LA Galaxy
Conference: West Position: 3rd
W-L-D: 2-1-2 (0 points, -1 goal differential)
Away Form: 1-1-1 (-2 goal differential)
Recent Form: DWLDW
Last Meeting: Toronto FC 0 – LA Galaxy 0 (June 26, 2010)

The big boys are coming to town. Toronto FC will play their first midweek game of the season against LA Galaxy at BMO Field. Try to spot all of the stars in the Galaxy. Look! There’s Beckham! And Donovan! Is that Angel! Oh look, the Rooney look-a-like that used to play for TFC! Currently, LA sit 3rd in the Western conference with 8 points from 5 games, while TFC are 4th in the East with 5 points from 4 games. This game will be the toughest challenge for the Reds yet. Will they be able to handle Los Galacticos?

LA Galaxy are another one of the original teams that have been in Major League Soccer since the opening season in 1996. They even made it all the way to the MLS Cup final in that first season. In their whole history, the Galaxy have won the Western Conference a total of seven times, more than any other team. They have three Supporters’ Shields under their belts and have won the MLS Cup twice while coming runners-up four times on top of that. Needless to say, they are winners, and they are certainly one of the top teams in the league still. Last season they were expected to make it all the way to the MLS Cup final after topping the Western Conference with the likes of English soccer star, David Beckham, and MLS All-Star, America’s own, Landon Donovan. It didn’t end up being their year as FC Dallas pulled off the upset in the Conference Final by beating LA 3-0 at the Home Depot Centre.

Last season, TFC had both Galaxy games early in the season, so it’s been a while since the two sides have met. LA’s last visit to BMO was all the way back in June of last year where the two sides played out a nil-nil draw. The stadium was pretty bare that day due to all of the chaos surrounding the G20 summit at the time. Beckham was nowhere to be seen, yet again, though he looks set to come to Canada on this year’s trip. Going into this season, there are high expectations for LA as ever. Beckham and Donovan are still with the club. Donovan has been struggling with fitness/tiredness, but it sounds like he will be fit and and ready for Wednesday’s game. Beckham looks like he will be playing as well and his presence is sure to cause us problems out wide and on set pieces, which are his specialty. He already has three assists this season. Even with those two players, the Galaxy still went and brought in another big name during the preseason: Juan Pablo Angel. He is one of the most consistent goalscorers in the league with 58 goals in 102 appearances for New York Red Bulls. If they can’t score on our leaky defense, I’ll be shocked.

In goal, LA have 2010 Goalkeeper of the Year, Donovan Ricketts, who is just the kind of crazy that I like to see in a keeper. They have solid defensive players as well in A.J. DeLaGarza and Omar Gonzalez. American fullback Todd Dunivant should also be starting on Wednesday. The Galaxy have played one more game than TFC but have conceded the same number of goals, though one was a controversial penalty against DC United over the weekend. I still think their defense will be tougher to crack than the ones we have played so far, but we have not been shy in attack and seem to have a few goals in us ourselves. With the TFC defense being so full of holes and LA having so many attacking options, we will really need to score at least a couple in this match if we are going to come away with anything.

LA Galaxy’s midfield and attack is a strong one with Landycakes and Becks, but there are other threats. Juninho was brought in on the offseason on loan from São Paulo and already has two goals to his name this season. Mike Magee scored his first goal last week against DC United off of a Beckham corner and is usually lively out on the left wing. Chris Birchall would normally get the start in midfield, but he picked up a straight red two weeks ago and I believe is still suspended for the TFC match. And how could I forget, the former TFC striker you either loved or hated, Chad Barrett. I’ll go on the record as being a pro-Chad girl myself while acknowledging he had his faults and was definitely being overpaid by TFC. He hasn’t scored yet for the Galaxy, but hey, when has that ever stopped an ex-player before? My guess is he will come back and score a hattrick because that’s how the universe likes to mess with Toronto FC.

Moving along, Toronto FC are currently on a three game unbeaten streak. Sure, there’s only one win in there, but it also means that Vancouver is still our only loss so far this season. We saw some glimpses of great play in our last game against San Jose, but our glaring defensive weaknesses were on show as well. Most of our players will be available so let’s see how wrong I can get the lineup this week:

