TFC wins Leg 1 against Motagua 1:0. Will it be enough?
By: Mark |
2 Comments
Last night Toronto FC once again did the predicable and pulled off a 1:0 victory against Honduran side CD Motagua, featuring Amado Guevera. This was the first leg of a two match playoff in the CONCACAF Champions League qualifying round.
Not a bad win, and it did look like TFC were in control for most of the game. They had several good scoring chances, one of them being converted by Chad Barrett for a goal, and Motagua didn’t really give them too much trouble. It just would have been nice for TFC to grab at least one extra goal, which could have been a big help next week when the teams meet again in Honduras. On the positive side, Toronto did not give up the crucial away-goal, which would have really helped Motagua next week,
Anyone who is used to watching the UEFA Champions League or Europa Cup tournaments knows that if the away team can pick up at least a goal, they really have a boost when returning for their home game. Lets say last night ended in a 2-1 win by TFC, well if Motagua were able to beat them 1-0 at home next week, they would win the playoff, despite the overall aggregate score being 2-2 between the two games. Luckily that didn’t happen, and now I hope that TFC can grab an away goal next week to win the playoff themselves. If TFC can get at least 1 goal, then Motagua will need to score THREE goals to win because an aggregate of 2-2 will result in a TFC victory for the playoff!
OK enough tournament background for you. The bottom line is that Toronto is tough to score upon (even on the road most of the time), so as long as they can grab a goal next week, they should have this one in the bag. If they can’t score, well, we better hope Motagua can’t either or it might be lights out for TFC. I’m sure it will be an exciting game no matter what happens, because this will be Motagua’s first competitive home game as their season gets ready to begin, so the fans will probably be out in full force and be excited to see their team in action again.
Hopefully Preki can prepare the guys for what awaits them next week (ahem, try working on their finishing…). Until then, there’s still an away game in Kansas City to deal with, not to mention DeRo playing in the MLS All-Star game tonight against a little team from Manchester…
Is Fortress BMO starting to crack?
By: Mark | 4 Comments
Toronto FC vs. FC Dallas: 1-1 tie on Saturday at BMO Field. I couldn’t catch the game this weekend, so my thoughts are based on the hi-lights, which you can catch here, as well as the various post-game write-ups out there, such as this one.
It looked like TFC had a lot of scoring chances in this game, going with a 4-3-3 formation with DeRo, Santos and Barrett upfront, with de Guzman, LaBrocca and Sanyang in the midfield. That sounds like a pretty decent lineup with the team desperately needing to score some goals. They finally did that with a goal from Santos about an hour into the game, and then after that they took the foot off the gas to defend. AGAIN. 1 goal lead, time to defend for 30 more minutes! And look what happened, a late equalizer by Dallas, and Toronto have seen another 2 points slip away. Ah, the memories of last season…
Sure a tie isn’t that bad, but the problem here is the disturbing trend to Toronto’s overall performance at BMO Field lately. You have to go all the way back to May 8 for that last time TFC scored more that 1 goal at home. That’s in all competitions – including the Canadian Championship and the Bolton Wanderers friendly last week. Since the 4-1 victory over Chicago Fire on May 8, TFC have played 8 home games, winning 2 of them and drawing 6, scoring a grand total of 5 goals. 6 of these games (including both wins) were regular season. That’s a lot of numbers, but they all add up to 1 thing: TFC NEED TO SCORE GOALS!
I think the team have got too much of this whole Fortress BMO thing in their heads and they think no one can beat them at home. So as long as they can pick up a goal they’ll be able to win it. Well, that kind of attitude has cost them a potential 8 points in league games, which could potentially have put TFC in a tie for first place in the east with Columbus. Looking at the standings doesn’t reveal too much alarm right now, but Toronto are actually now in a 3-way tie for the last playoff spot, only 4 points above the 9th place team in the league.
With 6 home games left and 8 on the road, this trend has got to be reversed. Toronto can no longer rely on home games to pick up points. They have got to play more gutsy at home to score goals and secure the wins, and they have to play tight on the road to try to get ties there. They also have to figure out which teams are beatable on the road, and make the most of their chances to get a few wins.
Time to show your mettle boys – we don’t want to leave it up to chance on the last game of the season to get into the playoffs!
