Whoa. Doh. Uh Oh.

Canada. Just when everything was all quiet on the international front, our CSA player of the year lashes out once again, this time for real. De Guzman pulls no punches, so just if there was any doubt what he thought of the CSA and our Canadian program there you have it in black & white. I've listened around to a few different sources on these comments and what people think of what De Guzman/other players have said about the CSA and Dale Mitchell and I'm surprised how many people still go back onto the tired argument of, "they are the players, they need to take responsibility as well, can they look themselves in the mirror and say they all put in 150%?."



And I've said it before and I'll say it again, shit rolls downhill. The players and the game played are the last link the the chain of events that either leads us to victory or defeat. I'm sorry, this should not be Cameroon where players are paying their own way (hmm which I'm sure most of us do), practicing on their own, and when they succeed it is deemed a 'miracle' or 'feel good story' - if you want to think Canada is a third world country and third world footballing standards are acceptable then so be it. I for one expect more. Over 20 years ago we qualified for a world cup with a team that was so far off the level and skill of our team now, yet we can only beat countries with populations less than one million. How can this be???

To add onto the pile, the Voyageurs, Canada's National team supporter's club, have released a statement calling for the firing of Dale Mitchell. This comes off the heels of an interesting interview from a week or so back on a Vancouver podcast with Dale Mitchell who has some interesting things to say about Canada's recent failures and staying on as the head coach.


Part of me doesn't blame him for staying on, because it is the CSA's responsibility to fire him, but another part of me would really ask - if you care about this program do you really think you are the man for the job and can lead us to victory? Or will it be every time we fail you'll just point to countries like Mexico and Honduras and say "hey we can't qualify because they are better than us". I think if the guy actually cares he should resign. He can't be that delusional and think he can lead us to victory, especially when some of our key players now refuse to play under him. If this was any European country would we even be having this debate/issue? NO. Mitchell would be long gone by now, hell, he'd probably have been gone halfway through qualifying!

I for one am glad that our best player is still speaking up and getting press on this issue. I don't care if he isn't offering any solutions (in print anyways, he has said his ideas/comments have fallen on deaf ears) - to revamp the program is not his job. The heat needs to stay on the CSA and it needs to be exposed at all turns for what it is. I am sure they have hoped and been happy to keep soccer under the radar so they can continue bumbling along in the dark unaccountable. With our current crop of players who are succeeding in the biggest domestic leagues in the world, it will come out more and more how low our standards and level of professionalism are here. I truly hope this can't go on much longer and hopefully someone will stand up and force a change.