Toronto FC hit the road to face San Jose Earthquakes and came away with their first away point this season. It wasn’t always pretty, but there were some notable strong passages of play. Some of our new acquisitions are starting to show real promise on the pitch as well. Points away from home are few and far between for most MLS teams and TFC have always been poor on the road, but for some reason we seem to do well when we play away to San Jose. A point gained at Buck Shaw is nothing to sniff at and gives us some positives before facing LA Galaxy midweek.

San Jose Earthquakes: Starters: Jon Busch, Jason Hernandez, Brandon McDonald, Ike Opara, Ramiro Corrales (85′), Bobby Convey, Sam Cronin, Simon Dawkins, Khari Stephenson (80′), Ryan Johnson, Chris Wondolowski

Bench: Andrew Weber, Anthony Ampaipitakwong, Bobby Burling, Joey Gjertsen (85′), Chris Leitch, Matt Luzunaris (80′), Brad Ring

Toronto FC: Starters: Stefan Frei, Ty Harden, Nana Attakora (46′), Adrian Cann, Danleigh Borman, Maicon Santos (65′), Jacob Peterson, Tony Tchani, Javier Martina, Alan Gordon, Alen Stevanovic (63′)

Bench: Kocic, Cordon, de Guzman (46′), Gargan, Plata (65′), Yourassowsky, Zavarise (63′)

San Jose got an early shot off within the first couple minutes, but after that it was mostly a midfield battle between the teams to try and gain control. The Earthquakes were doing better getting the ball forward whereas TFC’s buildup wasn’t doing much to penetrate the final third. Most of the play was pretty dull until the 16th minute when Dawkins received a cutback and found himself in some space to have a shot that just went wide of the post. Toronto’s first good shot came soon after when some good play between Gordon and Stevanovic led to a shot from Maicon, but it was too weak. San Jose quickly got themselves to our end of the pitch for Johnson to have a chance on goal. Most of the San Jose attacks were coming down our right flank where I literally didn’t realize Martina was playing until someone mentioned him on twitter.

If it wasn’t going to be Martina’s day, then Stevanovic was trying hard to grab some of the attention. He saw a lot of the ball in the first half and generally did well dribbling down the left flank. TFC’s goal in the first half came after Stevanovic got down the byline and with some help from Borman and Maicon, the ball found its way into the box where Gordon scored his second of the season. I love that we have a big, strong striker that crashes the box, throws himself at balls coming into the area, and gets at the end of headers. So many times we’ve seen a chance go begging because no one thought to position themselves in just the right spot in the opposition area and I like how Gordon brings that to the team.

Our goal didn’t stop San Jose from pressing in attack. While our play was coming mainly down the left, so was San Jose on their left. They were in acres of space at times and there were just too many huge gaping holes in our defense that they quickly tried to exploit. Bobby Convey in particular was able to dribble and get away from our players with ease. Any time they got a sniff at goal, they would take a shot, from 12 yards or 30 yards. Stefan Frei kept safe hands for the most part, but the Earthquakes were able to equalize when Dawkins, on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, found himself unmarked in space after some quick passing play and hit a shot past Frei to make it 1-1 in the 38th minute. The worst part was there were at least 5 of our players back and yet no one was able to get a block or tackle in to stop Dawkins. San Jose finished the half on top and I breathed a sigh of relief at the halftime whistle. While we had some good spells in attacking play, we were way too open and needed some more discipline for the second half.

The second half saw Nana come off (second game in a row he’s been taken off at halftime) and de Guzman come on. Peterson seemed to shift over to a rightback position while Harden went in to partner Cann in the centre of defense. San Jose came out trying to continue their momentum from the first half. Wondolowski was looking threatening and gave us a massive scare when he hit a hard shot from close range, but Frei got down to save while Harden made a strong block when Wondolowski hit another shot off the rebound. Having de Guzman on the pitch helped since he was able to, you know, pass the ball to another player wearing red. It’s nice when a player can do that. Maicon may need to take some lessons in that. Julian does look like he’s carrying a bit of weight. I hope we aren’t rushing him back too early and I really hope he doesn’t re-injure himself.

While de Guzman didn’t pick up any bad knocks in the game, Stevanovic most certainly did, and he had to be subbed off for Zavarise. Plata also came on for our new captain Maicon (the armband was passed on to JdG as he went off). Plata is quite small, but he made some great runs down the left flank. His only issue at the moment seems to be decision-making in the final third. TFC’s next good chance came from Gordon who got himself in a good position to the keeper’s left, but his shot was too weak. Perhaps he could have taken that better to put us in the lead. The only other really good chance I can remember was when Martina, who had a more subdued game, hit a shot near post that ended up skimming over the bar. The last half hour of the match basically consisted of the Earthquakes trying to overwhelm us and pin us back under pressure. Cann came up really big during this last part of the game. He was everywhere making blocks and tackles. It was a great performance that kept our precious point intact at the end of the day. In past seasons we would have conceded in the dying minutes of a match, but we held firm and showed some steel to see it through.

Full Time Stats (via MLSsoccer.com): San Jose Earthquakes v Toronto FC
Goals 1-1
Shots 19-10
On target 5-3
Fouls 13-17
Offsides 3-2
Possession % 58-42

There were definitely some shaky moments for TFC, but we also saw some players finding their feet. Tchani is looking like a very good pick up from NYRB. Julian will provide stability in the midfield and hopefully will be fit enough to play 90 minutes sooner rather than later. Stevanovic looked threatening out wide, but there is some worry about him picking up an injury. Peterson looked good playing more defensively. I’ve already said it too much this season, but it’s baby steps for this team, and we’re seeing slight progressions every time along with the bumps in the road. We have a tough challenge with the Galaxy coming to BMO this week so there’s no time to rest. The games will be coming fast at us now and we will start to see really how this team is coming together in the coming weeks.

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This review was written by Saurabh of Hoffenheim Offside. Thanks to him for his help and make sure to check out his blog!

It may have been important to start playing immediately after losing Dwayne De Rosario in a trade to New York. We got to see new boy Tony Tchani in action right away and he showed glimpses of the vision and creativity that is sometimes lacking in THE MLS. It also backs up claims that he’d be a great prospect, a promising player who could fit so well into the new system Aron Winter is trying to bring to Toronto.

