Jamison Olave is known as one of the meanest, toughest central defenders in Major League Soccer. But the Real Salt Lake anchor guaranteed that his club would be the first MLS side to go to the CONCACAF Champions League final with a thumping volley off a scrambled corner kick to give RSL the precious road goal it needed to get by Costa Rican giants, Saprissa.

And, there were no shocks in the script. Mexico thumped Canada 3-0. By making it to the semifinals, Mexico qualifies for the U-20 World Cup.The Canadian kids get their tickets home.

Despite reports from AP this morning suggesting Canada, Costa Rica and Spain could replace Japan as one of the guest teams in this summer’s (or, in South America, winter) Copa America, the Canadian Soccer Association confirms no one from CONMEBOL has reached out to it.

Canada lost twice Friday at the CONCACAF U-20 Championship in Guatemala. The Canadians were overwhelmed 3-0 by Costa Rica in their final group-stage match. And, if not for some wonderful saves from Julien Latendresse-Levesque, the scoreline could have been much, much worse.

Omar Salgado won’t have to wait until his 18th birthday to play in his first MLS game. The Vancouver Whitecaps have been successful in their efforts to get the No. 1 pick in the 2011 Superdraft cleared to play. Salgado is currently with the U.S. U-20 team as it prepares for the CONCACAF qualifiers in Guatemala, so he won’t be able to help the Whitecaps this Saturday in Philadelphia, where the club has a bit of a roster crisis because of international call-ups.

Last season, Calgary United FC was eliminated after the first game of the Professional Arena Soccer League’s North American Championships by giving up four goals to the California Cougars in the dying minutes. This season, the defending Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League champs didn’t leave anyone in suspense. Oswaldo Medina scored just nine seconds after the match kicked off, and the PPM Sidekicks del Estado de Mexico rolled to a 10-2 win, eliminating Calgary from the Cincinnati tournament with ease.

Canada couldn’t have asked for a tougher opponent to face in its 2011 Gold Cup opener. But playing the United States in Detroit is a public- and fan-relations bonanza. Canada will face the Americans June 7 at Ford Field, just a skip across the border. This means that fans in Southern Ontario have the chance to see Canada against the best CONCACAF has to offer, just by crossing the Ambassador Bridge from Windsor into the Motor City.

Columbus hosts Real Salt Lake Tuesday night in the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final. Tuesday’s weather forecast for Columbus? A chilly -2 C with a chance of snow — maybe just a tad colder than it was for last year’s MLS Cup in Toronto.

Within the space of the year, the two Canadian players who created one of the greatest goals in national team history have called time on their careers. Today, Richard Hastings, who roofed the extra-time golden-goal winner in the 2000 2-1 Gold Cup semifinal over Mexico, announced his retirement from the game. Hastings spent most of his career with Scottish side Inverness Caledonian Thistle, playing there from 1994-2001 and again from 2004-2009.

The Vancouver Whitecaps stuck to their guns. Omar Salgado, whose move to the club in August 2010 was scuttled after MLS discovered it would break international transfer rules, was grabbed with the No. 1 pick in the MLS SuperDraft in Baltimore. But, unless Vancouver gets special clearance from FIFA, he won’t be eligible to play for the team until Sept. …