Any other thoughts on the game against Dallas, or the overall team performance lately?
TFC’s unbeaten streak comes to an end with loss in Philly
By: Mark | 19 Comments
Not a good game yesterday. 2-1 loss to Philadelphia, lost with a last minute penalty shot. And once again Toronto had nothing in attack and would have been lucky to even get a draw in this one. Sometimes I’m really confused by Preki’s decision making, like playing a lone striker against a last team expansion team when no one on the team seemed willing to join in on the attack. Seriously, you can only go so far just playing defense and yesterday that bit them in the ass.
I think Chad Barrett did everything he could as a lone striker, but whenever he did get the ball there was no one to help him, and the attacks fizzled out. Why not play Ibrahim up front with Barrett, try to get an early goal to take the strong home crowd out of the game, which would put pressure on this expansion team? Then you can play a bit more defensively and hopefully pick up another goal on the counter-attack.
There just is not enough talent on the team to expect the midfield to be able to support Barrett by himself unless they are ready to really run up and help him. Which they aren’t. So again we are stuck with trying to get 1 lucky goal and defend. It seems every year TFC falls into a multiple game slump where goals are very hard to come by. And quite frankly, the games are boring when that happens. I just hope this loss isn’t the start of a mid-season slide which results in another season with no playoffs.
I guess I’m being pretty pessimistic here. I hope that next week we get to see the team incorporating a little more of these new strikers (Mista was not eligible to play this week), and they start to pull the offense together. TFC have a tough schedule coming up with two CONCACAF champion’s league games coming up, so they will really need to pull together to get some good results. Come on guys, lets get it together!
Coming to America
By: Mark | 6 Comments
Thierry Henry has finally joined the New York Red Bulls and will be gracing the MLS with his presence very soon.
I’m glad this transfer finally happened, and I think Henry could have some impact in the league if New York has the talent to provide him with quality scoring opportunities. That’s pretty much all he needs, because in front of goal I expect him to be clinical. It’s exciting to see more star players joining the MLS for a few years to end their careers, and hopefully Henry will have some influence to bring over some of his friends and keep improving the league. After all, the presence of more star players will mean the rest of the players in the league will get to play against more quality and hopefully this will help them improve to. At least Julian de Guzman agrees with me.
Of course, I’m sure I’ll be regretting all this when TFC have back to back games against the Red Bulls in August, and Henry eventually scores on us, but for now I congratulate New York and look forward to seeing what Thierry can do!
One last thing. Check out this picture:
One word: Amazing
World Cup Over – Back to Reality
By: Mark | Add Comments
Time for the summer to start! The World Cup really takes away a whole month of the summer. Trying not to find out the scores before I got home from work, watching up to 4 games per day (its easier if you have a PVR to fast forward!), cheering on your national team of choice and ultimately being disappointed in the end (unless you go for Spain of course) – what a crazy month! Well, I for one am spent. Hence the lack of TFC blogging as of late too. It was really hard to get too excited about the TFC games with the tournament in South Africa going on. Especially when they have struggled to score even 1 goal per game lately.
As for the World Cup, how did you enjoy it? Were you rooting for your national team, or for players from the club teams you like, or maybe the USA and Landon Donovan to show your support of the MLS? I was going for Germany, and my pre-tournament prediction of a Netherlands-Germany final obviously didn’t come true, but it wasn’t too far off! Who would have thought those teams would knock off Brazil, England and Argentina? And then there’s Paul the Octopus, whose 100% prediction record to me was much more interesting than the 1-0 victory for Spain over the Netherlands yesterday. Not a very fun game to watch, but Spain has been dominant since at least 2008, so I guess it makes sense for them to grab the World Cup title in their prime.
But, it’s back to Toronto now to discuss the Reds. They managed to pull off a 1-0 win on Saturday over Colorado on a very hot afternoon in Toronto. They’ve also recently picked up a couple of new forwards in “Mista”, formerly a team-mate of Julian De Guzman in Spain, and Maicon Santos, a Brazilian who played for Preki last season on Chivas USA. So a couple of connections being renewed here. We’ll see how Preki chooses to use these new guys and whether Barrett or White will get the shaft, but I think there will be a bit of rotation going on until hopefully 2 guys emerge as the dominant preferred strikers on the team. Seeing as the team have been keeping a lot of clean sheets lately and for the most part playing solid defence, it was looking like the right time to try to get some offence as well. After all, De Rosario can’t score all the goals!