Toronto FC: Starters: Stefan Frei, Danleigh Borman, Nana Attakora (65′), Adrian Cann, Ty Harden, Tony Tchani, Maicon Santos, Jacob Peterson (46′), Javier Martina, Alan Gordon, Alen Stevanovic (70′)

Bench: Milos Kocic, Oscar Cordon, Dan Gargan, Dicoy Williams (65′), Ashtone Morgan, Julian de Guzman (46′), Joao Plata (70′)

Chivas USA: Starters: Dan Kennedy, Michael Lahoud, Heath Pearce, Andrew Boyens, Ante Jazic, Nick LaBrocca, Marcos Mondaini (67′), Ben Zemanski, Jorge Flores, Justin Braun (86′), Alejandro Moreno

Bench: Sergio Arias, Zach Thornton, Gerson Mayen (67′) Francisco Mendoza, Seth Owusu, Mariano Trujillo, Victor Estupinan (86′)

The game itself should have been an easy one but we didn’t make it that way for ourselves at all. The game started off with a goal for Chivas in the first two minutes. After getting tangled up the ball bounced off Attakora and fell perfectly for Moreno to slide the ball past Frei. This would continue with Chivas piling on the pressure and Attakora making a few more mistakes. Just as I started swearing him out though he came up with a few important tackles and blocks to redeem himself. With a combination of luck, poor finishing and good defending we managed not to concede another goal in the following few minutes.

The game did manage to pick itself up with the momentum swinging TFC’s way. One of the best chances of the first half came for Alan Gordon. The ball went out to Javier Martina who then put in a perfect cross. Gordon leaped over the his man to get his head to the ball, unfortunately, he only hit the post. A snap shot by Maicon Santos just a few moments later was parried poorly but the Chivas keeper managed to smother it before the Stevanovic could get to the rebound.

The goal did come eventually, a freekick swung in well and this time Alan Gordon headed it home. The equaliser lifted the crowd after a frustrating first half and you could see by the celebration that it lifted the players as well. The team continued to turn the screw on Chivas and we should have had the lead just before half time.

We all know it’s not an MLS game without a blunder from the referee. Martina picked up a corner and hammered it towards goal. And as hard as he tried, even Maicon couldn’t miss it. Unfortunately the goal was wrongfully ruled off for offside to the outrage of the everyone watching. It’s alright though, I admire THE MLS’s commitment to diversity by letting blind people ref games.

Toronto came out of the gates stronger in the second half with more of the same. It was almost all TFC from then on and you expected us to take the lead. The chance came on the hour mark when a great pass sent Maicon. He could have squared it across the box for a tap in, but being a striker he took the selfish choice. He managed to beat the keeper which sent everyone in the ground on their feet, most already celebrating. But his touch was too heavy and allowed the Chivas defender to get back and put off his shot. It was surprising when our best finisher, Maicon, missed the open goal (sarcasm). Stevanovic was understandably angry, he had made a great run and was in perfect position to roll the ball into the open net.

And it was at that point when I knew the game was over and that there would be no hope. Chivas managed to get a period of pressure on us which forced a few solid saves from Frei. How embarrassing would it have been if we had lost to a LaBrocca strike. Yeah, I felt you flinch. The game would end without any more goals, 1-1. Hard earned first points for Chivas but as a TFC fan we can see this as 2 points dropped.

Full Time Stats (via MLSsoccer.com): Toronto FC v Portland Timbers
Goals 1-1
Shots 8-14
On target 4-7
Fouls 9-18
Offsides 6-0
Possession % 43-57

Despite the slow start it was a positive performance that showed that Winter’s system will eventually work. A stark contrast to Prekiball that’s already having a positive response. Given time we should have a team that’s capable of entertaining and winning, and Aron Winter has taken the team a few steps in the right direction. While we can expect to drop points every now and then to poor teams, the performances in those games are going to be what matters. Do we move the ball well, do we create enough chances, do we defend well? The answer to those questions were “yes” for the most part and you can’t fault that.

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It was the first time two Canadian teams have faced off in Major League Soccer. As a spectacle, it was an exciting game to watch for the neutral, and a great advert for soccer in this country. On top of that, we saw many Canadian players on display. The Whitecaps featured two Canadian players and Toronto FC had 5 Canadians take the field. A moment in history for Canadian soccer, but alas, a painful night for fans of TFC. On Saturday night, TFC fans saw that this was going to be another long and potentially painful season; one of rebuilding and restarting from scratch. While the Whitecaps enjoy their expansion season, TFC would be undergoing a fifth “expansion” season of their own.

Vancouver Whitecaps: Starters: Jay Nolly, Jonathan Leathers, Michael Boxall, Jay DeMerit, Alain Rochat, Gershon Koffie, Davide Chiumiento (46′), Terry Dunfield, Russell Teibert (69′), Atiba Harris, Eric Hassli (83′). Bench: Joe Cannon, Greg Janicki, Wes Knight (69′), Jeb Brovsky, Nizar Khalfan (46′), Long Tan, Camilo (83′)

Toronto FC: Starters: Stefan Frei, Dan Gargan, Nana Attakora, Ty Harden, Adrian Cann, Nathan Sturgis (69′), Dwayne De Rosario, Jacob Peterson (71′), Nick Soolsma (46′), Maicon Santos, Javier Martina Bench: Oscar Cordon, Matt Gold*, Keith Makubuya (46′), Ashtone Morgan, Gianluca Zavarise (69′), Milos Kocic, Mikael Yourassowsky* (71′)

I guess I should start at the beginning. A very good place to start, especially since we looked decent in the opening minutes. Both teams were lively and ready for action. It was all a bit frenetic, but then Toronto enjoyed some spells of possession. Our build up play was a bit slow, but Martina was trying to get something happening out wide on the left. It was nice to see us passing the ball around instead of being the team chasing it. Of course this meant we were the first to concede. That’s right. TFC waited four games into its expansion year to score a goal, but it took Vancouver all but 15 minutes. Eric Hassli, the Whitecaps new DP signing, wrote his place into club history by hammering home their first-ever goal with his left foot. While the fans flung plastic rain ponchos onto the pitch and had the game stopped for a few minutes to clean up the pitch, I sat there thinking that we might be in for a goalfest that night. My only worry was if we would have any share in the spoils.

It only took five minutes for us to respond. Maicon sent a nice ball in behind the ‘Caps defense. DeRo picked it up and finished it off nicely into the far corner with his right foot. But wouldn’t you know it? Vancouver almost immediately came back from that in the 30th minute when they found their way through our meek defending and Terry Dunfield who put the ball in the back of the net with an assured strike. Only 20 minutes had gone and we already had seen 3 goals. Was this going to end 5-5?

I can’t really put my finger on when we started to fall apart, but after a half hour you could see that the Whitecaps were starting to enjoy the better of the game. They had pace on the break and took advantage of our defensive weaknesses. The fact that Adrian Cann was used at leftback was not helping at all. He just could not deal with Chiumiento on the wings and we were constantly being exposed there. Our central defensive pairing of Harden and Attakora was not doing well either. Both looked out of sorts and made bad decisions all night long. If we are going to play a high line, then our backline needs to have a good understanding of one another. Vancouver was easily beating our offside trap and getting the best of our defenders. When I saw the lineup at first I thought, ok, maybe Winter wanted four at the back who have some MLS experience and have played together. Unfortunately, with Harden in the centre and Cann at leftback, there was just no solidity. Hopefully we will never see the back four start like this again and we will have Nana and Cann at the heart of our defense. They worked well enough together last season and I suspect we might see them together again for the upcoming home opener.

