Catching up on the football

While I was away I didn’t get a chance to see Tottenham’s 3-0 victory over West Ham, but I was glad to hear of it. After the hiccup against Bournemouth I was worried that we might head back to our trend of diabolical losses bucking a trend of otherwise credible performances. I had one eye on today’s Champions League match against Villareal. It wasn’t a scintillating piece of art or high drama, but a reasonably comfortable 1-0 win based on an own goal from Luiz Junior who bundled a cross into his own net from the in-form Bergvald while Ricarlison was steaming in behind him. The lack of offensive was a little concerning but with Simons now taking his place in the side and a more or less settled starting XI, I hope that the chemistry keeps building.

In other English football news, these plucky boys from Grimsby keep doing the business and snuck out of South Yorkshire with a 1-0 win against Sheffield Wednesday in the League Cup. They are fast becoming the story of the tournament as if knocking off Manchester United wasn’t already enough.

Last week was the international break and by all accounts Canada had a good set of games against European competition. I caught some of the first match against Romania, a solid 3-0 win in Bucharest, which was powered by Ali Ahmed who had an assist and a goal. Later they played Wales, and as good as the Romania game was, this was even better. A 1-0 win off a sublime free kick from Derek Cornelius doesn’t tell the whole story. Canada missed a swath of chances and could have had two or three more goals. The movement and chemistry up top with Ahmend, Oluwasayei, Buchanan and David was beautiful. With no competitive matches until they open the World Cup in June in Vancouver, these kinds of games are just the right kind of warm up for the MNT.

Closer to home, the Vancouver Rise got pummelled 7-0 by AFC Toronto putting an end to a good run of form that saw them climb up the table. They meet Ottawa Rapid on Saturday back at Swangard Stadium and I’m hoping to see our former TSS Rovers Stella Downing (Ottawa) and Kirsten Tynan (Vancouver) get starts. Vancouver needs to win to stay above Ottawa. The Rise are currently tied with Montreal for second place. No one is catching Toronto at this point, I don;t think . With five games left, Toronto have a 10 point lead over their chasers.