Anyway, we can be happy with the win over Colorado right now and that the unbeaten home streak is still going strong. Also, TFC have pretty firmly cemented 3rd place in the Eastern Conference right now, 5 points ahead of Chicago. In fact, only 4 teams in the league have more points than Toronto, which I think is pretty good. Next week they travel to Philadelphia to play the expansion Union, which could be another opportunity to pick up 3 points and keep the momentum going. I’ll catch up with you then.
TFC action resumes tomorrow night
By: Mark | 4 Comments
If you can handle more soccer this weekend after watching 4 games per day this week and 2 more on Saturday, remember that Toronto FC will be kicking off the middle third of their season on Saturday night at 7:30 (televised on Rogers Sportsnet). The LA Galaxy will be coming to town (despite the G20 summit), and since the US national team recently advanced to the next round of the World Cup, that means the Galaxy will be without its star players Donovan and Buddle. TFC on the other hand have noboby at the World Cup, so its all good! After such a long break, its hard to predict how this game will go, but hopefully TFC will have the edge against the visitors and will continue their unbeaten home record.
Check out the game, and good luck to TFC!
Category: MLS PreviewsOfficial: TFC Trade Sam Cronin to San Jose
By: Mark | 3 Comments
Good luck in San Jose Sam!
The team had a couple weeks off for the World Cup break, so I guess that meant it was time for Mo Johnston to start tinkering with the squad (under the influence of Preki, no doubt), and the latest casualty is Sam Cronin. Cronin has been “traded”, or more acurately, sold to the San Jose Earthquakes. This has been rumoured for a week or so, but now its official as announced on the Toronto FC website.
I just don’t get this deal. Sure, Cronin wasn’t being used very often this season since Preki prefers grittier players like Martin Saric (by gritty, I mean prone to fouling for no reason and getting booked). But doesn’t it make sense to have a capable, no-nonsense defensive midfielder like Cronin available as a sub to help solidify a win (especially after guys like Saric or Sanyang are already on a yellow card)? Cronin started nearly every game for TFC last year, and Mo had implied during the off-season that even though he was getting good offers for Sam, he wouldn’t trade him because he would be a big part of the team’s future. And now the 2nd overall draft pick from 2009 has been traded for…money. That’s it. No players, no draft picks, just cash. And the ability to clear some salary space I guess. They better have ideas to sign someone else, like maybe another DP, because right now this just seems like Preki wanted to get rid of a guy who he didn’t like, despite whatever Mo had seen in him when he was drafted.
So now a little bit of that midfield depth the team had is gone. We didn’t get to see much of Sam this season, but I always paid attention to his play when he did get a chance, and I think he looked solid, and even added some offensive touch with his crosses. I think he played in all of TFC’s Canadian Championship matches too, helping them to win the title. Thanks for the hard work Sam, but you don’t get to join us in the Concacaf Champions League for your efforts… You would think having the extra players on the squad when you are just entering another tournament, and adding who knows how many games to the schedule would be a bonus.
Needless to say, I’m bothered by this trade a little more than I was when the mass exodus of players happened at the beginning of the season. It looked like the tear-down and rebuild was done and the team was headed in the right direction, but now I don’t know if any of the players are safe. We have a few other talented, young players with lots of potential too, so Mo are you taking offers for Frei or White yet? Only time will tell I guess. At some point though I think the TFC management will have to realize that the fans are an important part of this team, and you can’t just throw away all the players they like to see. Cronin was a young, solid and likeable player. Maybe not a big star, but certainly well liked and there was a lot of confusion over his exclusion from the starting 11 when the season began, so I can’t be the only one annoyed by this. Add that to previous fan favourites like Robinson, Guevara, Wynne, Serioux, and you have a lot of favourites gone this year.
Maybe the team will do better with the players they’ve got, and maybe even go far in the playoffs this year. Let’s just hope that by the time TFC are hoisting the MLS Cup, we’ll actually know some of the players’ names.
