On Wednesday morning Canada national men’s soccer head coach John Herdman named his roster for the upcoming November friendly against Bahrain.
The Canada Men’s Soccer Team Names Roster for November 11 Friendly
Your #CANMNT Squad v. Bahrain 🍁#WeCAN
— Canada Soccer (@CanadaSoccerEN) November 2, 2022
Canada Men’s Soccer Team Roster and Scott Kennedy’s Injury
The roster features mostly MLS players with the majority of them out of season with the exception being Maxim Crepeau who will feature in the MLS Cup Final this weekend against Philadelphia for LAFC.
“I’ve got 26 players in mind Herdman said,
“I know there are other elements of this roller coaster that we will have to ride in this journey in the next couple of weeks with the amount of games players are playing but coming into Qatar it is an assessment period.”
Canada did get some bad news however as Scott Kennedy was deemed out for the World Cup after suffering a shoulder injury while playing in Germany in the Bundesliga second division and it is an injury that will keep him out of action until next year.
Herdman admitted he had a very difficult conversation with the center back today. ” No one had predicted what happened to Scott to know that we could fall 10 times and it happened.”
John Herdman on the CanMNT and Players from CF Montreal
The roster features eight players from CF Montreal including Samuel Piette, Ismael Kone, Joel Waterman, Zachary Brault Guillard, James Pantemis, Alistair Johnston, Kamal Miller, and newcomer Mathieu Choiniere. CF Montreal played well this year, getting to the Eastern Conference Semi-finals with the third-best record in the league.
“We got a really difficult decision to make in regards to six or seven players on the roster so they will be pushing for selection and they will need to prove that they are at the match fitness level so we can rely on them to contribute in Qatar.”
Jonathan Osorio who was left off the roster in September due to health reasons is back in and Herdman confirms that his staff followed his recovery and the feedback is very positive. Herdman also spoke about getting prepared and how playing Concacaf didn’t really do the job.
“Back in June we really took the time to asses where we were at and playing in Concacaf as opposed to the world stage is completely different and it’s a step up so we know there is going to be a lot of learning on this journey and the game against Uruguay was our first real test against a perennial World Cup contender.”
Canada is also scheduled to face Japan six days later on November 17 in Dubai and that game could pretty much tell you who will start for Canada in their first game against Belgium on November 23 in Qatar.