Do I really have to talk about the second half? Things just went from bad to worse. I thought by taking off the ineffective Soolsma at halftime for Makabuya, we would see a bit of a difference. Really, all I saw was just a painful display from our team. If Vancouver was playing with passion, determination, and spirit, then we were playing with anything but. I remember in preseason de Klerk saying that he wants to see our players playing with passion, so it was disappointing to see that they had such little fight in them in the second half.

Again, Vancouver did well to exploit the space on the flanks and keep our side under pressure. Atiba Harris had a good chance when he found himself in space, but some last-ditch defending and a frantic hoof of the ball saved our blushes. The Whitecaps were able to put themselves ahead with their third goal of the night through a set piece in the 63rd minute. Teibert took the corner and there was a bit of a scramble before Harris slotted it in the back of the net. Terrible defending from us and they punished us for it. Another note to make about our defense. I know Winter wants us to play out from the back, but there are some times when you just need to clear your lines. We’ve given away too many balls in dangerous areas by simply dwelling on the ball too long or making loose passes at the back. The back four did not look comfortable and often gave the ball back to Frei when they were too nervous to play the ball forward or found themselves confronted with an opposing attacker. We needed composure and were sorely lacking on the day.

In the midfield we were just getting bossed. We weren’t keeping possession well, and when we did, we were doing very little with it. Vancouver were being much more direct and were effective in getting the ball up the pitch to create scoring opportunities. Physically, we were losing the battle. Someone needs to tell Winter that MLS can be rough at times and the refs aren’t going to give you calls for a lot of challenges that would be considered fouls in other leagues. Our players aren’t tiny, but they need to be much stronger and hold their own. Otherwise we are going to get crushed this season.

Vancouver were really starting to rub salt in the wound when they put themselves up 4-1 in the 72nd minute. Knight beat the offside trap and found himself in tons of space. He found Hassli, who was also in acres of space, who just needed a simple tap-in for the finish. It was getting embarrassing. Where were our defenders? No one should have that much time and space to score, but they did. We were getting hammered and a lot of it was our own fault. Maicon tried to salvage something for us with a beautiful strike two minutes later, but it wasn’t enough. Some more stuff happened in the last fifteen minutes, but I’ve blocked out much of it and don’t really feel like trying to recall the rest of the awfulness. A good day for Canadian soccer and MLS. A bad day for TFC fans everywhere.

Full Time Stats (via @OptaJack): Vancouver Whitecaps v Toronto FC
Goals 4-2
Shots 13-9
On target 8-6
Fouls 12–5
Passing accuracy 78%-86%
Possession 34%-66%

Frankly, there were not a lot of positives to take from the game. DeRo was ok and even tried a few of his I’m-going-to-do-this-on-my-own moments that came to nothing. Frei did pretty well considering the defense he was working with. I was surprised I didn’t see him rip off his shoelaces and strangle a couple of them during the match. At least he’ll give them an earful every time they make a mistake. Sturgis was almost non-existent. In fact, I don’t even remember anything he did. If his role was to protect the backline, well, he did a terrible job. Petersen doesn’t really work in the middle, but we didn’t have a lot of choices, I suppose. I’m hoping de Guzman will make a difference here, but we definitely look lightweight in the middle and lacking in players who are able to move the ball around well. Martina looks good on the wing, but I didn’t really see much of a threat coming from him in the second half. Gargan was having a nightmare and ended up just fouling people in the last quarter of the game. Overall, the team performance was poor, and that’s putting it lightly.

If there is an upside, it is that I am not sure if we can look any worse this season. I’m sure it’s possible, but I think Winter is smart enough to see where he went wrong and what he needs to adjust to make it so that we don’t completely implode every match. Yes, we need some better players, but the ones we do have need to step it up as well. I know fans are very frustrated right now, but I implore you to please give the team a couple of months. We can look back at this match in context among a number of games to see if we are at all improving, or if we are heading down a dead-end path with our new strategy. We have a game against Portland on Saturday, another expansion team. It is at home and there is a great chance here for us to bounce back in front of a home crowd. We have only played one game, and, fair enough, it was a shocker. The important thing is that the players get a kick up their backside and pick themselves up. They need to show everyone that they are ready to work hard this season and that we don’t suck as bad as our performance this weekend suggested. It’s going to be difficult for all of us to watch, and progress might not come as quickly as we would like. That’s where we are now, unfortunately, so we may as well get behind the team and at least hope for the best. Or just consume alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

*Yourassowsky and Gold were officially signed on Friday night and added to the team roster

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TFC Starting XI: Stefan Frei, Ty Harden (Dan Gargan 46′), Nana Attakora (Ashtone Morgan 46’), Dicoy Williams, Mikael Yourassowsky, Nick LaBrocca (Matt Gold 58′), Oscar Cordon (Andrew Ornoch 63′), Nathan Sturgis, Jacob Peterson, Javier Martina, Keith Makubuya (Nick Soolsma 70′)

I didn’t get to watch this game, and apparently I didn’t miss much. It was cold, wet, rainy, and the football was terrible. Not only that, but we ended up losing to Charleston Battery who aren’t even an MLS side. They scored twice: one goal before halftime and one off of a rebound in the 57th minute. Our only goal came from a penalty. Petersen crossed a ball into the penalty area and one of the Charleston players handballed to concede the penalty. Sturgis stepped up to give us the 1-0 lead, which of course, didn’t last too long. All in all, it didn’t sound good and those familiar sinking feelings at the pit of my stomach began to emerge again as they tend to do in preseasons. My co-blogger over at Arsenal Offside is a lawyer and actually is from Charleston. He said that his alma mater has taken a few scalps in preseason games before so I shouldn’t feel too bad, plus it still is only preseason. It’s the league that counts. So we could lose every game up until First Kick and it wouldn’t mean diddly-squat. That made me feel a bit better.

Last night TFC faced DC United for their last game in the Carolina Challenge Cup:

TFC Starting XI: Stefan Frei, Dan Gargan, Nana Attakora, Ty Harden, Mikael Yourassowsky (Ejected 37′), Nathan Sturgis, Oscar Cordon (Adrian Cann 46′), Dwayne De Rosario (Javier Martina 87′), Gianluca Zavarise (Keith Makubuya 90+’), Jacob Peterson (Matt Stinson 80′), Maicon Santos (Matt Gold 67′)

You’ll notice that Winter has been doing less experimenting now and our starting eleven is slowly beginning to emerge. On the other side of the pitch, there were some familiar faces lining up for DC United, namely Dejan Jakovic and Pat Onstad. That’s right. Pat Onstad. The ever-present Canadian goalkeeper who will live forever. I didn’t like that the two of them played so well against us. Guys, we’re all Canadian here, why don’t you take it a little easy? What’s up with the whole ‘trying to win for the team you play for’ stuff? I’m very disappointed in you both tsk tsk.