Category: Toronto FCBreak-time for TFC after 0-0 draw
By: Mark | 3 Comments
Time to take a breather DeRo
Its time for the Toronto FC players to take a well-deserved break for a couple weeks while the World Cup gets underway in South Africa. Yesterday was a hard-fought and ultimately frustrating match for the team as they played to a 0-0 draw at home against the Kansas City Wizards. I say frustrating mainly because the ref seemed to be making a lot of arbitrary calls in KC’s favour. I don’t like to complain about the refereeing, but its really strange to see straight red cards called (against Garcia early in the game), and then no card at all against KC for a similar foul later in the game. Neither foul was intentional (they were each trying to cut out a pass), but TFC’s was deemed unsafe for Garcia cleating the guy on the thigh, but Barrett got kicked in the face and that was all good in the ref’s eyes.
Anyway, KC eventually got a red card to even things out, but by that time TFC had spent so much effort defending that it was too much for them to get back into attacking mode to try to win the game. So a draw was the result, much to Preki’s disappointment. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Toronto FCTFC continue to impress
By: Mark | Add Comments
Toronto secured their first road win with yet another solid performance in San Jose. They are now in 2nd place in the east and are really coming together as a team. So who deserves the credit for the turnaround this season? Here are my thoughts, but it would be great to hear yours in the comments section below:
First I think that (although there were some early doubts) Preki has to be commended now as his tactics are certainly working and the players are for the most part executing what he wants them to do. He tried playing a similar defensive first half on the road against Salt Lake a few weeks ago and it didn’t work out, but this time the team played with confidence and were rewarded with a goal, which allowed Preki to put in the big guns in the second half to ramp up the pressure on San Jose and secure the win. It seems like his tactics are quite strong and the team are all on board to play his style.
Adrian Cann had another solid game in central defence and I think his presence has been a big plus for the team. He plays calmly with no nonsense and that seems to be what the team needs. His partnership with young Nana Attakora has been solid and it finally looks like Toronto have a proper central defence after 3+ seasons.
Stefan Frei of course is great in goal and not much else needs to be said about that. He is good for 2 or 3 amazing saves per match (the defence can’t stop all the balls), and knowing that you have a top ‘keeper in net can only help the team’s confidence and allow them to go forward and attack.
I also don’t need to say anything about De Rosario because his 8 goals this season say enough. Leading the team by example. But its nice to see Chad Barrett really contributing this year as well. His hard work is finally paying off. Read the rest of this entry »
Toronto will try to crack the ‘Quakes defence tomorrow
By: Mark | 1 Comment
Fresh off their Canadian Championship victory this week in a hard fought night of watching Montreal and Vancouver battle it out on TV – our boys in red are headed out to San Jose to battle the Earthquakes. Hopefully they can avoid any disasters there (natural or otherwise).
Garcia takes out Barrett? Come on guys, let's all get along!
San Jose have been on a good run as of late with 4 games without a loss or a goal scored against them. So it looks like Toronto have got their work cut out for them. The good news is that TFC should have their full starting line-up available with the return of Canadian internationals DeRo and de Guzman, along with Attakora and Usanov. Plus, TFC have also been on a good run lately, including a gutsy 0-0 draw in their last MLS away game against league-best LA Galaxy. So all signs point to this one being a real Cracker! (ok, last earthquake joke, I promise)
I’m guessing Toronto will try to play a tight defensive game again, being on the road and all, but tomorrow night would be a real nice time for someone like O’Brian White to score a goal (and maybe another by DeRo for good measure) to secure Toronto’s first road win of this MLS season.
This game will be on Sportsnet at 10:00 pm ET tomorrow night, so check it out if you can. If you’re looking for some other good soccer on TV this weekend, be sure to check out some of the international friendlies going on as all the teams get ready for the World Cup. Its only a couple of weeks away!!!
My pick of the weekend will be Germany vs. Hungary on Saturday at 2:00 pm ET on CBC. There’s also another Canadian friendly tomorrow against Venezuela at 7:00 pm ET on Sportsnet. Of course if you have already watched all the soccer you can handle lately, you can always check out the NHL Stanley Cup Finals which also start tomorrow night!
(Oh yeah, hockey – that’s going on too.)
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