Frei

Our attack seems to pretty much pick itself these days. I expect a front line of Martina, Gordon, and Stevanovic with Maicon in the hole. Gordon has scored in his last two outings and it would be nice to see him start a little streak. We did get Gordon when we traded Barrett to LA, so a goal against his former team would be quite fitting, don’t you think? Peterson has been doing well lately so we should see him with Tchani solidify the midfield. Frei is a no-brainer in goal, but choosing our backline is the trickiest part. We don’t seem to have settled on a back four, or at least one that’s played a really great game. Cann seems likeliest to be at centreback, but will it be Harden or Nana next to him? Nana’s been subbed off at halftime two games in a row now. That can’t be good news for him. Maybe he will start there again and eventually be subbed off, but I feel like Winter might just start with Harden. He’s put Harden at rightback a couple of times now, but I’m just go on a limb and predict that he will have Borman and Yourassowsky starting in the fullback positions. Actually, I was a bit surprised that Yourassowsky didn’t start the last game against the Earthquakes because I thought he generally looked good against Portland. Was this Winter’s way of sending him a message to keep his discipline in check, or did Winter just want to try something a bit different? I can’t say for certain, but I think we’ll see the comically-named leftback start on Wednesday.

As I mentioned before, this will be our toughest test so far this season, and that could be an understatement. LA Galaxy won the Supporters’ Shield last year, which means they finished top of the overall league table, not just their conference. They have big players and they want to go out and win every game. There aren’t many teams better than them in MLS (I’d say Real Salt Lake are the ones everyone should be terrified of), so we can’t make these silly individual errors or leave strikers in an acre of space in our third of the pitch. The Galaxy are exactly the type of team that can punish you for stuff like that. Toronto FC just played in San Jose on Saturday, will face the Galaxy on Wednesday, and then host DC United on this coming Saturday. It’s a jam-packed week and we have to step up our game if we are going to get any points against LA. Can TFC rise to the challenge against the stars of the Galaxy? Can our defense go 90 minutes without giving the fans collective heart failure? Will David Beckham finally get his butt to Toronto? Will Victoria be with him? And can she give me some style tips? All these questions will be answered soon enough so be sure to watch!

Toronto FC v LA Galaxy will be broadcast on GOL TV Canada Live at 8:0pm ET

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San Jose Earthquakes
Conference: West Position: 5th
W-L-D: 1-1-1 (0 points, +1 goal differential)
Home Form: 0-1-1 (-1 goal differential)
Recent Form: DWL
Last Meeting: Toronto FC 2 – San Jose Earthquakes 3 (September 25, 2010)

Toronto FC are back on the road again. We’re flying to sunny California to meet up with San Jose Earthquakes, one of the clubs that has been in MLS since the league’s inception in 1996 (then known as “San Jose Clash”). Currently, TFC have taken 4 points from 3 games (not too shabby) and sit 6th in the Eastern Conference. Or, if you will, joint-third on points! San Jose have garnered the same number of points, but they have found more success on the road than at home so far.

San Jose has seen many changes over the years, from their roots in the NASL to the franchise move to Houston (the team in Houston ended up as an expansion team in 2006 and San Jose’s original team records did not carry over). San Jose were on hiatus during the 2006 and 2007 seasons because of the franchise move, but returned to MLS in 2008 under their former manager, legendary Canadian Frank Yallop. Since the opening MLS season, San Jose has won 2 MLS Cups, both under Frank Yallop, in 2001 and 2003. In 2005 they won the Supporter Shield in 2005 under coach Dominic Kinnear. Last season, despite just barely making the playoffs, they managed to make it to the Eastern Conference Finals (yes, Eastern. Don’t ask) where they lost to eventual MLS Cup winners Colorado Rapids.

This season has seen San Jose make an uneven start, but there are still hopes that the strong finish to the end of their 2010 campaign will carry over into this season. On the other hand, some have cautioned that they could end up back on the low end of the table like they were before their good run to the playoffs. They certainly are a team that could build on any momentum and with a recent away win at FC Dallas and a 2-2 tie last weekend against Seattle, San Jose will be eager to grab their first home win of the season against a Toronto team that is still trying to find its feet. The last time the Reds played at Buck Shaw Stadium, we came away with 3 points after winning 3-1. They greatly outnumbered us in shots, but Stefan Frei came up big, as usual, with several key saves. DeRo struck twice and grabbed his second goal when he was in clear on an empty net. Chad Barrett also scored for TFC while Ramiro Corrales claimed the lone San Jose goal of the night. Our record isn’t bad away to San Jose; in the three games we’ve played there we’ve won twice and drawn once. If we can keep our good fortunes there going, it would be great, but I think it will be a tougher task this year, particularly since our side has yet to achieve real consistency within their play, not to mention we just lost DeRo who was our best and most influential player.