DC United ended up taking the lead early with a great strike from Charlie Davies. It was really end-to-end stuff in the first 20 or so minutes. DeRo was looking good and constantly harrying defenders. In the 19th minute he got the equalizer for us when DC gave up a penalty after Maicon was taken down in the box. DeRo stepped up to coolly put the ball in the back of the net. Amazingly, we scored again to put ourselves ahead 2-1 when Frei thumped the ball up to Maicon who took it down well and smashed it past Onstad. I wonder what Winter thinks of the fact that we went all old-school long ball for that goal? We may have betrayed his style to grab the goal, but overall the team performance looked a lot more promising than in other recent games. Of course, as soon as things look a little bit positive for TFC, something has to go wrong. Yourassowsky, who has featured quite heavily in preseason and is expected to sign with the club soon, picked up two yellow cards in the space of about a minute to get sent off. It really was a stupid thing to do, especially the fact that the two yellows came so close together in the match. We really need to avoid stuff like that when the season starts. Last season, Preki had us going gung-ho into tackles and really getting into opponents faces. That’s all well and good up to a point, but our problem was picking up way too many yellows and red cards and having many of our players missing on suspension during key matches. MLS rosters tend not to be too deep, so it’s important that we keep some discipline when we step out onto the pitch.

With one of our guys off the pitch, you bet Your Assowsky we were down to 10 men from the 37th minute onward. For the most part we coped pretty well considering we had to change our whole shape. Unfortunately, DC were able to make the score 2-2 with 61st minute strike from Joseph Ngwenya. So we nicked a draw after being down to 10 men against DC United. Not too bad. There were definite signs of improvement and you get the sense the team just needs to keep playing together to get some consistency. Some good news: Adrian Cann made a 2nd half appearance at leftback. After the match he made a classy apology to all of the fans with Winter standing next to him.

It’s never easy to swallow your pride and admit you were wrong like that so I have to give credit to Adrian and hope that he and Winter can start patching things up and moving on. So that was the good news. Bad news is that Maicon went off injured in the 2nd half. I like Maicon, but the guy seems to have a bit of trouble keeping fit. I don’t know his entire history with injuries, but he did miss a lot of games last season due to injury. Luckily, we brought in Alan Gordon who has experience leading the line, and DeRo can also slot in as a striker if it’s really necessary. It would be nice to see another striker signed though because you get the feeling that we are still lacking in that department.

We made it through the preseason without wanting to slit our wrists and we have actual players signed up that can actually play when the league starts on Saturday, so there’s some positives right there. TFC played 9 games in the preseason and came out with a 2-5-2 record. Not great, but not catastrophic. We managed to score some goals too; 9 in total. A big problem is our defense, which conceded a total of 13 goals. We started a bit rough in our style of play but we are slowly getting better. Don’t expect huge things right away though. It is going to be incredibly difficult for us, especially at the beginning of the season. It’s basically another rebuilding year, but this time we have good management and a concrete plan. Winter and de Klerk have a vision of how they want us to play and they know what they are looking for. They are nurturing our young players and are keen on bringing through players from the academy who can play in the same style as the first team. Mariner is on board and can supply our Dutch duo with all of his knowledge and experience of MLS to make the transition easier. We’ll be taking baby steps and it will be a bumpy ride, but honestly, don’t you like this new setup more than the old one? Everything just feels a lot less chaotic and a lot more positive. You can see it in the players who seem enthusiastic about their football. We, as fans, need to be patient and give the team some time. At least we will be able to see some attacking play instead of some of the dire defensive displays we have seen previously. Just keep all of this in mind when we are a couple months in and we are still struggling to stay in playoff contention. I think we can make the playoffs, but it will probably be only just.

MLS 2011 season begins on Tuesday with Seattle Sounders hosting LA Galaxy at 9:30pm ET. TFC’s season begins on Saturday, March 19, 2011 when the Reds go marching into Vancouver for the season opener. I will have a full preview of the big “TransCanada Derby” later in the week, so keep your eyes peeled. Taking a look at our first few games, here’s what our first few weeks will look like in the league:

Mar 19 @ Vancouver Whitecaps
Mar 26 v Portland Timbers
Apr 2 v Chivas USA
Apr 9 @ San Jose Earthquakes
Apr 13 v Los Angeles Galaxy
Apr 16 v DC United

Some tricky fixtures in there. First thing you notice is that we open the season away to an expansion team and then playing another expansion team for our home opener. You don’t really know what to expect with teams new to the league. On the one hand, they could come out revved up and on fire, starting the season strong with enthusiastic play and trying to show everyone that they will make their mark on the league. On the other hand, they could struggle at the higher level and we could get some easy points early in the season. We’ll see soon what it ends up being.

Out of our first 6 games listed, 4 of them are at BMO Field. We really have to take advantage of this since TFC has historically been poor on the road and it is very difficult to get away results in MLS in general. If we have bad home form, just forget about the playoffs. Hosting the Galaxy will by far be the toughest out of those first 6 games, but we could really get some good results from the others. Besides Vancouver, our only other away game in that list is San Jose, who did quite well in the second half of the 2010 season and were close to making the MLS Cup final. On the whole, it is a very decent opening group of fixtures. It would be great if we took the opportunity to start our season strong in case of a summer lapse that tends to hit us, particularly with the Gold Cup coming in June.

The players that have featured in the last couple games I talked about in this post are likely to start on Saturday. Julian is making good progress coming back from injury, but he will not be available for another couple of weeks. Hopefully he will be back sooner rather than later because I think he will end up being quite important to our side. Expect Yourassowsky to be signed and in the starting lineup as well and we should also see many familiar faces such as our Captain, Attakora, and our magnificent rock in goal, Stefan Frei.

That was a bit of a glimpse of what to expect in the coming weeks. In other news, it seems that The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is looking to sell its 66% of shares in MLSE. Rumours a few months ago were that Rogers being interested, but nothing is known for sure. For more information on this, check out this article from Canadian Soccer News.

