Epress.am News from Armenia
Canadian coach Stephen Hart struggled to put together an 18-man roster for Wednesday’s exhibition match versus Armenia, as he had to deal with pro teams in Europe that didn’t want to release their Canadian players for duty, Canada’s Sports Net reports.
For Hart there is great value in Canada playing these friendlies, especially with the next round of World Cup qualification scheduled to kick off in June.
“It’s important to play. It’s important to get the players together,” Hart said Tuesday. “We spoke about a few things we will try to achieve in the game and hopefully the players will go out and do their best under the circumstances. The most important thing is to play the game and play against some good opposition and just get familiar with each other.”
Wednesday’s game takes place in Limassol, Cyprus, and falls on the first FIFA International Date of the 2012 calendar year. The neutral site match will be the first meeting between the two nations.
Although it failed to earn a tournament berth, Armenia posted an impressive 5-2-3 record in Euro 2012 qualifying, finishing third in its group behind Russia and Ireland. Impressively, they scored 22 goals, the most in their group.
Armenia currently sits 41st in the FIFA world rankings, 30 spots ahead of Canada.
Hart expects Canada’s defence to be tested by an attacking Armenian side.
“They play the ball on the ground a lot; they’re not a very direct team. They play very quickly, a lot of combinations, very similar to a Latin style,” Hart stated.
Wednesday’s match (to be aired at 9 pm local time) will be Armenia’s second in 48 hours — they dropped a 2-0 decision to Serbia Tuesday in another exhibition encounter in Cyprus. Armenia brought 31 players to camp for the pair of games.
Hart watched the Serbia match, and said Armenia fielded a starting line-up of mostly under-21 and under-23 players. He expects Armenia’s “A-team” to take to the field Wednesday.
Armenian coach Vardan Minasyan had a roster of “B-list” players (those not part of the main team) out on the field in Tuesday’s match. According to the Armenian national team’s Facebook page, “from our regular starters only three players took part in this friendly match: Karlen Mkrtchyan, Gevorg Ghazaryan, and defender Robert Arzumanyan.” It is expected that more players from the core team will participate in Wednesday’s match.
The Canadian coach revealed veteran defender Kevin McKenna will serve as captain. He also said he will try to use all 18 members of his roster at some point during the match, including both goalkeepers Milan Borjan, Kenny Stamatopoulos, and Samuel Piette, a 17-year-old midfielder who has been called up to the senior national team for the first time.
“He’s come in and he hasn’t shown any fear. He’s mixed it up and I like his attitude,” Hart said of Piette.
In short, it’s going to be a great game!