THE SOCCER TOURNAMENT
Canada has a chance to do well in both men’s and women’s Pan Am soccer at the tournament
The plethora of ‘football’ involving Canada’s top players this summer has impacted the rosters which this country is sending to the Pan Am Games, but according to independent soccer analysts, Canada has a chance to do well in both the men’s and women’s tournaments.
All of Canada’s top female players took part in the Canada2015, the World Cup which concluded only last Sunday, in Vancouver, and most play for club pro teams which will not release them for the Pan Ams.
Plus, there is a burnout factor for many of the senior Canadians, after a centralized camp and a month of intense public and media scrutiny.
Additionally, national women’s program director John Herdman has been concerned for years about turning a large part of the 2012 bronze-medalist Olympic roster over with younger players in time for the Rio Games next year and the Tokyo Olympics four years thereafter.
So, the Canadian women, coming off a disappointing second-round elimination in the World Cup, will be mostly young (under 23) and developing talent.
For the men that’s legislated, as all rosters must be U-22, meaning under 22 years of age.
That limitation is designed to dovetail with next year’s Olympics, which is a U-23 tournament, so the talent pool will be the same for Pan Am and Olympic tournaments.
But because Soccer Canada has been stepping up its identification and development program for the past couple of years, this Pan Am team is one of the deepest group of young Canadian male players assembled in a long, long time.
The player who should immediately catch everyone’s eye is attacking midfielder Keven Aleman, who grew up in Brampton but was born in Costa Rica and two years ago turned down and invitation to play for Costa Rica in the Gold Cup.
Aleman, whose full name is Keven Aleman-Bustos, just turned 21, and has spent the past two pro seasons playing pro in Costa Rica, last year for Herediano, and this year for Belen, where he has four goals. He has been capped three times for the Canadian senior national team.
Other Canadian offensive thrusts should come from Caleb Clarke, whose five goals lead Vancouver Whitecaps 2 in the United Soccer League, the third level of professional play in North America.
Toronto FC’s leading scorer in the same league, Molham Babouli of Mississauga, will be another Canadian expected to score, while his TFC teammate Raheem Edwards has the speed to disrupt a defence.
Babouli, a tournament all-star, and Edwards, who scored twice in the gold medal game, led Oakville’s Sheridan College to the national college championship.
National men’s program director Benito Floro saw both players there and liked their approach. Flores will be in Hamilton but his son, Antonio Floro, will be the team’s head coach.
Hanson Boaki, who is only 18 but plays for Edmonton in the NASL, North America’s second — best league, will be the cornerstone of the midfield, but also watch for Toronto FC II captain Chris Manella, a good dribbler and creative playmaker.
“I think this team will score goals,” says Juan Carlos Ramirez-Gaston a native Peruvian who has a multi-tiered soccer business in Mississauga that includes scouting services for several professional teams around the globe.
“Benito Floro is expecting a lot. This is the next generation for Canada. Having a chance to play to play in an international tournament, the world will see them. They know that there will be scouts from European pro leagues here, and if they play well it will increase the possibility of them playing overseas.”
While the Canadian women are drawing heavily on the U-20 team from last year ’s U-20 World Cup, there are three important members on the team who played in the senior World Cup which concluded with a U.S. gold medal last Sunday.
John Herdman, the director of the national women’s team program — Danny Worthington is the Pan Am head coach — had told The Spectator 19 days before his team was announced to the public that three of the youngest players on the World Cup team would be in Hamilton.
He was able to secure the releases from West Virginia University for 19-year-old Kadeisha Buchanan, whom many see as the next great defender in women’s soccer, and Ashley Lawrence, 20, who scored Canada’s only goal in their group-stage tie with the Netherlands.
Both will be here as will Jessie Lawrence, the promising 17-year-old from London.
Stephanie Labbe, who was Canada’s third goaltender in the World Cup, will join Kailen Sheridan in the nets. Sheridan is heading into her junior year at Clemson University, and is the first Clemson player in eight years to make the ACC all-conference team.
Herdman and Worthington are looking primarily at development but they also want to win this tournament and, as defending champions, they certainly have a chance to reach the podium.
While Canada has four holdovers from last month’s World Cup, Costa Rica is sending its entire women’s team to Toronto2015, after finishing third in its group (won by Brazil) and missing the elimination rounds.
Brazil, which won its group at the World Cup but lost 1-0 to Australia in the roundof-16, will have eight players off that roster in Hamilton, including Andressa Alves Da Silva, who scored the only goal in Brazil’s 1-0 win over Spain.
Mexico will be sending eight players from its Women’s World Cup team to the Pan Am Tournament.
It did not win a game at the World Cup, losing once and tying twice to finish last in its group.
Colombia, which had a surprisingly strong showing at the World Cup, will have seven of those players in Hamilton. They’ll be led by the well-named, and very colourful, Lady Patricia Andrade Rodriguez, who had a bountiful four-day period during Toronto2015.
The 20-year-old scored the winning goal in a 2-0 upset of powerful France, then scored the only goal in a 2-1 loss to eventual semifinalist England.
Colombia was eliminated in the round of 16 by the eventual champion U.S.
On the men’s side Argentina, which won the first Pan Am Tournament and has won more Pan Am soccer golds than any other nation, will not be here.
They won the South American U-20 championship and a direct berth into next year’s Olympics, but the South American football association decided to send the third-through-sixth place teams to Hamilton.
The Pan Am tournament is for men under 23, so players who were too old for the South American qualifiers can play here. Some soccer pundits figure the top three teams to be Uruguay, Mexico and Brazil, but the Pan Am Games have always seen some unanticipated results on the podium.
It should be noted that some men’s sides, like Mexico and Peru, have spent a lot more time in centralized, high-level, training than Canada has.
Uruguay, which finished third in the qualifier, and is therefore the top rated South American team here, will have some talented players in Hamilton, led by Gaston Pereiro, the second leading scorer in the qualifier with five goals in eight games. Uruguay will also have Mauro Arambarri, a 19-year-old winger already playing in the country’s first division for Defensor Sporting who is being courted by clubs in Spain (Malaga) and Italy ( Juventus).
Brazil, which has won four Pan Am men’s championships, but none in the last 38 years and hasn’t won a Pan Am Medal since 2003, seems to be taking this tournament very seriously.
They’re not staying at the Athletes’ Village at McMaster, opting instead for a Holiday Inn.
Bressan (Matheus Simonete Bressaneli) is Brazil’s experienced centre back and was bound for England’s Queen Park Rangers this year until the deal fell apart at the last moment.
The curiously-named Dodo (Raphael Guimaraes de Paula) is an attacking midfielder who has found his scoring touch in Brazil’s Serie A and goal-scoring is expected from Erik Lima, who’s got a dozen goals in 38 games for Golas.
Mexico is the defending men’s Pan Am champions and one of the players counted upon to score is 21-year-old Angel Zaldivar, who grew up in Guadalajara, where Mexico won the most recent Pan Am title.
While Peru finished last in the South American qualifying rounds, Ramirez-Gaston points to a player like Raphael Guarderas Saravia, a midfielder from Universitario, who has the creativity to make things difficult for other teams.
And, he says, at least one English team will send a scout to Hamilton to look at a couple of young Peruvians.