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On Thursday, TFC faced Charlston College in a friendly game before the tournament. Our side featured a lot of young players and academy products:

Toronto FC: David Monsalve (Stefan Frei ’60), Demitrius Omphroy, Ivo de Heus, Ty Harden (Elbekay Bouchiba 30’ Mikael Yourassowsky 60’), Mikael Yourassowsky (Ashtone Morgan 30’), Elbekay Bouchiba (Oscar Cordon 30’), Nick La Brocca (Nathan Sturgis 60’), Gianluca Zavarise (Keven Aleman 30’), Jacob Peterson (Nick Soolsman 30’ Javier Martina 60’), Maicon Santos (Andrew Ornoch 60’), Dwayne De Rosario (Joao Plata 30’ Keith Makubuya 60’).

Plata was fouled in the box in the 40th minute and got a penalty which he scored to make it 1-0. Charleston also had a penalty awarded to them in the second half, but the shot went over the bar. The game ended 1-0 to TFC. It’s nice to have won a game again, even if it was a college team. Winter seemed pleased with the performance overall and probably used the game as a chance to see the potential in youth players as well as give the trialists another useful runout.
It’s good to see Nathan Sturgis in there. I almost forgot about him during the preseason, but he was also dealing with an injury if I’m not mistaken. Julian deGuzman has also resumed training with the team, which is great news and hopefully we will have him fit for the beginning of the season.

On Saturday, The Reds faced Chicago Fire in the first game of the Challenge Cup.

Toronto FC: Toronto FC (4-3-3) Frei, Gargan, Attakora, Yourassowsky (Stinson 87’), Morgan (Ornoch 46’), LaBrocca (Makubuya 69’), Cordon, Peterson (Sturgis 79’), Martina (Zavarise 84’), Maicon, Plata (Soolsma 46’)

The Fire went up 1-0 within six minutes after some dreadful defending by our backline. The ball was knocked straight across the goal mouth a little too easily. Davis Paul cut it back to Marco Pappa who found the target and put Chicago ahead. In the 35th minute, Logan Pause was shown a red card after a foul on TFC Academy player Oscar Cordon. That put Chicago down to 10 men for the rest of the match. After the sending off we were able to enjoy a bit more possession and have a couple of decent efforts on goal.
In the second half, we were able to keep possession again, but what was lacking most was our fluidity in midfield and attacking threat. Fire were happy for us to knock the ball around in our own half, but they were strong in shutting us down when we tried penetrating their defense. Right now, a lot of our passes seem to be just a little too heavy or a little too light, but with time that should improve. The players need to be more aware of what is around them and not allow themselves to get dispossessed so easily.

Chicago were able to create some very good chances on the break. I’ve said it before, but we really need to be careful getting exposed on the counter because that seems to be an issue from the games I’ve seen so far. At times we looked like the team with 10 men and really, being a man up we should have done better. Another big issue is that we lack a lethal goal poacher. We don’t currently have someone who will bring home the goals for us. Maicon should be able to chip in, but he is better suited to holding up the ball and will also be useful for set pieces. Many times our wingers would put some really great balls into the penalty box (an area that seems to be much improved from previous seasons) but no one would be there on the end of it throwing themselves at the ball to stick it in the net. We need someone who will be there to capitalize on those opportunities.

Towards the end of the match, Maicon had a great freekick on target, but the shot was parried away by the goalkeeper. I hope he can replicate that during the season because it was a great freekick and gives us another option besides DeRo. It wasn’t a great spectacle as a match. The camerawork was terrible, the commentators said that we were watching the “cream of the crop” in North American soccer (how long has that cream been sitting in the fridge?), but my favourite part was seeing the “Five Guys Burgers and Fries” advertising board. You know it’s a bad match when the highlight is getting a chuckle out of something you read in front of the half-empty bleachers. The game ended 1-0 to Chicago Fire. At least we’re losing all of our games now and not during the actual season (I hope). Next game is against Charleston Battery on Wednesday.

The motto amongst the players and staff seems to be ‘it’s only preseason and results don’t matter’. You may not like to hear it, but it’s true. The most important thing is that the players continue to work with each other and improve their understanding on the pitch. Winter, de Klerk, and Mariner all seem to be positive in general about how things are going, even if it hasn’t been pretty. I could go on, but I’d just be regurgitating a lot of what I’ve already said over and over. Patience is a virtue.

The thing that is worrying me more than the messy play on the pitch is our current roster. We need to sign some players. If my math is correct, we have 14 signed players, one of whom (Nicolas Lindsay) is injured for the season. We have been using several Academy players during preseason, which is good, and they should be able to play in the Canadian Championship games. I’m sure there are plans to sign up a couple of the trialists. Martina has been the most impressive one for me. He’s got some pace down the wings and can cross a good ball. Ornoch looked decent in the air. Omphroy has looked solid on his outings. Yourassowsky has played a lot of minutes, so he might be on the manager’s mind (though he has been prone to a slip up here and there. Chalk it up to inexperience). As I mentioned before, we lack that strong, dynamic centreforward that can bring us goals. With Cann still in contract disputes with the management, we are also lacking a big presence in our backline. I’m not sure what Cann was promised by the Mo Regime, but he is obviously dissatisfied with his current contract for some reason. Winter has expressed his displeasure at the whole situation:

“I explained to him the situation and gave him two good (contract) options to stay. I still think he’s a good defender, but what he has done is not good.

“He went away against our wishes. Last season he signed a new contract and we knew he was unhappy so we offered him a contract with two good options. And we’ve given him a lot of time to think about it. He can come back under his old (contract) conditions. But when you let your team down by leaving, when you come back, everything won’t be the same.”

Apparently, Winter talked to Cann on numerous occasions and offered more money, which Cann turned down. This whole thing is very unfortunate and extremely ill-timed. I don’t know the Cann’s side of the story, but I am just scratching my head as to why he is doing this now. If he is going to walk out on us right now and hold us to ransom, then it’s best we go get ourselves another starting CB pronto. Otherwise, someone is going to have to swallow their pride here. Winter will let him come back, but you would have to think that relations have soured between them. Hopefully we will get some better news and updates on this situation sometime this week.

There are less than 2 weeks until First Kick. Our squad is a bit bare, but we have some strong players like DeRo, deGuzman, Frei, Gargan, Attakora, Sturgis, Petersen, and Maicon who could make up our starting XI. A few strong additions would be great for this team. In the meantime, we’ve got a lot of work to do before we face the Whitecaps.

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On Saturday night, Toronto FC faced off against Orlando City in the 3rd place match of the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic. What is there that I can really say about this game? It was dull with some pretty woeful football and we ended up losing 1-0 with the goal being scored by Orlando’s player-coach. Player-coach! Then again, we had a goalkeeper score on us last season from open play, so nothing really surprises me anymore.

