By Al Clark
al@canucks-abroad.com
Dale Mitchell: Source: CSA

A little lost in the ferver of the Olympic qualifying efforts was a note on the squad announced to face European minnows Estonia on Wednesday, 26 March.

Mitchell's 19 man squad featured just one MLS based player (Houston star Dwayne De Rosario) and just one carry over from the U23's, Sparta Prague's Andre Hainault.

With all 19 of the squad playing 'abroad', here is a quick run-down of where our squad plays their club soccer. There's a total of 12 countries and 15 leagues represented. Quite a spread:

Germany : 5 players (3 divisions)
England/Denmark: 2 players each (2/1 divisions respectively)
Belgium, Czech, Spain, Holland, Greece, Scotland, USA, Norway: 1 player each.

This will be the second game between the two nations, the last coming almost 5 years ago to the day. Canada went down in Talinn 2:1 last time out, with the lone goal coming from Paul Stalteri on 29th March, 2003.

Currently Canada rank at 61 in the FIFA national rankings, 68 positions above their opponents who languish in 129th place just atop of Indonesia. It's worth noting that the last time to two sides met, Estonia was ranked around the #68 mark itself, while Canada was #87 at the time.

It's a curious choice of opponent not long before the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying begins, but a run out nonetheless. The CSA has often been charged with not provinding their players with the planning support and infrastructure to succeed, so warm up games in any capacity represents progress.

Here is the full squad for the fixture, per the CSA website:

CANADA
1 - G - Lars Hirschfeld - Edmonton, AB - ROM / CFR Cluj
2 - D - Daniel Imhof - Smithers, BC - GER / VfL Bochum
3 - D - Mike Klukowski - Oshawa, ON - BEL / Club Brugge KV
4 - D - André Hainault - Hudson, QC - CZE / Sparta Praha
5 - D - Kevin McKenna - Calgary, AB - GER / 1. FC Köln
6 - M - Julian de Guzman - Scarborough, ON - ESP / Deportivo La Coruna
7 - D/M - Paul Stalteri - Brampton, ON - ENG / Fulham FC
8 - D/M - Marcel deJong - Newmarket, ON - NED / Roda JC
9 - M/F - Tomasz Radzinski - Toronto, ON - GRE / Skoda Xanthi
10 - F - Rob Friend - Kelowna, BC - GER / Borussia Mönchengladbach
11 - D - Richard Hastings - Vancouver, BC - SCO / Inverness CT
12 - M - Issey Nakajima-Farran - Calgary, AB - DEN / FC Nordsjælland
13 - D/M - Atiba Hutchinson - Brampton, ON - DEN / F.C. København
14 - M/F - Dwayne De Rosario - Scarborough, ON - MLS / Houston Dynamo
15 - D/M - Josh Simpson - Victoria, BC - GER / FC Kaiserslautern
16 - F - Ali Gerba - Montréal, QC - GER / FC Ingolstadt
17 - M/F - Iain Hume - Brampton, ON - ENG / Leicester City
20 - M - Patrice Bernier - Brossard, QC - GER / FC Kaiserslautern
22 - G - Kenny Stamatopoulos - Markham, ON - NOR / Tromsø I.L.

So, what formation do you think Mitchell will use? What's his Starting XI?