2007 In Review: The Gold Cup Odyssey

Ah, la Copa de Oro. Where fate meets destiny, where great minds meet great feet, where Haiti meets Guadeloupe. Oh, sure, you laugh, but for FA’s like Canada, who don’t get trashed if they fail to reach the World Cup semi-finals, the Gold Cup is a big thing. Canada had a chance to make it an even bigger thing this summer, but a few things got in their way. Here’s what happened.

Canada, holding high hopes for themselves going into the ninth edition of CONCACAF’s holy grail, were pitted in a pretty doable group, with World Cup rejects Costa Rica, underachievers Haiti, and FIFA-ignored French dependents Guadeloupe.

On June 6 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Paul Stalteri-led Canadian eleven took the field in their initial Group A match against Costa Rica. With the Central Americans boasting the likes of Jervis Drummond, Walter Centeno and Alvaro Saborio, Stephen Hart knew the odds were tight, even though his own side were confident of progressing, perhaps even in front of their three group-mates. With Pat Onstad in goal, a relatively experienced backline featuring Stalteri, Hainault, Hastings and Jazic, a dynamic midfield drawn up with Hutchinson, Bernier, Nash, De Rosario and the unstoppable Julian De Guzman, as well as lanky lone striker Rob Friend, the men in red looked the part to begin the tournament. Although Centeno bagged a sweet first goal for Costa Rica on 56 minutes, Julian De Guzman equalized just as nicely hardly a minute afterwards. Fifteen minutes later, the little Deportivo La Coruna man floated a beautiful strike from just outside the area that had Porras down and out, and put Canada on top for the rest of the match. One match, one win, first place.

Buoyed by their first triumph, against a World Cup participant, no less, the Canadian side eagerly prepared their next match against Guadeloupe, a country nation team that wasn’t recognized by FIFA and was participating in their first Gold Cup. In this one, whom many were pegging for a slaughter, Canada’s lineup remained the same save for two changes, Greg Sutton coming in in goal and Ali Gerba replacing Rob Friend up front. Quick as a wink, however, Jocelyn Angloma scored for Guadeloupe on ten minutes. Ali Gerba equalized twenty-five minutes afterwards, but the score only lasted three minutes, after David Fleurival got the go-ahead strike for the underdogs. The score would not change, and Canada were stunned to find themselves on the losing end of the scoreboard. Coupled with Haiti and Costa Rica’s draw, Canada forfeited first place to the islanders. (Sorry, can’t find any highlights)

The third and final round-robin match was to be played against Haiti, who had not gotten a point but no more from their previous two matches. After Greg Sutton suffered his season-ending concussion by knocking his head on the post during the Guadeloupe match, Pat Onstad came back in between the pipes. Rob Friend also returned to the starting eleven, alongside hopeful Issey Nakajima-Farran and Toronto FC midfielder Chris Pozniak, at the expense of Nash and Bernier who rode the bench at the start. As quick as you like, once again, Canada burst into life and scored two goals three minutes apart on 32 and 35 minutes, both from the solid right boot of Dwayne De Rosario. Thankfully, Costa Rica figured out Guadeloupe and enabled Canada to finish at the summit of Group A.

Travelling to Foxboro, Massachusetts, for their quarter-final match against Carlos Ruiz’s Guatemalan crew, the Reds, still led by Tottenham’s Paul Stalteri, geared up for the most important match in recent years. In an explosive first half, Canada scored three goals, one by Dwayne De Rosario and two by Ali Gerba. Take that, Carlos Ruiz, you cunt.

Then, my friends, then came the mighty United States of Amerika. In front of a crowd of 50,000 at Soldier Field in Chicago, Canada threw out the same lineup that dismantled Guatemala to face Donovan, Beasley and the rest in what was sure to be epic. And do forgive me for the bitterness with which I write this paragraph; I’m still very much mad about what happened. Before any goals were scored, Carlos Bocanegra went in with both feet off the ground, full-speed, at Julian De Guzman and provoked a 270-degree frontwards rotation from the foulee. A red card by anyone’s standards except referee Benito Archundia’s, apparently. Then, the USA scored two by Hejduk and Donovan just before half-time. Quite brutal. In the second half, substitute Iain Hume scored a cracker with fifteen minutes to play to bring the score back to 2-1. After Michael Bradley got sent off for a tackle from behind on De Guzman, the shit hit the fan. In the fourth minute of stoppage time, Patrice Bernier picked up a ball in the USA half. He then passed the ball up, with all Canadian players in onside positions at the time of the kick (which is what matters). Before it could reach a Canadian player, USA defender Oguchi Onyewu deflected the ball into the path of Atiba Hutchinson, who scored on his second touch. You know the rest of the story. Goal gets waved off, whistle blows, Canada goes apeshit, and we had every right to do so. But no, that’s how our Gold Cup hopes went crashing down, thanks to a ref with bad judgement and a linesman with a bad eye.

After that all boiled over (a minimum), we looked over the tournament as a whole (The USA would go on and beat Mexico in the quintessential CONCACAF final). Richard Hastings and Julian De Guzman were voted onto the Tournament XI, with Stalteri recieving an honourable mention. Canada had three wins and two losses, with a 9-5 goal differential.

The controversy aside, I think I’m not alone in thinking the Gold Cup was a tournament to remember for Canada. It saw great performances by players who were expected to deliver, like Julian De Guzman who controlled the midfield with Dwayne De Rosario, but also set the stage for big surprises within the squad, like the pairing of Andrew Hainault and Richard Hastings at center-back and the super-subs, Hume and Nakajima-Farran. Also, we must tip our hats to Pat Onstad, the 39-year old keeper who stood in the stead of Greg Sutton on very short notice.

Yes, it was bitter, yes, it was a dissappointing end result, and yes, I’m still screaming for Archundia’s head, but life goes on. I mean, we are Canada.