First Half Starting Lineup: Milos Kocic, Dan Gargan, Chris Hunter, Adrian Cann, Mikael Yourassowsky, Matt Stinson, Ivo de Heus, Dwayne De Rosario, Nick Soolsma, Jamal Gay, Javier Martina

Nothing really happened for us in the first half. Orlando had the better chances and forced Kocic into a couple of saves. I know we have Frei as our number one, and I’m really glad he hasn’t jetted off to Europe yet, but Kocic seems a really decent keeper and should be solid as our backup. With Jon Conway gone, perhaps we will see him make an appearance against Edmonton in the Canadian Championship.

Our biggest problem was that we were unable to finish our chances up front. Gay did a decent job up front and Martina also made some great runs, but we really lacked a finishing touch. With DeRo playing more of a number 10 sort of role, that means we need someone else to start banging in the goals. I think Maicon could do it, but he does have a history of injury problems. A DP would be nice, but I haven’t heard anything substantive on that front.

Second Half Subs: Ashtone Morgan for Yourassowsky (46′), Nick LaBrocca for Cann (46′), Jacob Peterson for Gay (46′), Gianluca Zavarise for Stinson (46′), Maicon Santos for De Rosario (67′) Demetrius Omphroy for Soolsma (46′), Keith Makubuya for Martina (67′)

We enjoyed a bit more possession in the second half, but again, did not look threatening in front of goal. Orlando was able to counter well a couple of times, which caught us out. This is something we really need to be careful of when the season begins. Teams could easily play us on the counter and really use their pace to hurt us. We need to be quicker and more organized when getting back to defend as a unit. I can’t really remember us having a good shot on target. Then again, I did get distracted watching my hair grow, which was more interesting at times than the game itself. The goal came from some weak defending and Ian Fuller, the Orlando Assistant Coach, basically ran through and hit it home for the winner. The rest of the match was direly played out until the final whistle.

All in all, not great. Bob de Klerk was not all doom and gloom though:

“Everybody’s a little bit disappointed about the result but, I don’t look at the result. I’m looking at the way we played and the first half was poor. It was not good. The second half we played a little bit better. We played a possession game like we want to play.

“Today there were too many plays where we looked nervous. This is the pre-season and we now know which kind of players can play in our system. We will keep believing in how we want to play but we also have to play with passion and heart.”

Passion and heart. Don’t you love the Dutch way? Make sure Passion brings his shooting boots next time. In all seriousness, I love Bob de Klerk. He has a big, bald, shiny head like Danny Dichio and he is constantly shouting on the touchline. He seems very approachable and a really smart, really nice guy. I’m sure Winter finds him a great compliment to his own personality and style. You feel comfortable with Winter and de Klerk in charge because they seem to have the patience needed in bringing this team to where they want them to be, and they have a very clear idea of how they want to play and will help the players any way they can to achieve that.

de Klerk also mentioned in his post match interview that he thought LaBrocca and Makubuya did well in the second half. I’d also include Omphroy, who looked good out wide right and got some good balls into the box, though no one was on the end of it to stick it in the net. Some of the other Academy players are also showing a bit of promise. I don’t know how many of the trialists will end up getting signed, but I think it’s coming to be about the time where we properly establish who is in the squad so that the management can really focus on who will make the starting eleven and get them playing together as often as possible.

The team will now be travelling to South Carolina on Wednesday to train and then participate in the annual Carolina Challenge Cup. TFC will play Chicago Fire on Saturday, Charleston Battery next Wednesday, and DC United the following Saturday. All games will be streamed live on TorontoFC.ca. Hopefully we will see some better play and results come from that tournament. Kevin Aleman, one of our youth players from the academy that has recently impressed with the Canada U17s in the CONCACAF Championship, has been called up to join TFC’s training camp. It’s great to see our young players doing well and I hope we get to see him play a bit.

It’s still early days for this team, and what we are witnessing right now are some growing pains while the team is still trying to gel. What’s good to hear is that the players are enjoying playing, are positive under this new management and are buying into the system. Hearing Petersen talk about how Preki (not named specifically of course) basically yelled a lot and ran them into the ground makes me think that wasn’t so much fun, and probably pretty exhausting, especially when we were losing. It’s all about patience. I know, we’ve been pretty patient for a few years now right? Just a little more though. We’re going to need it this season.

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Last night, TFC played a semifinal game against Houston Dynamo last night in the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic. We ended up losing 3-2. TFC’s next game will be tomorrow night; that’s Saturday at 6:00 pm against Orlando City for the 3rd place playoff. It will be streamed online on TorontoFC.ca. Houston will face off tomorrow against FC Dallas for a Texan-flavoured tournament final.

I watched the game last night on the live feed through the official website. If yor follow me on twitter, you’ll see that I was making witty and informative tweets (read: dull and banal tweets) throughout the game. Here’s a general summary of what happened:

TFC’s starting lineup: Stefan Frei, Demitrius Omphroy, Adrian Cann, Nana Attakora, Mikael Yourassowsky, Ivo de Heus, Nick LaBrocca, Dwayne De Rosario, Javier Martina, Jacob Peterson, Jamal Gay

TFC started off brightly and showed their attacking intent by scoring in the 7th minute. LaBrocca put through a great ball that Petersen managed to put away from a tight angle to put us ahead 1-0. As with most things concerning TFC, our glorious early lead did not last very long. Houston began putting on the pressure and Houston grabbed the equalizer in the 10th minute. I believe it was Yourassowsky on the left who fell asleep and allowed Palmer to get a cross in to Cameron who scored at the near post.

Houston didn’t stop there. Soon after Robinson rattled the crossbar and Ching forced Super Stefan Frei into a save. TFC managed to get back in the game by earning what seemed to be a pretty soft penalty for a shirt tug on Gay. Hey, you take ‘em when you get ‘em right? DeRo stepped up to the spot and knocked it home like a pro, making it 2-1 to the Reds. That should have got the team going again, but really our whole midfield looked a bit disjointed at that point and we were struggling to get many passes together and thus our strikers lacked service. We ended up paying for it because Houston got themselves their second goal a few minutes before halftime. We gave away a needless freekick right outside of our box. Davis stepped up for Dynamo and curled a beautiful ball into the top corner, leaving Frei with little chance for the save. It ended 2-2 at the half. Houston had 11 shots with 5 on target. Toronto had 6 shots with 5 on target.

Coming out for the second half, TFC made a few changes. Gargan came on for Omphroy at right back while Stinson, Soolsma and Zavarise replaced Attakora, LaBrocca and Martina. de Heus took over in central defense from his first half position in midfield. The game was a bit slower in this half. DeRo had a chance where he found himself in a bit of space and he turned and got the shot of quickly, but it ended up over the bar. Then we all held our breaths as we saw DeRo go down with an injury. He was taken off in the 60th minute for Cordon. I think it was mostly a precautionary measure, but I haven’t heard how serious the injury is. Maicon also came on at that time for Gay up front.

