CBC-Sports

Looking ahead to Costa Rica

July 8, 2009 03:11 PM | Posted by   Greg Sutton  

Canadian national team goalkeeper Greg Sutton will be blogging for CBCSports.ca during the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which runs July 3-26 in the United States.

It was another solid performance Tuesday night, as we beat El Salvador 1-0 in Columbus, Ohio.

It looks like were starting to come into form. It was another clinical display from our guys last night; we stayed to our game plan and it paid off once again.

I thought we controlled the midfield and dictated the play from the start. Julian de Guzman and Atiba Hutchinson were no match for their midfield and showed why they are two of the top players for our country.

Ali Gerba scored another goal and just seems to be finding the net with ease these days, which is always good, and again our defence was tough to break down and really gave El Salvador nothing to hang their hat on.

So, were down in Florida now, having taken another charter, and I'm sitting here in a boutique hotel just outside Miami. You can tell you're in Miami when people are wearing orange pants and yellow shirts mixed in with aqua scarfs, a fashion only found in these parts.

I don't think I could pull that off, nor would I want to, but to each its own. We have training in an hour which will likely consist of jogging, stretching, and maybe a bit of soccer tennis, with some guys who haven't played much going through some exercises to keep the fitness side of things up.

We've got a couple days to prepare for our last match up against Costa Rica and finalize our place in the next round. We can finish in either first, second or third place in our group, depending on the final outcomes of the last games of the opening round.

In the next round, we can either end up in Dallas our Philadelphia, two cities that are great places to visit. I prefer Philadelphia due to the fact my brother lives there with his wife and have some other close friends who call Philly home. So we'll see were we end up in a few days time, but it sounds like were through to the next round.

A few people have commented about playing this tournament throughout North America, giving Canada a chance to host some Gold Cup games, so I thought I'd give my comments on that.

I believe that's something CONCACAF needs to consider in the future. We played last night in front of a crowd of nearly 10,000 fans according to my roommate, but I think it may have been around 8000. So, not a crowd that CONCACAF was really looking for.

I think there could be some strategic ways to capitalize on fan support throughout the tournament especially if you were to add a couple venues in Canada. I would like to think that our men's team would play in front of a sellout crowd if an opening round was hosted in Canada. Perhaps one day that will happen – it's happening with MLS franchises so maybe CONCACAF will follow in the MLS footsteps.

Well, I got to get ready for training and slap on the sunscreen, its hot out there.

Till next time... Greg

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