Surrey Fire vs. Delta Fire

EVENT: World Fire and Police Games, Surrey Fire vs. Delta Fire
DATE: August 2009
LOCATION: Burnaby Lake Sports Complex
Photos by The Soccer Paper
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (4 min. in length), CLICK HERE

Surrey Fire vs. Brazil

EVENT: World Fire and Police Games, Brazil vs. Surrey Fire
DATE: August 2009
LOCATION: Burnaby Lake Sports Complex
Photos by The Soccer Paper
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (4 min. in length), CLICK HERE

Calgary Police vs. Alberta RCMP

EVENT: World Fire and Police Games, Calgary Police vs. Alberta RCMP
DATE: August 2009
LOCATION: Burnaby Lake Sports Complex
Photos by The Soccer Paper
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (4 min. in length), CLICK HERE

2009 Whitecaps

EVENT: Whitecaps 2009 Photo Collection
DATE: 2009 Season
LOCATION: Swangard Stadium
Photos by Wilson Wong
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (4 min. in length), CLICK HERE

Beach Blast - Women’s Divisions

EVENT: UMBRO/SoccerExpress Beach Blast 2009
DATE: August 2009
LOCATION: Spanish Banks
Photos by Lucas Teodoro da Silva
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (5 min. in length), CLICK HERE

Beach Blast - Coed and Men’s Divisions

EVENT: UMBRO/SoccerExpress Beach Blast 2009
DATE: August 2009
LOCATION: Spanish Banks
Photos by Lucas Teodoro da Silva
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (5 min. in length), CLICK HERE

Interview with Bob Lenarduzzi

by Lucas Teodoro da Silva

What do you make of this season, in light of last year’s successes? Is it disappointing so far, or is it seen as a year of growth for the younger players?
LENARDUZZI: We had an internal objective at the beginning of the year. The priorities were to win the Nutrilite Championship and win the USL Championship. The one area that we were prepared to sacrifice a little bit in was winning the league itself. If we were going to put the emphasis on winning the Nutrilite Championship, we understood that some league results may not be what we wanted them to be. We felt that as long as we got ourselves to the playoffs and got ourselves set for the playoffs, that that would be a good enough position to be in. That’s the way it’s worked out.
If anyone said in advance of Nutrilite that we’d win three games and the game we’d lose would be 1-0 in Toronto, then we’d believe that would be enough to get you through. It should have been, except for the debacle in Montreal. Montreal themselves apologized profusely. Joey Saputo indicated that he was embarrassed to walk through Saputo stadium. There own supporters club protested by not turning up at the first half of their next league game.
They themselves realized that they could have done much better than what they did. But as a result, Toronto won Nutrilite and pulled it out from underneath us.
I don’t want to suggest that result had any impact on us later on. It certainly was a blow to us that. Everyone inside of our club assumed that we would be the Nutrilite Champions.
After that, we had some on-field difficulties. The Wesley Charles situation, first with Charles Gbeke and then in a training session incident that left us with no alternative than to outright release him… If I look at the technical part of our season so far, my belief is that the area that we’ve been the weakest in is that we’ve let in too many goals. In the centre of our defence, we’ve been rotating people in and out. We felt that we needed to make a couple of moves in that regard and bring in Shaun Pejic and bring in Chris Prozniak. I feel that we’ve been a much stronger team over the last six or seven games, in not conceding soft goals. Ideally, that sets us up nicely for the playoffs.

Besides your game against Montreal, your next few games are against some of the USL’s weaker teams. Is it fair to say that you expect to win those games?
LENARDUZZI: Making the playoffs is our first priority. Getting players back from injury over the course of the remainder of the season means giving players some minutes – like Geordie Lyall, hopefully Justin Moose and Marlon James. It’s a means to an end. Wherever we finish, you’re going to have a home-and-away series and you’re going to be playing against a difficult opponent. At this stage it’ll be one of three teams, we’re almost guaranteed… it’ll be Carolina, Charleston or Puerto Rico, depending on where we finish.

Continue reading Interview with Bob Lenarduzzi…

WFPG SlideShow - Men’s Finals (Division 1)

EVENT: 2009 World Fire and Police Games - Men’s Finals
Russia Tax Crime Police (white) vs. Mexico (blue)
DATE: August 2009
LOCATION: Swangard Stadium
Photos by Lucas Teodoro da Silva
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (5 min. in length), CLICK HERE

WFPG SlideShow - Men’s Finals (Division 2)

EVENT: 2009 World Fire and Police Games - Men’s Finals
New York Fire Department (white) vs. Murcia Police, of Spain (blue)
DATE: August 2009
LOCATION: Swangard Stadium
Photos by Lucas Teodoro da Silva
TO VIEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW (6 min. in length), CLICK HERE

Sound of Seattle

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