Home Global Game Africa Canada scores four in romp over Mauritania

Canada scores four in romp over Mauritania

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Let this sink in. During the recently completed fourth round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, Canada scored just five goals in six group-stage matches. The lack of scoring was a major reason why the team didn’t advance to the Hex.

So, of course, in its first friendly since elimination from World Cup qualifying, the Canadian side would score three goals over the course of six minutes.

Three goals in six minutes. Heck, the futsal team doesn’t score at that kind of clip.

Markers from Tosaint Ricketts, Steven Vitoria and Marcus Haber ensured that Michael Findlay’s first game in charge of the national side would be a victorious one. Ricketts then added another goal late in the second half, and the Canadians beat Mauritania 4-0 Thursday night in Marrakech, Morocco.

Let’s focus on the scoring blitz; it began in the 52nd minute, with Junior Hoilett busting down the left wing. He lost the ball, won it back, then dashed into the penalty area and squared it for Ricketts, who tapped it in. The goal came less than a minute after Mauritanian teenage keeper Mohamed Salahdine Saleck got a hand to an effort from Adam Straith. The Canadian team lobbied that the ball had actually crossed the line before the keeper got to the ball — but to the credit of Findlay’s men, they scored the next time down the field.

Then, in the 55th minute, after the Canadians kept the ball alive in the opposition penalty area, Vitoria smashed a volley into the top corner. Vitoria appeared to have hurt himself on the volley, but his teammates piled on top of him to celebrate, anyway.

The party continued in the 58th, when Maxim Tissot made a perfect cross for Haber to head home.

The second half made up for what was an uneven first half. The best scoring chance came to Mauritania, but keeper Simon Thomas denied Abdoul Ba’s 23rd-minute penalty kick. Ba went to the spot after Doneil Henry, playing at his preferred centre back spot, felled Harouna Sy in the penalty area. Sy came blazing off the right wing, and skipped over a diving challenge from Tissot, putting him one-on-one with Henry in the area. Henry sticked out a leg and Sy went down, though it needs to be stated it looked as if Sy was thinking “draw the foul” all the way.

But Thomas dove to his left to stop Ba’s penalty, and the teams went to the half tied 0-0, though Henry did put in another 50-50 challenge in his own penalty area that the referee judged not to be a foul.

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One Comment

  1. Chris Steedman

    October 6, 2016 at 10:33 pm

    If you go by FIFA rankings, then Canada just stepped up and creamed a better opponent. Mauritania – 96 to Canada’s -103 respective rankings.

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