The Earthquakes are still being headed up by coach Frank Yallop. He is well-known and respected within the Canadian soccer community and has 52 caps for the Canadian National Team. He also coached the Men’s National Team from 2004-2006 after leaving his first stint at San Jose. He was inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame in 2005. Dwayne De Rosario, our former captain who has now joined New York Red Bulls, played under Yallop for the national team and during the Earthquakes successful cup-winning seasons. Alan Gordon, Ty Harden, and Nathan Sturgis all played under Yallop when he coached LA Galaxy from 2006-2007. You can see, there is a lot of history there and several players that have crossed paths. Most recently, TFC did business with the Earthquakes when they traded Sam Cronin for allocation money in June 2010. I still can’t believe we made that trade. Cronin was well-liked by many people and thought to be a great pickup in the 2009 MLS Superdraft. The only reason he was let go is because he wasn’t a “Preki-type” player. He’s done well ever since he joined San Jose. I can see him being a great player in this league for years to come and it really annoys me that we just let him go for no good reason. He’ll be one to keep an eye on this weekend. I’m sure he’d love to score against us!

I can’t talk about the Earthquakes without mentioning Chris Wondolowski. He had always been one of those players that played second fiddle on his teams and struggled with injury at times. It was in 2010 when he really hit top form and enjoyed a fantastic season with the Earthquakes. He scored 18 goals during the 2010 season, including a hattrick at BMO, and won the MLS Golden Boot. His goals were a major reason why San Jose made it to the playoffs last season. He’s continued scoring this season by scoring twice against FC Dallas. His last 12 goals for the club, stretching back to last season, set a new record as being the only goals scored for San Jose. In other words, only Wondolowski was on target for San Jose as he scored their last 12 goals in MLS. That came to an end last weekend when Khari Stephenson and Simon Dawkins netted against Seattle to become the Earthquakes first scorers in months not named Wondolowski. Wondo is still going to be their biggest threat so our defense needs to stay tight on him and our midfield needs to cut off his supply.

In defense, the Earthquakes look to have a solid enough backline, but it was exposed against Seattle last weekend. San Jose captain and veteran defender Ramiro Corrales will likely start in the centre of defense. They seem to play three centrebacks so we could see Jason Hernandez or Brandon McDonald joining Corrales along with Ike Opara, the talented, young 22 year old defender. In the middle of the park will be Cronin with another big player in Bobby Convey. He has recently reminded people of his talents that had been subdued in recent years by enjoying a great season with San Jose in 2010 and racking up 10 assists in the league. He can be a real terror on the flank, which is bad news for us because we seem to really be exposed defensively out wide. If it’s Gargan who starts on Saturday, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Moving on to the Reds, there have been so many changes to the TFC roster, it’s been hard to keep up at times. DeRo is officially out and Tony Tchani, Danleigh Borman, and Dicoy Williams are in. With all of the new additions, it is difficult for me to guess the starting eleven, but here goes:

Frei

I believe Yourassowsky is back from suspension and will be available. He’s our best option at leftback and did a really good job with overlapping runs, so I think he’s still a starter. If Nana’s fit and healthy I think he will start next to Cann. They are still adjusting to the new style of play with the high line and playing from the back, but they are still the best options we have. The more they play together the better because they have a good understanding of each other from last season and can slowly improve with time. I’ve put Williams at rightback because Gargan seems like he’s been moved to the bench after some less than stellar performances in our opening games. Frei, of course, starts in goal.

As for our attack, I’m interested to see what Winter puts out. He threw Tchani into the mix right away against Chivas USA so I can definitely see him starting on Saturday. I can’t see deGuzman starting the game, what with all the travel and him only just coming back from injury. I think most of us were surprised to see him on the bench, let alone play 45 minutes last week. If we see him, I’m guessing it will be in the second half. Stevanovic, Martina, and our new captain Maicon are all shoo-ins to start. Peterson has been holding his own and should find himself in the midfield again. Gordon grabbed his first goal last week and provides us with a big, strong physical presence that gives us a different option up top. It looks pretty close to our strongest eleven. We really need to take our chances when we get them. In other words, we might not get a lot of chances, so opportunities like the one Maicon royally screwed up last week cannot be missed. Our defense is still our weakest area, but our attacking players need to get back and help out when they can. With DeRo leaving, we no longer have that one guy to turn to when the chips are down. Any success we have on the pitch will truly be a team effort. The faster our guys can start clicking and improving their understanding of each other, the better our performances will get. I think this will be a tough game. San Jose will score, I’m pretty sure of that, though chances of us scoring on the road are better today than they have been in previous seasons. Our record on the road in MLS is quite poor, but what we have on our side is our record against San Jose in their stadium and the fact that they haven’t been great at home thus far. Hopefully, we can get a decent result from this match, or at the very least, see some improvement in our general play. Either would be satisfying for me.

