Canada will kick off its campaign at the CONCACAF U-20 Championship on Monday 18 February (local kick-off 20.00) with an opening day match against Cuba.
The match will be streamed live in Canada at Sportsnet.ca (21.00 ET / 18.00 PT). Fans will also be able to follow live coverage on Twitter: @CanadaSoccerEN; as well as full pre and post-match coverage on CanadaSoccerTV. Then will take on Nicaragua on Friday 22 February (20.00 local / 21.00 ET / 18.00 PT). Liver coverage on Sportsnet.ca as well as concacaf.tv
After completing a five-day training camp in Mexico City, Head Coach Nick Dasovic is confident that his squad have achieved the right ‘focus’ ahead of Monday’s tournament-openger against Cuba.
“We had a successfull camp in Mexico City where we were able to get the players focused on the task at hand,” said Dasovic. “We have a step-by-step plan for this competition. The boys are looking forward to the challenge.”
Canada’s Caribbean opponents went undefeated throughout six matches in qualifying for the CONCACAF Championship and Dasovic is well aware of the threat that the Cubans will pose.
“Cuba has some excellent results in qualifying and we know they will be a highly motivated side capable of causing us problems,” said Dasovic.
“We certainly won’t be taking them lightly.”
The top four finishers at the CONCACAF U-20 Championship will qualify for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Turkey 2013 in June.
Canada will need to finish in the two places in Group B and go on to win its quarter-final on 26 February to qualify for Turkey 2013. The quarterfinal will take place against one of the top two sides from Group A which features USA.
Goalkeepers (2): Ricky Gomes (Sport Clubs de Mirandela/Portugal), Maxime Crepeau (Montreal Impact Academy)
Defenders (6): Jon Dollery (Crawley Town/England), Marco Lapenna (Erzgebirge Aue/Germany), Doneil Henry (Toronto FC), Daniel Stanese (FC Nürnberg/Germany), Manjrekar James (PMFC-MATIAS/Hungary), Allan Zebie (FC Edmonton)
Midfielders (9): Samuel Piette (Fortuna Dusseldorf/Germany), Ben Fisk (Vancouver Whitecaps), Keven Aleman (Real Valladolid/Spain), Michael Petrasso (Queens Park Rangers/England), Dylan Carreiro (Queens Park Rangers/England), Alessandro Riggo (Celta de Vigo/Spain), Mauro Eustaquio (Sporting Clube de Pombal/Portugal), Zakaria Messoudi (Montreal Impact Academy), Ben McKendry (University of New Mexico)
Forwards (3): Caleb Clarke (Vancouver Whitecaps), Anthony Jackson-Hamel (Montreal Impact Academy), Stefan Vukovic (unattached).
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