I’m With The Players On This One

Grass always greener to CSA despite players’ best interests
By Richard Starnes Ottawa Citizen

If I was to tell you the grass looked really green at Saputo Stadium in Montreal on Friday night before I even talk about Canada striding through the first stage of qualification for World Cup 2010, you might want to know where I had put my head.

All the stars seemed aligned for this, the second leg of Canada’s first CONCACAF qualifying hurdle towards South Africa.

St. Vincent & The Grenadines, which had gone down 3-0 in the first leg in the Caribbean, continued to be no match and lost 4-1 the second time around. The Canadian team played cohesive, thrusting soccer in front of almost a full house — 11,502 to be exact. The fans were loud, especially behind one goal where maybe 200 red-and-whites had gathered to shout and chant their team to victory.

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Even the rain stopped moments before kick-off and a massive rainbow wrapped itself around the stadium. Now all Canada has to do is find the end of that rainbow and gather up the gold — a place in the finals of soccer’s holy grail.

But all is not sweetness. There are disturbing signs of that rainbow being clouded out by bureaucratic interference. And it all has to do with the grass.

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