Toronto FC @ San Jose Earthquakes will be broadcast on GolTV Canada Live at 10:30pm ET

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Don’t forget to follow Toronto FC Offside on Twitter for the latest news, links, and updates: www.twitter.com/TFCOffside

Chivas USA
Conference: West Position: 8th
W-L-D: 0-2-0 (0 points, -2 goal differential)
Away Form: N/A
Recent Form: LL
Last Meeting: Chivas USA 3 Toronto FC 0 (Oct. 9, 2010)

Finally, TFC face a team that has been in MLS for more than a week. On Saturday, we will be hosting Chivas USA who are in their seventh MLS season. If the name “Chivas” rings a bell it’s because it is the nickname of the Mexican club C.D. Guadalajara. Both Chivas clubs have the same owner and Chivas Guadalajara is considered the parent club to Chivas USA.

Chivas USA has enjoyed success in the past under current USA head coach Bob Bradley and a certain Predrag Radosavljevic, who you may recognize as “Preki”, TFC’s coach last season before he was sacked along with our former sith lord GM Mo Johnston. Bradley took Chivas to the playoffs in their second season after placing 3rd in the Western Conference. Preki took over for Chivas’ third season where he led the Rojiblancos to a 1st place finish in the Western Conference. They went on to the playoffs, but failed to advance past the conference semis.

Recently, things have not been as rosy for Chivas. They failed to make the playoffs last season and ended up finishing dead last in the Western Conference with 28 points and a -14 goal difference. Only DC United had a worse record in the 2010 season (22 points, -26 goal difference). The last time we played them at BMO was way back in August 2010 when Preki faced his old team for the first time since he left them with a squad in much need of repair. That day saw Chad Barrett score along with Nana Attakora who scored a goal after a classic Delap-style long throw from Dan Gargan that we actually used to good effect for once. Chivas managed to gain a penalty after Adrian Cann got called for a handball in the box. They scored with their chance, but the game ended 2-1 in our favour. Stefan Frei had a Man of the Match performance after making several great saves to keep our butts in the game (a recurring theme in 2010) and Maicon Santos got to face his old team after leaving for Toronto with Preki. He ended up going off injured early in the second half, which, incidentally, was another recurring theme in 2010.

Things were good then for our beloved Reds. We were on an unbeaten streak and Prekiball was working its tedious magic. As you know, the season ended up unraveling into chaos and we even ended up losing 3-0 to Chivas at the Home Depot Centre in October under interim manager Nick Dasovic. (Wow, how many prepositions did I manage to shove into that last sentence? English teachers beware!) This season we are trying to change our fortunes and so are Chivas. They just announced this past week that Robin Fraser has officially been handed the role of Head Coach. He will be Chivas’ sixth coach in seven years. Sounds like another team we know. If we weren’t already similar enough, we even did some transfer business with them when we traded Nick Labrocca for Alan Gordon before the start of the season.

“The Goats” unloaded a few big names in the offseason including American international Jonathan Bornstein and the aforementioned Gordon. Coach Fraser wants to bring things back-to-basics with Chivas and keep things simple while strengthening key areas such as defense. He’s brought in veterans like Heath Pearce and Jimmy Conrad to solidify the backline, however, Conrad is currently out injured which is a big blow for them. They will also be missing Paulo Nagamura in the midfield. It seems the Goats’ injury problems of last season seem to be haunting them again. They also have had their young, up-and-coming players away with the US U20 National Team. They may be getting back their most promising defender, Zarek Valentin, from the National squad, but they are still looking pretty thin at the back, which is good news for us.

Up front for Chivas will likely be Justin Braun who was their top scorer last season with 9 goals. He was struggling with injury in preseason, so he might not be in top form, but he is still their likeliest threat going forward. Other players to look out for will be Alejandro Moreno, who was with his national team Venezuela this past week and scored a goal against Jamaica, and Blair Gavin, who may or may not play after picking up an injury in Chivas’ last match. It should be noted that Chivas have lost both of their games so far this season, and both of those games were at home. If they have that kind of record after two games at home, I have to think they won’t be much better away from home. On top of all that, in their opening matches against Sporting Kansas and Colorado they conceded 4 goals and only scored 2, and both of those goals were scored by defenders in their season opener. On Tuesday, the rojiblancos lost away, 2-0 to Portland Timbers in a US Open Cup qualifier. Basically, 2011 hasn’t treated them much better than 2010 and this is a great opportunity for us to grab another three points at home against a weak team while we are still finding our feet.

