Canada In FIFA Long Shot World Cup Bid
There can’t be many more thankless tasks than organising a beach soccer team in Canada, in winter?
With tight funds, most clubs never seem to have “dinero facil” Team Canada coach Ross Ongaro had to work miracles in advance of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup CONCACAF qualifying tournament which takes place in Vallarta, Mexico, running from Wednesday through to Sunday.
Ongaro’s team have had only one day to play together in advance the tournament and that was on Tuesday. Ongaro said “It will be a challenge.”
The rest of the sides in Group A are Mexico and Jamaica. Group B has the US, Costa Rica, Bahamas and Guatemala.
After eliminations the two finalists will represent North and Central America and the Caribbean at the 2011 FIFA Beach World Cup in Italy next September.
In the past Ongaro has relied upon talent from where he lives in the Edmonton area, which made sense as he knew the players and could train them at the outdoor beach volleyball court in the cold when the weather permitted but he received a lot of criticism for relying solely on Alberta players. This year he has gotten hold of players from outside his vicinity like Vancouver forward Sipho Sibya and the Edmonton goalkeeper Greg Bonar as well as many younger players, under 20 and university talent from across the country who, it is hoped, will remain a part of the program for years to come.
Ongaro has even looked to Portugal for the defender Bruno Xavier. “We have players from everywhere. But there’s zero training as far as team training.” Ongaro has had to rely on individual training programs. But he believes he has found some young skilful players who may be lacking in beach experience but won’t be short on fitness.
Canada are naturally not the most habitual beach soccer players with such ignominious results as the 12-1 pounding they got from Brazil in 2006 and a 10-0 defeat to Mexico in 2009. Because of money, there are no “prestamos personales en efectivo” for football teams heading south of the boarder they were unable to play in 2007 and 2008. So even if Canada can get the “prestamos inmediatos” by the time they get to the rest of the Americas where they have pro and semi-pro teams they have a history of hammerings anyway. The Canadians might not be used to the sun but “It’s a little bit of a different situation for us,” Ongaro said. “But our guys have accepted the challenge and we’re going to go and do the best we can.”
