The Canadian men's national soccer team announced its roster Tuesday for an upcoming exhibition match against Iceland.
Canada will travel to Reykjavik for its first-ever meeting with Iceland on Aug. 22.
Dale Mitchell is the new man in charge of the Canadian men's soccer team.
(Karim Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images)
Dale Mitchell, who will be making his debut as coach for the national team, has selected 17 players, including Paul Stalteri, a defender with English club Tottenham Hotspur.
Ten of the 17 players on the team played for Canada at the CONCACAF Gold Cup in June, including Stalteri (with 59 career appearances for Canada) and fellow defender Richard Hastings (43 appearances). Canada reached the semifinals of the Gold Cup, losing to the United States, which won the event.
No players from Toronto FC, the lone Canadian team in Major League Soccer, made the 17-player roster. Also missing was Dwayne De Rosario, a star playmaker with the Houston Dynamo of MLS.
Mitchell opted to pick strictly European-based players for this match.
"You can see by looking at the squad that it is a European-based squad," said Mitchell in a media conference call Tuesday. "It is a midweek game in Europe, so it is an ideal time to get the majority of our European-based players together."
Mitchell was previously in charge of Canada's under-20 team, which failed to get out of the first round of this summer's U-20 World Cup.
Canada is No. 52 in the current rankings published by FIFA, soccer's world governing body. Iceland is ranked 109th.
"Any time you are representing your country, you want to put a squad out there that can win the game. I feel confident in the group that we have selected," Mitchell said.
After the Iceland game, Canada hosts Costa Rica in another exhibition game on Sept. 12 in Toronto.
Team Canada roster:
Goalkeepers: Lars Hirschfeld, Asmir Begovic.
Defenders: Andre Hainault, Mike Klukowski, Richard Hastings, Paul Stalteri.
Midfielders: Nik Ledgerwood, Julian De Guzman, Patrice Bernier, Issey Nakajima-Farran, Atiba Hutchinson, Daniel Imhof.
Forwards: Tomasz Radzinski, Bob Friend, Iain Hume, Ali Gerba, Olivier Occean.