Last week we picked up a great result at home against Portland Timbers by scoring two great goals and keeping a clean sheet. We’re now up against a team that’s been around for a while in MLS, but has gotten off to a terrible start and is looking vulnerable. Most of our key players are fit and ready to go this week so our chances of winning are pretty good as long as we don’t do anything too stupid and Frei comes up with a couple of those match-winning saves that he manages to rustle up each game. As usual, here’s my best guess at a starting lineup for the Reds:

Frei

I’ll be honest, I’m doing a lot of guesswork here based on who has already started this season and who seems to be doing well so far. Frei is a no-brainer in net. I put Cann and Harden in the centre of defense simply because we are not completely sure if Nana will be fit enough to start. If he is, expect him to be in the starting eleven in place of Harden. Gargan is in purely for lack of options, though Winter may opt for new signing Dicoy Williams, but I am not sure if he has experience at rightback. Yourassowsky is suspended after picking up 2 yellows against Portland so TFC Academy product, Ashtone Morgan, gets his chance to start and show us what he’s got. DeRo and Peterson seem to have solidified their spots, but Sturgis has struggled to make an impact so I put him on the bench for Stevanovic. Up front I suspect we will see Maicon or Gordon up front with one of them playing on the wing and Martina playing in the other wide role. That’s a hell of a lot of attack on the pitch, so now that I think about it, I’m probably quite off in my predictions, but we’ll see. We definitely need to see some better ball retention in the middle of the park. Julian isn’t expected to be back until mid-April, so the players we field until then need to show some improvement. We can score goals with this team, but our defense is still shaky and prone to sitting to deep and not moving the ball out from the back quickly enough. We also tend to be exposed on quick counterattacks. These are all things that should make for an entertaining yet nerve-wracking afternoon!

I’m doing my best to juggle two blogs at once (I also write for Arsenal Offside), but I will be calling in reinforcements this weekend in the form of Saurabh from Hoffenheim Offside who will write up the review from the game.

Toronto FC v Chivas USA will be broadcast on TSN Live at 1:00pm ET

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Don’t forget to follow Toronto FC Offside on Twitter for the latest news, links, and updates: www.twitter.com/TFCOffside

Portland Timbers
Conference: West Position: 8th
W-L-D: 0-1-0 (0 points, -2 goal differential)
Away Form: 0-1-0 (-2 goal differential)
Recent Form: L
Last Meeting: N/A

It’s the 2011 home opener for Toronto FC and who do we face but another expansion team. After playing the Whitecaps in their first ever MLS game, we will be hosting Portland Timbers this weekend in their second ever game in MLS. We made some history in our last match since it featured Vancouver’s first ever MLS goal and the game ended up being Vancouver’s first ever MLS win. I don’t know about you, but I would like very much not to make any of Portland’s history books on Saturday.

So who are these Portland lads anyway? Last season they finished 3rd in the USL Conference of USSF Division 2. Their overall record in the league was 13-7-10 with a goal difference of +11. Not too bad considering the awful streak they had in May, going on an 8 game winless streak whilst competing on two fronts. They made it to the playoffs in post season, facing notable rivals Vancouver Whitecaps. Vancouver got the best of that tie and Portland did not end up progressing from the playoff quarterfinals.

Portland have been as busy as you would expect during the offseason. Last August, the Timbers appointed former Houston Dynamo Assistant Coach John Spencer as Head Coach and he is at the helm for Portland’s inaugural MLS season. He has emphasized youth, athleticism, and and mental toughness as fundamental to his team. He has been described as funny and encouraging as a coach and seems to be well liked by the team. This season will no doubt be a huge test to see if he has what it takes to be a top coach.

The Timbers have made a fair number of trades in the months before the start of the 2011 season. They brought in Jeremy Hall from New York Red Bulls as a third round pick in the SuperDraft. Jack Jewsbury was acquired from Sporting Kansas and should provide some experience in the midfield. Other notable midfield additions include second overall SuperDraft pick, Darlington Nagbe and Sal Zizzo, formerly of Chivas USA.

In goal, Portland has Troy Perkins who faced the huge task of keeping out goals for DC United last season. Needless to say, that didn’t go to well considering United’s leaky defense. Perkins and the United defense conceded 47 goals last season, so Perkins will be hoping for a fresh start with the Timbers and another chance at proving to doubters that he can provide safe hands. As for the Timbers’ defense, they have been solid, particularly in their last two seasons in USL. MLS, however, is a whole other kettle of fish. They’ve already let in 3 goals against 2010 MLS Cup Champions Colorado Rapids. Maybe they are stronger than that game suggests, but with TFC’s focus being attacking this season, we should really have a go at their backline and make sure we test them much more than we did the Whitecaps in our last match.

