Who Are These Guys?

By: Colman O'Meara | August 29th, 2008

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the promises I delivered about contributing regular articles and even live blogs during my time in Germany were as empty as…well as a net after Cunningham has had a breakaway. The live blogs were not possible for various reasons:

Colorado: I couldn’t get a consistent feed (just like the TFC strikers, but thankfully one of them buried a deadly set piece)

New York: I was on an 8 hour train ride home from Freiburg, where I watched the season opener of my other team, 1860 Munich. Thank God I missed TFC on that day.

New England: The game started at 1:30, and I hadn’t slept the night before. I had enough trouble keeping myself awake for the game, without blogging about it. The boys’ effort on the field at least sent me to bed happy. Rohan Ricketts’ finishing – not so much. But there’s nothing wrong with a point against the best team in the league.

Thankfully, Nicholas has kept the faithful readers of the TFC blog updated during my absence. He brought you the news that the aforementioned Jeff Cunningham has taken his sulk elsewhere. And there was much rejoicing.

Maurice Edu has also left the team for ~~warmer pastures~~ Scotland’s Glasgow Rangers. While I would have been happy about this a couple months ago, Edu has been playing better of late, and we will struggle to fill the gap he has left in the middle of the field. However, I still feel this is a great move as the incoming $ 5 million may be invested in buying real grass for BMO. Our turf has been a huge factor in our failed attempts at various big name players over the past 2 seasons, and it is great to see that management has understood that this is a problem.

Finally, the club released Laurent Robert. I must admit that this came as a shock to me. Especially when he was replaced with a player from Bolton’s reserve team, Johann Smith. While Robert never fully lived up to the hype, I thought he was still effective on the left wing. His free kick ability is also no secret. He has since signed for Greek club Larisa, as Peter from the Olympiacos blog hastened to tell me yesterday morning. Oh well. Au revoir, Laurent.

In other news, we have signed the biggest asshole in MLS, Carlos Ruiz. You may remember Ricardo Clark of the Dynamo kicking him in the head last year. However, this wasn’t condemned in the American media as one would expect – instead it was celebrated. Ruiz is known to be the biggest diver in the league, and an all-round dirty player. However, he is now our asshole, so we must love him. Welcome Carlos, and may you bang in the goals galore.

Meanwhile, two games against LA’s Chivas USA await the revamped TFC. We play at the toolbox (or Home Depot Centre) this weekend, and then come home to face them once more on September 6th. For an in depth preview of the away match on Saturday, return here later this afternoon.

I’m busy moving into York University at the moment, as my first year starts next week. Any readers from York on here? It would be awesome to get together to watch the games.

Until tomorrow - Come on you Reds!

P.S. The photo? Your favourite blogger spreading the word of TFC at a Bayern Munich practice.