Gold Cup 2009: Canada is eliminated by the referee | SoccerNation's Blog

The most important person on the pitch in Canada's 1-0 loss to Honduras today was wearing neither red nor white; he was wearing black. That person was, in fact, the referee.

He was terribly inconsistent from the start which resulted in a choppy game. Neither team really got going but that wasn't helped by Honduras's persistent fouling; though only about 50% of those fouls were called. The crucial call came near the end of the half, when the referee awarded Honduras an undeserved penalty shot.

The play itself was clearly not a penalty. If the ball touched anything, it touched Kevin McKenna's head; it most certainly did not touch his hand or arm. It is not an overstatement to say that that call cost Canada the game (though their anemic offense didn't help).

In the end, it wasn't the referee that cost Canada the game (though he didn't help); it was their lack of offense. In 3 group games, they only managed 3 goals. That's unacceptable. Canada needs to find a way to open up space in their attack. Perhaps using Julian de Guzman as an anchorman/midfield distributor and putting 3 attacking midfielders behind Gerba would be a better option.

Another option is to give more kids a chance. In that, I'm speaking specifically of David Edgar and Asmir Begovic. Edgar has the makings of a quality central defender while Begovic may already be better than Greg Sutton.

Canada plays a defensive game out of necessity. What they need is an offensive game to work off the counter-attack. Only then will they stop losing games they should win.

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July 18, 2009 09:06 PM ET

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I was looking forward to a USA vs. Canada but it looks like both teams might not make it. USA is down 0-1 to Panama. Plus I would of like to seen David Edgar play Ive been hearing alot of good things about him hopefully he has a good season at Burnley. I do what Canada to develop to a quality team.

~Soccer_Hooligan~

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July 18, 2009 11:10 PM ET

Looks like both games tonight had terrible refs. I thought that the ref in the US-Panama game was very inconsistent and let way too much go. I'm glad he was in the right position to award Cooper the PK when Torres karated kick him. However, Baloy was lucky not to get a 2nd yellow, and the ref was lucky someone didn't get seriously hurt out there (heard Conrad will be fine) because that game was very chippy.

Manchester…

Atlanta, GA

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July 19, 2009 02:29 PM ET

The ref definitely got that kick on Cooper right. He was in the proper position to see everything.

David Edgar was one of 3 Canadians who actually showed up at the 2007 U-20 World Cup (the others were Asmir Begovic and Will Johnson). I've no idea why he wasn't on the Gold Cup team.