Portland have kept some of their old team from USL last season. It’s a positive thing that they have players that know each other and have experience playing together, but some of them have not played in MLS, which could be a detriment. As with most expansion teams, you don’t really know how things will turn out until you see them play a few games. They don’t look strong enough to be challenging for a playoff spot, but hey, you never really know in this league. Their biggest threat to us in our upcoming matchup will likely be former MLS All-Star Kenny Cooper. Cooper enjoyed his best years in MLS when he played for FC Dallas from 2006 to 2009. In 2008, he scored 18 goals for FC Dallas, but unfortunately his time with the club was littered with injuries and he left to go abroad in 2009. Now he’s back with Portland ready to make his comeback in MLS. He scored Portland’s first MLS goal ever in their last game against Colorado, which ended 3-1 in favour of the Rapids. That shows he still has something left in those boots. Whether he can replicate his form of days past is unknown, but he is big, strong, as well as good with the ball at his feet, so our defenders need to keep a close eye on him.

From dazzling kit unveilings to club logo controversy, this Portland team is certainly doing what it can to make its mark in Major League Soccer. They will be an interesting team to watch, and certainly people should tune in to see their games against their fierce rivals Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps. Those should be exciting and intense matches that will be great for the league. Right now, they have lost their only MLS game played 3-1, but it was away from home and against the MLS Cup Champions. They may be sitting in 8th place in the Western Conference, but they surely will not want to start the season with two losses in a row, so we need to be ready for a tough game at BMO.

Meanwhile, things are just peachy in the TFC camp. Wait, did I say peachy? I meant miserable. We lost 4-2 in Vancouver and the fans are frustrated and restless. And who can blame them? How many clubs feel like they are in their expansion year 5 seasons in a row? It looks like BMO won’t be packed on Saturday like days of old, which should wake up some of the big guys in the head office. I think, as long as the support that shows up backs the team in full voice it will be ok. Winter mentioned how he is looking forward to having a twelfth man and I think it would be great if BMO gave him and the new team a hearty welcome.

Even though we enjoyed most of the possession in our previous game, we failed to do much with it. Our defense looked shaky, which is an understatement, but we still managed to score two goals away from home. It’s obvious though that we’re still smarting from our opening game loss. Here’s what Adrian Cann had to say about it:

“Everyone was off. We weren’t on the same wavelength; communication-wise, the organization, everything was off. Marking, closing down the space, closing down the man, passing off the man, sequence. All-in-all it was off. It was our first game but at the same time, you have to learn from your mistakes. I think moving forward, we know what we did wrong. We went through everything. I think the players know what they did wrong. I think moving forward you need to improve on the mistakes and build from that.”

I’m not sure if we can play much worse than we did against the Whitecaps. Dear god, I hope we can’t play much worse. In any case, I expect to see an improvement from the team on Saturday and a rethink of our backline. There doesn’t seem to be any new injuries and de Guzman is still out for a little while. Alan Gordon has finally sorted out his passport issues and joined up with the team in Toronto. Here’s my best guess at a starting lineup.

Frei

Ok, so it’s pretty much what I guessed last week’s lineup would be. I only had two picks wrong with Yourassowsky and Zavarise. Frankly, Cann was terrible as a leftback so I am hoping that we see him back together with Nana in the centre of our defense. Harden had a mare, so we won’t be missing him too much if he doesn’t start. I know Yourassowsky is a bit raw still (get your mind out the gutter!) but he has to be the best option we have so far at leftback. The Gargan didn’t have a particularly good game in our last outing, but we don’t have a lot of depth at fullback, so I expect he will be starting. The rest of the team picks itself a bit. Soolsma started previously, but was taken off at halftime due to quite the vestigial performance. He may start again, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say Zavarise might get the nod ahead of him. DeRo and Frei keep their spots as always. Maicon scored a great goal for us last week and I think does well for us up front plus Gordon only just joined up with the team, so I think we will see Maicon lead the line again.

We really need a win, and what better time to do it than at BMO against an expansion team? If we lose, or even draw, I suspect the mood around TFC will be more down than ever. I believe we have a good management team now that needs a bit of time, but we need to see some shining lights of progress this weekend to give us all a bit more hope.

Come on you Reds!