As soon as DeRo went off, it was clear we weren’t going to improve much in our midfield game and our passing continued to suffer. We tried getting it out onto the wings, but often that came to nothing and Houston would regain possession. In the 69th minute, Weaver slotted home Houston’s third from a cross from Cruz. Houston were in the driver’s seat and we were finding it hard to penetrate their strong defensive setup. Shortly after the goal, Petersen came off to make way for Plata. Maicon probably had the best chances for TFC in the final 15 minutes though his best effort went high over the bar. Then came some hearta attack football where Frei had left his line and there was no defender to be seen. I don’t know how Houston didn’t score during our last minute defensive calamity, but we were left off the hook for sure. There wasn’t even any time to breathe before Frei had to come up big with one of his super saves to keep us from conceding a fourth. We had one last chance in Houston’s half with a set piece. A good ball into the box, but no one was at the end of it. The final whistle blew and the game ended 3-2 to Houston.

Some general thoughts I had from the game. First, it is obvious that we are not there yet. Not by a long shot. This is the stage where everyone is still trying to find their feet and get to know their teammates on the pitch. It’s difficult when you have trialists being rotated in and out and you’re playing a new formation and style. One noticable aspect of our game that has changed is distribution from the back. Frei is taking a lot more touches with his feet and playing short passes out to his defenders. It is a good way to build up play, but we did struggle a bit. Often the defenders passed it sideways to each other before having to go back to Frei and start over again. Teams will find that they can easily disrupt things by pushing up their striker and having him put pressure on our backline. I can definitely see us being harried by a big striker and then making some tiny mistake to concede, so our defenders will really need to get comfortable with each other and communicate well so as to avoid any potential slip ups from passing their way out of the back.

In the midfield we really struggled to pass it around with any authority. I think when de Guzman comes back, he will be an important player for us in keeping possession, so I’d be interested to see how we play with him on the side. A lot of the trialists struggled, but I though Zavarise looked lively and he switched up a great ball cross field to Plata late in the game which looked good. Petersen scored a nice goal and has looked half decent ever since Preki left. Maicon offers us a physical presence and I think if he stays fit he will be a decent striker for us this season.

The biggest worry is if our strikers will get proper service. This has always been a problem for our team and it will be one of Winter’s biggest challenges with this team. I believe if Barrett had better service in previous seasons he would have scored more goals. DeRo will be an important piece in this regard. Previously, he has tried to take the team on his back when we were struggling, but he needs to remain patient and keep trying to get the ball up to our forwards. Last night, he had a moment where he took a wild shot from distance when he could have passed to a teammate, but overall I think he played well with the team. Another area where the team needs to deliver is from the wings, which really didn’t get going yesterday. There wasn’t much coming from the wings and in general the balls in the box needed to be much better. Set pieces were generally taken short. Maybe this was so we could practice at it, but surely we will need to pump a few balls into the penalty area and take advantage of that when we can. Our team is a bit on the small side at the moment and that will hurt us a bit, but we do have a couple of players like Nana who can win balls in the air or even score from a header.

I know that this probably all sounds a little bit negative, but it’s really not all that bad. It’s all part of the process and you have to be able to crawl before you can walk. That’s what these games are for anyway. It gives Winter and de Klerk (who, by the way, screams on the touchline really loud, it’s great!) a chance to see what needs improving. He’s pretty frank in his post game assessments, which is refreshing. He is still learning about MLS as well, so he will soon see the kind of challenges he is up against in this league. Next game is tomorrow night and hopefully we can win it and take some more positives before we move on from Orlando.

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In other news, Jason Bent, after 3 years as Head Coach of TFC’s Senior Academy Team, has been promoted to the position of Assistant Coach. He has done a great job at the youth level and Winter has expressed his delight in welcoming him to the senior management team. He will be a great asset and I think will have a lot to offer to the first team. Danny Dichio has been appointed as the new Head Coach of the Senior Academy Team. I think we all suspected that Dichio would get a position like this within the club and I know I’m really happy to see him get this job. It is a huge task to take on the Senior Academy Team and prepare them for when they get their chance to break into the first team, so this is not just any job for our cult hero. I think he will be up to the task though. A bit more surprisingly, Jim Brennan will now take charge of the Junior Academy Team. I never really thought about him coaching the very young Academy players, but I wish him all the best. Finally, Nick Dasovic, who was previously reported as having left the club, is TFC’s new North American scout. He will be working out in Vancouver.

One last bit of news. MLS has unveiled its new playoff format for the 2011 season. We will now see 10 out of the 18 MLS clubs advance into the playoffs for the MLS Cup. I know, it seems a bit weird to have more than half of the teams qualify for the playoffs, but if that means TFC has a better shot at making them, then I’m on board! The top 3 teams in each conference will advance and the next best 4 teams will also go through based on regular season points, regardless of which conference they are in. You can check the link in this paragraph for a full explanation of how the knockout rounds will work. I still don’t understand why we don’t move to a single table and be done with it, but then I guess we wouldn’t be able to use the conferences for the playoffs. It’s a North American thing, so I don’t think it will go away anytime soon. The changes made for this season don’t seem too big, but hopefully this year we can avoid a team from the West winning the Eastern Conference or something similar.

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After a mere 4 days of working with new head coach Aron Winter, the boys in red finally got on the pitch for their first preseason game. It was not being televised anywhere, so most had to follow @TorontoFC on twitter for live tweets on the game.

Kickoff in Turkey was at 10:00am ET against Partizan Belgrade. There were two completely different sides fielded in each half of the match. Winter employed a 4-3-3 formation in both halves.

First half lineup: Stefan Frei; Dan Gargan, Nana Attakora, Adrian Cann, Gianluca Zavarise; Jacob Peterson, Nick LaBrocca, Dwayne De Rosario; Nick Soolsma, Javier Martina, Sergio Gonzalez Areco

The first 45 minutes saw Nana open the scoring in the 6th minute. He headed the ball and put it in the back of the net off of a corner. Partizan came close to equalizing, but it was TFC who got some luck on the other end of the pitch when we were rewarded with a penalty after a foul on Gonzalez. Unfortunately, DeRo fluffed his lines and hit the post. To make things worse, Partizan themselves gained a penalty near the end of the half. Nemanja Tomic stepped up and scored from the spot to make it 1-1.

Second half lineup: Milos Kocic; Ty Harden, Doneil Henry, Emmanuel Gomez, Ashtone Morgan; King Gyan Osei, Nathan Sturgis, Oscar Cordon (Dwayne De Rosario 85’); Bas Ent, Maicon Santos, Joao Plata

The second half started slowly. Partizan hit the postin the 62nd minute and Bas Ent had a good chance for TFC when he was one-on-one with the keeper but shot wide. We seemed to have more chances than the Serbians in this half. Maicon came very close with a long range freekick. DeRo had to be brought on late in the game when Oscar Cordon picked up an injury. Doneil Henry made his mark on the game by managing to get sent off in a preseason friendly after receiving his second yellow card of the game. It’s not often a player gets sent off in a friendly like this, so Henry should be more careful next time and keep disciplined in order not to give the new coach any bad impressions. The final whistle blew and it ended 1-1 in Turkey. You can read the full match report here.

