Say the word \u201cIceteca\u201d to any soccer fan in this country, and it\u2019ll instantly bring a smile to their face as they recall one of the best moments in the history of the Canadian men\u2019s team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was on a cold, snowy night at Edmonton\u2019s Commonwealth Stadium on Nov. 16, 2021, that Canada earned a memorable 2-1 win over Mexico, a result that set Les Rouges on a path towards qualifying for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fast-forward to Monday: On a cold, rainy and miserable night, Canada marked its first time back at Commonwealth Stadium with a convincing 2-0 win over Uzbekistan in its penultimate match before this summer\u2019s FIFA World Cup. Substitutes Jonathan Osorio and Jayden Nelson scored for the Canadians in this international friendly, while Tani Oluwaseyi also made an impact off the bench with a pair of assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are three takeaways from the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A game of two different halves from Canada\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canada sits 30th in the current FIFA world rankings, 20 spots above Uzbekistan, which will make its World Cup debut this summer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it was the visitors who carried the bulk of play and looked far more dangerous in the first half, as evidenced by their 9-3 edge in total shots. While Canadian forwards Jonathan David and Cyle Larin were rather anonymous, the best chances of the opening 45 minutes fell to Eldor Shomurodov. If not for the Uzbekistan forward\u2019s lack of finishing, the visitors could have easily gone into halftime with a 2-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canada looked timid and erratic before the break and needed to do something to give itself a jump start. It came in the form of wholesale changes by coach Jesse Marsch, who brought seven players off the bench at the start of the second half, including both eventual goal scorers Osorio and Nelson, as well as Tani Oluwaseyi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The new blood injected some much-needed life into Canada, which dominated the final 45 minutes, with Oluwaseyi playing the role of playmaker in setting up both goals from Osorio and Nelson, who is one of the players keen to replace the injured Marcelo Flores in Canada\u2019s World Cup roster. Nelson did himself no harm with his marvellous attacking display, Oluwaseyi made a case for himself to start next to Jonathan David in leading Canada\u2019s attack at the World Cup, and Osorio (Canada\u2019s most experienced player with 9 caps) reminded everyone that he still has a lot to offer.<\/p>\n
Forward Promise David didn\u2019t score, but he did get into dangerous scoring positions after being subbed on in the 70th minute, an encouraging sign in his first game back for Canada after suffering a hip injury in February. And defender Alfie Jones, also coming back from injury, helped Canada lock things down after his introduction into the match with 20 minutes left in regulation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monday’s win allowed Marsch to look at some players ahead of Canada’s World Cup opener versus Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 12 at BMO Field, even though he insisted that’s not what this friendly was mostly about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My focus is less on evaluating individuals and making sure that everybody understands their roles and understands the kind of behaviours we want, and that we’re clear with exactly what the game needs to look like,” Marsch said.\u00a0“And so, for the most part, I thought we executed that, but there’s still little things in there that we can tighten up, and we will.”<\/p>\n
Les Rouges finally score from open play\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both Nelson and Oluwaseyi looked especially lively after being subbed on at the start of the second half, and it was the latter who played a role in Osorio\u2019s opening goal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canada forced a turnover inside Uzbekistan\u2019s half, and the ball eventually found its way to Oluwaseyi as he played a great pass into the penalty area for the TFC captain. Osorio took a touch and then fired a low shot at the near post that snuck in underneath goalkeeper Abduvohid Nematov to break the deadlock.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nelson put the game away in injury time with his third goal for Canada via a lovely chip shot off a setup from Oluwaseyi after he forced a turnover inside Uzbekistan\u2019s half of the pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goals were Canada\u2019s first from open play in three games in 2026. Both goals in a 2-2 draw with Iceland in Toronto on March 28 were scored by Jonathan David from the penalty spot, while Canada was held to a 0-0 draw versus Tunisia three days later. Before those matches, Canada hadn\u2019t scored from open play since Isma\u00ebl Kon\u00e9\u2019s first-half strike in a 2-0 win last November versus Venezuela ended the team\u2019s overall goal drought at 342 consecutive minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Needless to say, Osorio and Nelson\u2019s well-taken goals versus Uzbekistan will give Canada a major confidence boost going into the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere had been a lot of talk about (how) we haven’t scored goals from the run of play, understandably so, because we hadn’t. But I kept saying the goals are coming, because I know that we have a lot of firepower,\u201d Jesse Marsch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Did Maxime Crepeau win the starting goalkeeper job?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jesse Marsch hasn’t yet declared who’ll be Canada’s starting goalkeeper at the World Cup, as Maxime Cr\u00e9peau and Dayne St. Clair have been involved in a tightly contested battle for the job for close to two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marsch revealed in the buildup to Monday\u2019s match that both would play one half each against Uzbekistan, while stating nothing should be read into the fact that Cr\u00e9peau was going to start.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cr\u00e9peau made the most of being the first goalkeeper in the spotlight, coming up with a big save to deny Eldor Shomurodov in the 27th minute. The Uzbekistan forward went on a probing run after latching onto a dangerous through ball and unleashed a driving shot from just outside of the box, only to see Cr\u00e9peau do well to get down low and tip it wide of the far post.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cr\u00e9peau\u2019s positioning was spot on as he perfectly read the play as it developed in real time and bailed out his defenders with a brilliant stop.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Clair replaced Cr\u00e9peau at the start of the second half and made a decent stop on Igor Sergeev\u2019s left-footed shot after the Uzbek forward managed to peel away from Canadian defender Luc de Fougerolles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But overall, Cr\u00e9peau was more impressive on the night and was put under far more pressure in the first half when Uzbekistan controlled the game than in the final 45 minutes when St. Clair was between the posts and Canada dictated terms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s final World Cup tune-up match is Friday versus Ireland in Montreal, and Marsch still isn\u2019t saying who\u2019ll be Canada\u2019s starter this summer. But don\u2019t be surprised if Cr\u00e9peau gets the nod based on the strength of his display in Edmonton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like to make a decision about the goalkeeper this week,” Marsch said.\u00a0“Once again, they both delivered really good performances, which is what I expected, and now I have to make a decision. So, there’s some responsibility on my shoulders, right? But again, I can’t make the wrong decision, because we have two really good goalkeepers that have delivered performance after performance for the national team. They both deserve to be the starter.”<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s note<\/p>\n
\n John Molinaro is one of the leading soccer journalists in Canada, having covered the game for over 27 years for several media outlets, including Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is currently the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic<\/a>, a website dedicated to in-depth coverage of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Say the word \u201cIceteca\u201d to any soccer fan in this country, and it\u2019ll instantly bring a smile to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-709771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}