Toronto FC v Portland Timbers will be broadcast on TSN Live at 2:00pm ET

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Don’t forget to follow Toronto FC Offside on Twitter for the latest news, links, and updates: www.twitter.com/TFCOffside

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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IN:

Nathan Sturgis – 23 year old American midfielder. Was with the Sounders last season playing often in a defensive role. Good for dead ball situations.
Nick Soolsma – 23 year old Dutch forward signed from VV Young Boys where he scored 6 goals in 11 appearances.
Javier Martina – 24 year old Dutch forward who came through the ranks of the Ajax Youth Academy under Winter and de Klerk. Spent time on loan last year with HFC Haarlem. Has impressed in preseason with his quick direct play down the wings and deliveries into the box.
Elbekay Bouchiba – 32 year old Dutch midfielder who spent a large chunk of his career in the Dutch Eredivise before spending the last couple of years in Qatar with the club Al-Wakrah
Gianluca Zavarise – 24 year old Canadian midfielder. Has been on trial with the club during the preseason. Has now been signed from Iraklis FC of the Greek Super League.
Alan Gordon – 29 year old Striker known by Toronto fans as the guy who broke Adrian Cann’s nose last season. Traded from Chivas for Nick Labrocca. 16 goals, 12 assists in 99 apps for LA Galaxy. Can be used as an effective target man.

OUT:

O’Brian White – Traded to Vancouver likely because of his high salary and complete inability to score goals as a striker.
Joseph Nane – Traded to Columbus. Had his chances last season under Preki, but never really impressed.
Gabe Gala – Released. The man who scored that one precious goal for TFC in that friendly with Real Madrid.
Martin Saric – Released. Always tried out on the pitch, but the guy was a walking red card at times. A real Preki-type player.
Maxim Usanov - Released. Featured a lot last season, but nothing special.
Raivis Hscanovics – Released, presumably for lack of vowels.
Mista - Worst DP signing ever? I think he scored once for us in the CCL but ended up being ineffective or injured the rest of the time. Said some very nice things about Toronto in a recent Spanish interview.
Nick Garcia – Option declined. Did better in 2009 than in 2010, but supporters really couldn’t forget 2009 and the fact that he was brought in through a Mo connection. He provided experience and was a good dressing room influence from what I hear. Biggest problem was that he cost way too much under the salary cap.
Fuad Ibrahim – Option declined. Never showed enough beyond promise.
Amadou Sanyang – Option declined. Another player that got a lot of playing time under Preki. Technical skill underwhelming.
Chad Barrett – Traded to LA Galaxy much to my chagrin. Perhaps he wasn’t best suited to the new system that TFC will be employing this season. Getting rid of him freed up a lot of cap space.
Emmanuel Gomez – Waived. Ben Knight seemed to like him.
Nick Labrocca – Traded to Chivas USA. A bit surprising as he seemed to be doing well in preseason and was generally a good team player. I guess Winter just didn’t know how to fit him into his new side or didn’t see enough in him to keep him around.

DRAFTED:

Demitrius Omphroy – 21 year old defender; Just picked up a knock in training but nothing serious; SuperDraft Pick #26
Matt Gold – 22 year old Midfielder; Might be on the outs; SuperDraft Pick #43
Joao Plata – 18 year old Forward; Played a couple of games but might be too lightweight for MLS; SuperDraft Pick #49
J.C. Banks – 21 year old Midfielder; Supplemental Draft Pick #8 (status unknown)
Spencer Thompson – 22 year old Midfielder; Supplemental Draft Pick #26 (status unknown)
Scott Rojo – 21 year old Midfielder; Supplemental Draft Pick#44 (status unknown)

These are players who were chosen in a draft this year but have not yet signed a contract with the club.

TRIALISTS:

Mikael Yourassowsky – 28 year old Defender; has played a ton in preseason and very likely to join the club
Andrew Ornoch – 25 year old Midfielder
Dicoy Williams – 24 year old Defender
Ivo de Heus – 22 year old Midfielder
Jamal Gay – 22 year old Forward
Joevin Jones – 19 year old Defender

Players who are currently on trial with TFC. Could either be offered a contract or be released.

