friend but dropped to De Rosario. The Haiti keeper got caught out badly at his near post. The second was from the penalty spot when the lively Issey Nakajima-Farran was fouled after nipping around a defender. The power in De Rosario’s spot kick compensated for a placement that was a bit to close to goalkeeper Gabart Fenelon for comfort.

Either side of half time Haiti enjoyed their best spell and that lasted for around twenty minutes. During that time Canada lost their way defensively and needed keeper Pat Onstad to come to the rescue on at least three occasions. In one case Onstad took a sickening shot to the head as he dove at an on-rushing Haitian forward. After a delay of over five minutes Onstad continued on.

Going into the last eight of the Gold Cup (opponents still not known) the centre of the Canadian defense is probably the biggest concern. Under any sort of pressure Hastings and Hainault look very uncomfortable. Despite De Rosario’s two goals against Haiti there were long stretches of the game when he was not involved in the game as he was left marooned out on the left wing. To be consistently successful Canada has to find a way to bring De Rosario into the game for longer stretches.

Ian Hume was left on the Canadian bench again – something that I think surprises many people while Rob Friend could have benefited with more support up front. He was left to plough a lone furrow with minimal support from midfield.

A post-script to how Guadeloupe stacks up against other teams in the region. In the Shell Caribbean Cup of 2007 – the qualifying competition for this Gold Cup – Guadeloupe played eleven games, winning seven and losing four. They beat French Saint-Martin, Dominica, Martinique, Dominican Republic, Antigua & Barbuda, Cuba and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They lost to Guyana twice, Haiti and Cuba. In total they scored 22 goals and conceded 14.

Having spent the first two decades or so in my life in a country that has, over the years, turned embarrassing and shameful results (not always defeats) on football fields around the globe into an art form, I’ve suffered more than a few humiliating experiences.

Embarrassing losses to England (9-3, 5-0, 5-1) can come rolling back as if they were yesterday. A devastating loss to Peru at the 1978 World Cup was followed by a draw with Iran. If it is possible to scrape a 5-2 win then Scotland achieved it four years later against New Zealand and then there was a scoreless draw in 1986 against a Uruguayan side that played 89 minutes with ten men.

An opening round loss to Costa Rica in 1990 was perhaps the lowest of the low and since then there has been two draws with the Faroe Islands, a loss to Belarus and assorted beatings in the European Championships. Plus the managerial reign of Berti Vogts had to be endured.

But although Scottish supporters and the media now have a much better grasp of where their team sits in the larger scheme of things they will not stay silent if their team turns in a #### performance.

I think we saw the same thing last summer at the World Cup when US fans vented their anger and disappointment at what they considered to be an unacceptable performance.

At the time I had suggested that if there was a silver lining to the USA’s early exit it was that  the supporters had shown that they were no longer willing to accept just making it to the World Cup Finals. Expectations had risen and the USA team now knew that more was now required of them. The fans and media expected the USA to not only reach the Finals every four years but also to produce decent performances at the Finals.

A year on and I can’t help but contrast the reaction in the USA with that found north of the border after what was arguably the worst result ever suffered in international competition by Canada.

On Saturday evening Canada produced a display that exhibited the worst kind of tactical cowardice in a performance that was pathetic and humiliating. Canada lost 2-1 to Guadeloupe, a country that isn’t even a country.

The mainstream media’s reaction to what is possibly Canada’s worst result in the last 30 years of international competition? The sum of it is two press bureau articles from the Associated Press and Reuters.

The Associated Press describes Canada as “sluggish and disorganized” while quoting interim coach Stephen Hart as saying that “both goals were definitely preventable”. That’s telling them!!

As for Reuters they dedicated a whole two paragraphs to the loss and stated that Canada “became the victim itself of a huge upset.”

What we were treated to on television during the game was even worse. Apparently the fact that a 41-year-old Jocelyn Angloma had been capped 37 times for France was proof that this Guadeloupe side should not be taken for granted and were a good team. God knows how terrified we would be if we ever came up against a team that fielded a 70-year-old Bobby Charlton who has 106 international caps and a World Cup winners medal.

And there was more – the Guadeloupe side had a Sheffield United player in the starting eleven (David Sommeil a reject Manchester City centre back who started four Premiership games for relegated Sheffield United this past season) as well as seven players who played in France and none at a top flight side. That was presented as evidence of quality opponents. You can see how Guadeloupe could be mistaken for Italy or Brazil with a line-up like that can’t you?

Oh yes and this is from commentators that will tell you that Canada is one of the top four countries in CONCACAF. The summation of this humiliation was “an unfortunate result” – hardly a scathing assessment of a reprehensible performance. Instead of holding the Canadian team’s feet to fire as the players day-dreamed their way through ninety minutes what we heard was pathetic.

There were repeated tirades about these horrible Guadeloupe players feigning injury. Certainly something good Canadian boys wouldn’t do. Has Don Cherry been cloned? And of course the Canadians love playing for their country – if that is the case they certainly didn’t show it last night and in the process they didn’t receive one piece of criticism from the men in the booth.

For excessive stretches of the game Canada played as if it was an Artistic Gymnastics contest that could be won on marks for artistic impression if they maintained possession long enough without actually achieving anything of substance.

Balls were played square across the back four continually while the defenders rarely had to deal with anything other than a lone striker. The five-man Canadian midfield in what was supposedly a 4-3-3 formation and the full backs rarely turned the Guadeloupe defense.

When things turned bad there was little or change in the tactics by the coach. Did I mention that coach Stephen Hart suppossedly approached the mighty Guadeloupe with the primary intention of keeping a clean sheet? Thank goodness that someone is there to keep prospective and to not allow the expectations for this Canadian side to get to grandiose.

The midfield pairing of Nash and De Guzman that had performed so admirably against Costa Rica was virtually non-existent while keeper Greg Sutton, who had missed the win over Costa Rica because of concussion, showed that the condition had obviously not cleared as he conceded two long range efforts.

This is not an inexperienced Canadian side. Take a look at the average age and the cumulative number of caps. Atiba Hutchinson and Paul Stalteri have played in the Champions League, Julian De Guzman has held down a regular spot for Deportivo La Coruna during the second half of La Liga season and Dwayne De Rosario is recognized as one of MLS’s great talents.

With a couple of minor exceptions the team was made up of players with experience of playing overseas and generally at good levels. So why do the Canadian media and many fans continue to treat them as a bunch of inexperienced grinders who are beyond criticism? 

Someone once said that inconsistency is the real mediocrity and with the results against Costa Rica and Guadeloupe Canada showed that never truer words were said. And perhaps based on the reaction from Saturday’s game, mediocrity is all that we deserve.