Music: {allcanada} Canada preps for highly-touted Ukraine

Thursday, October 7, 2010

{allcanada} Canada preps for highly-touted Ukraine

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Canadian coach Stephen Hart is getting another reminder of how the other half lives in the world of soccer.

In preparation for Friday's friendly against Ukraine in Kyiv, Hart's team spent time at Dynamo Kyiv's well-appointed training centre.

"You can have your choice -- eight pitches in all, seven grass, one (artificial) turf. Live-in quarters, sort of a hotel there where Ukraine is staying," Hart said. "It's unbelievable."

The 26th-ranked Ukraine squad includes veteran striker Andriy Shevchenko and four other Dinamo Kyiv players, who will feel right at home in the buildup to the match at their Valeriy Lobanovsky Stadium.

As co-host of the Euro 2012 championship with Poland, Ukraine is spared the rigours of qualifying. So friendlies represent its soccer diet for the foreseeable future.

After 88th-ranked Canada, Ukraine tackles No. 4 Brazil on Monday at Derby County's Pride Park Stadium in England.

While Ukraine provides Hart with a marquee opponent, the Canadian coach has again been denied a chance to assemble all his talent. With Major League Soccer not following FIFA's international calendar, Hart elected to summon just D.C. United defender Dejan Jakovic from the North American ranks.

"It's a little bit frustrating," said Hart. "If you look at the MLS schedule and you match it with the FIFA schedule, technically there's about eight of the 10 dates that MLS players are not available to you. This makes it difficult.

"At this point, we would have liked to have started keeping a consistent core, but we will have to start that in 2011, I guess."

Hart is a supremely rational coach whose patience runs very deep. But he is also concerned at the lack of playing time some of his charges are seeing at their clubs.

"It's a worrying one. It will be more worrying come World Cup qualification time," he said.

"But I've tried to make it clear to the players that they have to get themselves playing. Far too many of the players are not playing regularly. And I could date that back to 2009 when we played Macedonia and Poland -- I think we had four players on the field that were actually playing regularly.

"And the players have to do everything in their power to be playing more consistently."

Hart's team will be led by captain and fullback Paul Stalteri, Canada's all-time leader in men's caps with 83. Midfielder Atiba Hutchinson can collect his 50th cap Friday.

The squad also included three uncapped players: defender David Edgar and forwards Marcus Haber and Julian Uccello.

Canada is 1-3-1 in 2010, with the lone win coming last month -- 2-1 over Honduras.

Ukraine will be tough at home, with players from Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk, both of which have seen Champions League action.

"For our players, it's a huge learning curve," said Hart.

Ukraine, whose record is 4-0-2 this year, finished runner-up to England in their World Cup qualifying group. But it was denied a berth in South Africa after losing a playoff to Greece 1-0 on aggregate.

The game in Kyiv follows a high-profile tour to South America in May when Canada lost 5-0 to Argentina and tied Venezuela 1-1.

Hart said setting such exhibition sights high will pay off in the long run.

"We felt it's very very important to play against teams that are potentially much better than we are," he said. "Since it's the only way you can raise standards and convince the players that they have to raise the level of their game.

"All credit to the CSA (Canadian Soccer Association) for going out and trying to get these games.

The game kicks off at 2 p.m. ET.