ACADEMY PLAYERS:

Matt Stinson – 18 year old Midfielder
Oscar Cordon – 18 year old Midfielder
Keith Makubuya – 18 year old Forward
Kevin Aleman – 17 year old Midfielder
Ashtone Morgan – 20 year old Defender

These are all players from the TFC Academy (who have spent time training with squad during preseason)

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Right now, this is who we have available in the squad:

Goalkeepers: Stefan Frei, Milos Kocic

Defenders: Nana Attakora, Adrian Cann, Dan Gargan, Ty Harden, Doneil Henry

Midfielders: Julian deGuzman, Dwayne DeRosario, Nicolas Lindsay, Jacob Petersen, Nathan Sturgis, Elbekay Bouchiba

Forwards: Maicon Santos, Nick Soolsma, Javier Martina, Alan Gordon

There are still probably a few more players to come in soon, but this is the core squad we have at the moment. Add to that our Academy players and it doesn’t look too bad. DeRo seems to be content with the situation and by all accounts is ironing out the details on his contract (thank god). Winter sees him as an important part of the team and understands his role and significance, so I think any discontent has currently been muted. Cann has caved and come back to TFC. Winter says that he would like an apology for his behaviour, which I think is fair enough, especially considering Cann didn’t even get the raise he wanted. (How great is it to see some assertiveness from the management without them being total douchebags? Refreshing.) The fact is that Mo probably promised him something that hasn’t been delivered now that he’s gone. He’s done it before with other players and it’s always been a headache. Mo really is the gift that keeps on giving, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see one or two more contract disputes from some of those signed under his reign. Nana is also in contract negotiations. It seems he wants to wait until he sees how the new management team pans out and whether TFC makes any progress before committing his future to the team. Fair enough. TFC can be a real circus at times so I can’t really blame him for showing a bit of reluctance. Hopefully, the season will go well enough that he sticks around for a few more seasons.

There’s a decent crop of players there to choose from, even if we are currently lacking a bit of depth. Here’s a possible starting XI from the players available:

Frei

I should add a couple of caveats. Number one: This is not necessarily the team that will start against Vancouver. This is just me trying to see what our possible team would look like. Number two: we have some guys injured that may not feature right away and we might be bringing in more. I think this lineup gives us a good sense of what we can expect right now for the Vancouver game (except for injured players). It looks decent with a bit of pace on the wings. Maicon is strong as a frontman. DeRo still looks sharp even after all these years. Petersen has looked good ever since Preki lift. Not bad. If they can gel there is definite potential that can only get better with some smart additions. What do you think?

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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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Usually I’m hoping for news about TFC anytime. Such is my luck that it ends up being bad news. It seems that Adrian Cann, our 30 year old Canadian centreback that joined TFC just last year, has left training camp in South Carolina and headed back to Toronto. He has rejected a new contract offer and is, I’m assuming, still in negotiations with respect to his contract. At the moment, he is in the second year of a four year deal. Last season he earned $65,342 so he presumably wants more than that. How much more is uncertain, but I’m sure he’s not demanding some crazy astronomical wage. At the same time, this is really bad timing for one of our players to enter contract disputes with the management. I’m sure we can thank Mo for some of the issues we’ve been having with existing players’ contracts. Anyway, I’m hoping this is resolved quickly, very quickly because First Kick is just around the corner. Cann seems happy enough in Toronto. Last season he was even awarded (surprisingly) TFC’s MVP of the year over Dwayne De Rosario and Stefan Frei. Cann would be good to have around for experience and he works really well with Nana at the back. I think he was a big part in why Nana did so well last season. Even Nana says he was important in his progression. However, at the end of the day, it is up to Winter and the rest of our management to put a price on him. He’s on the wrong side of 30 now and our team (what’s left of it anyway) is looking much younger than in previous years. Cann is a decent player, but not irreplaceable. I think it would be best to keep him, but obviously I don’t know how much he wants and how much TFC are willing to shell out to keep him. I also don’t know how well he is fitting into the new system. I should also add that he is one of maybe 5 defenders that we actually have signed on our roster. There are a lot of factors at play, which only makes this matter more urgent. The sooner this is resolved, the better.

If you didn’t think our squad was thin enough, TFC have also waived Emmanuel Gomez. He was put on a waiver list, but as I understand, no club went in for any of the players listed in the end. The 20 year old Gambian defender made 9 appearances for Toronto FC in the 2009 MLS season. Last year he suffered a knee injury that saw him miss the 2010 season. With Gomez off the roster, it opens up an international spot, which I’m sure Winter had in mind when he released him. Hopefully we’ll see his spot filled soon because I think I can count on my two hands the players we have signed up and we don’t even have a clear picture of the starting eleven. Is anyone else getting flashbacks of last season when we were still bringing in players even after the season started? Sigh.

Rounding out today’s TFC news, our interim coach from last season and new TFC scout Nick Dasovic is being inducted into the Soccer Hall of Fame. Congratulations to Daso!

First Kick is in 16 days and we still need a proper derby name! “Canadian Derby” seems a bit lame. Maybe “Great Canadian Derby” How about the “Great White North Derby”? Yeah, I know, I’m lame too. Two more weeks. I’m excited!

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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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