Bob de Klerk was interviewed after the game and had this to say:

“We are very satisfied with the way the game went. We had good chances and defended well against a team that is of a very high standard. The team has been training well but it is always good to see the players in a match to be able to assess them. Overall we are happy with the way things are going for us so far.”

A draw is a good result for a team that has barely played together. The most important thing though is not the result, but the way the team played on the pitch. It’s still early days, but the team seemed pleased with the performance and Winter now has a better idea of what some of these players are capable of. The team will have their next game on Sunday against a team that has yet to be announced.

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In other news, MLS has announced that they will hold an All-Star game on July 27 at Red Bull Arena. The opponent has not been announced yet, but they usually get good sides from top leagues, like Manchester United last year. We probably won’t see any of our players on show except for maybe DeRo who has the best shot at the side. Honestly though, it would be better if we had all of our players in Toronto staying fit and healthy rather than playing an exhibition match. If you happen to be in New York at the time, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check out the game. It should be a good one.

Finally, Stefan Frei recently sat down and had a chat with Gareth Wheeler. You can read the whole interview here. Dan Gargan will be involved in a live chat online on TorontoFC.com, so if you want to ask him a question, be sure to check it out on Thursday at 1:30pm ET.

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That’s it. All done and wrapped up, Toronto FC can move on from the disappointment of their 4th season and look forward to next year. At least they can be happy with a decent final game in which they beat DC United on the road 3-2. They even came from behind twice in the game before getting the lead mid-way through the 2nd half and were able to hang on for the win. Something that we wouldn’t have expected them to be able to do a few weeks ago.

So they were playing the last place team in the league, but all in all it was not a bad final game for TFC. Yes – they gave up a goal in the 2nd minute of the game, but they also scored the 2-2 tying goal 3 minutes into the second half. Yes, Julian de Guzman gave up a penalty kick with a hand ball allowing DC’s Jaime Moreno to score his all-time MLS leading 133rd goal on his final ever game, but Dwayne DeRosario also scored 2 goals to increase his career-best tally to 15 league goals. So, there were some milestones accomplished and both teams probably walked away fairly satisfied. For TFC’s part I think several of the other guys had good games including Maicon Santos (another great goal), Jacob Peterson (great pass to DeRo for the game winner, and also a header that almost scored), Nick LaBrocca (some nice passes including a assist on Maicon’s goal), and Nicholas Lindsey (had a few good crosses from the wing and helped set up the game winner). It actually looked like there are some guys on the squad who deserve another shot next year.

Check out the hi-lights below to see all the goals and the great passes that set them up:

If the video doesn’t work, go here instead: http://torontofc.neulion.com/tfc/console.jsp?catid=2&id=2585

Where do we go from here? Time will tell whether Nick Dasovic will retain his head coaching duties for next year or not, but I think he has been able to put some good lineups in the last couple games. Depending on which players return next season and which ones get the axe, I wouldn’t mind seeing a mid-field consisting of DeRo, Peterson, Lindsey, and de Guzman (he may be over-priced, but he might as well play). LaBrocca could sometimes get in the lineup too. I’d also like to see a strike partnership of a healthy Chad Barrett and Maicon Santos. For the defense, there still needs to be some work for the fullbacks, but hopefully the Attakora / Cann centre partnership can continue. The problem is, even if they can assemble a half-decent starting 11 next year, injuries can really kill this team because there is not much depth available to fill in. I think for the team to really compete without fizzling out in the 2nd half of next season, they still need to get some quality players as competent subs for the current guys, or preferably they find new starting players and make the current team the depth guys. I hope that makes sense. Basically I think the team played well for a good portion of this season and were capable of competing, but were too thin once the number of games increased and injuries started piling up.

Well, that’s enough analysis for now. Let’s see what happens over the next few days as the team holds final end-of-season meetings and starts making decisions about the management and coaching staff.

See you in 2011 Toronto FC…

Apathy has set in. TFC have been playing meaningless matches for almost a month now, both in MLS and the Concacaf Champions League. Last night they beat Arabe Unido 1-0 to finish 3rd in their group for CCL, which of course means they do not advance to the knock-out stage. But we’ve know this for awhile, so last night’s game held no interest for me. Only about 10,000 people showed up at BMO Field to see the game last night too, which suggests I’m not the only one feeling indifferent toward the team. Maybe indifferent isn’t the word – I still care about TFC and want them to do well, and I’m sure they want to play hard for their fans to try to end the season with a couple wins, but it’s just dragging on a little too long now. I’m used to clinging to the shred of hope that they can make the playoffs on the final game if all the results work in their favour. But with a couple weeks of meaningless games to sit through until we can finally put the season to bed and start thinking about how to fix it for next year, it just gets tiring to watch the games. It’s like trying to watch Toronto Maple Leaf games after the first 3rd of the hockey season. You can hope to see some good hockey, but really what is the point?

So, this coming Saturday, October 23rd is the official end to the season. TFC are travelling to play DC United – the same last place team that beat Toronto on September 11 at BMO Field. That was the game that put the nail in the coffin for Mo Johnston and Preki, and pretty much signalled the end of TFC’s playoff hopes for this year. Can Toronto win on their turf to finish up the season? Or will we be left with one last reason to hang our heads before the long off-season.

Despite all the doom and gloom lately, there is still reason to be proud of this club. MLS Commissioner Don Garber was in town recently and made some positive comments about the club’s importance to the league. I think his statements are quite valid. It seems like every expansion team to join MLS since TFC have generally followed Toronto’s model and have started out with a great group of fans and supporters clubs. With the exception of the other big city teams like L.A. and New York where there’s plenty of money to splash out on stars (and they are attractive cities for stars to want to live), it seems like the rest of the older MLS clubs don’t get the kind of support that Toronto, Seattle, and Philadelphia have gotten right out of the gate. Hopefully Vancouver, Portland, and Montreal will continue this trend as they join the league too. It’s great to know that Toronto may have played a big part in the growth and interest in MLS as a whole. This is the league we have to cheer for in Canada and the U.S., so we should be proud that TFC is a big part of it.

Who knows how many years it will take for Toronto to build a real winning team, but I would like to think there will still be fans around to support them. We will surely continue to voice our displeasure when the team doesn’t play well, but if they can get their act together, watch out – BMO Field will be a fortress once again.