They’re killing me.

The men’s national team.

Today they lost 2-1 in Montreal to Honduras. This loss makes making the world cup in 2010 really really difficult. We’re not dead.

Dale Mitchell. What are you doing?

First off – why didn’t you start Jim Brennan? WHy? Why why?
Klukowski? No – you should have gone with Brennan.

For TFC it’s a tale of two bad things.

A) Amado Guevara helps Honduras beat Canada. It’s bad for TFC. Bad for Canada.

B) Jim Brennan sits on the Canadian bench until the 86th minute or so. He also missed playing for TFC — and missed most of the Canada match.

I was crazy mad at the officials.

How is it you let the Hondurans spend most of the second half faking injuries on the pitch – then only add 4 minutes of injury time.

Then — in injury time — let another Honduran fake an injury for over a minute (so much that a stretcher is brought onto the field and he’s carried off) and then end the game 17 seconds after four minutes.

It took a helluva lot longer than 17 seconds to get that guy off the field for his fake injury.

Thus – a guy – in injury time – faked an injury and ensured that the clock would run out and Canada would run out of time to tie this thing. Oh it was horrible.

It was another example of CONCACAF refs making terrible decisions.

Canada should be used to it by  now.

For getting goals called back in the Gold Cup, to routinely getting killed by CONCACAF refs, it’s not surprising.

It still hurts, but it’s not surprising.

I was just dying watching this team. And then my friend Brian gave me perspective.

You have to play above it.

You KNOW you’re gonna get a crap CONCACAF ref when you play CONCACAF games.

You KNOW the Hondurans are going to waste time when they’re ahead, fake injuries. (thanks again Amado Guevera for getting Patrice Bernier kicked out of the game)

You KNOW they’re going to HACK DOWN TO THE GROUND every chance they get when Julian DeGuzman has hte ball.

It made me sick to hear Craig Forrest saying that DeGuzman was having a rough game – you would be too if every time you touched the ball some guy took your legs out from under you.

Kudos to De Guzman for getting up and continuing to play. He didn’t pull a Guevara and fake out and injury.

It was rough to watch this game.

For Canada to make it, they’re going to have to play above all of this. They got screwed by the ref AT HOME in MONTREAL. It’s only going to get worse on the road. And there’s no time to waste — they’re in Mexico on Wednesday.

What was the final score?

Watched an early morning sports show where they showed last night’s LA Galaxy highlights. Actually they showed the David Beckham highlight package.

We were treated to seeing his kick sail over the net. We saw how his (unidentified by the commentators) teammate missed connecting on a corner kick from Beckham. We saw another Beckham shot sail wide of the goal. We saw how David Beckham was hacked to the ground by a Chivas player and all the Galaxy ran to his defence.

They were also nice enough to show Kevin Harmse get headbutted by a Chivas player. (Harmse being the only other player identified on the pitch besides DB.)

They cut to the final score. 3-0 Chivas. Galaxy didn’t even score.

I’m not arguing that we should have seen a Chivas highlight package (I’m not a Chivas fan – I even skipped the Chivas TFC game last weekend to play in a Softball tournament.) — i’m just a little surprised that Beckham’s presence was the total sports story and the result of the game he played in was irrelevant.

Post-Beckham

Very quick post about the Beckham visit to Toronto and his game against the FC.

The FC had chances. Lots of them. Lombardo broke through. Welsh broke in alone late in the game. Samuel looked good at times. Brennan made some good runs. The fans were up for a good time. And, even though they’re made in China, the Toronto FC hats they handed out before the game are excellent.

Dave sat on the bench. That’s about it.

The other opening game…

The same day that over 20,000 fans and I took in Toronto FCs second game at BMO Field, just north of the city another team was playing its first game of the season.

Until this year, the Toronto Lynx were the highest level of professional soccer in the city.

Now they’ve moved the team down to the professional development level.

To be fair, i haven’t been to a Lynx game in a couple of years. We went quite often in the late 90s and early 2000s – but stopped after the team moved up to Centennial Stadium.

There were die hard lynx fans too, you know. A ton of the guys who make up the supporter’s section at BMO are former lynx fans. They’ve changed their shirts from yellow to red and white, but many of the songs are the same, albeit instead of lynx the chant is now “TFC”.

Anyhow, this isn’t an article to lament the loss of the Lynx. they had their problems with the field and such. It’s going to be an interesting study some day to look at why the Lynx weren’t successful and the TFC is.

I did feel bad, however, to see that the lynx only got 365 people out to their home opener. I can’t help but wonder what the people who poured so much money into the Lynx think of this turn of events – where pro-soccer has such momentum in the city this year, while year after year the lynx had trouble getting people to come out to games.

i’m not holding against the hard-core lynx fans who now make up the hard-core TFC fans – they backed the team. as did i at one point.

Grassrootsnorth

There’s been trades. There’s been games. And finally there’s been goals.
However, I haven’t been written much about TFC here recently as I’ve spent most of my soccer writing moments here at grassrootsnorth.ca.

In short, Danny Dichio has been a great addition to Toronto. I still think the team would be in a better place to play Jim Brennan in the midfield instead of Andy Welsh. And let the backfield live and die with the Canucks – insert either  Braz or Reda in the middle, and Pozniak on the left-side – while keeping Wynne  on the right and Boyens playing CB.

Secondly – Andrea Lombardo just looked great on Saturday. He set up the third Toronto goal. He’s just so strong on the ball.

It’s going to be a great game Wednesday night vs. Houston.

Brennan born for the middle

Okay, it’s about to be soccer week in Toronto.
In the span of 8 days there is going to be 3 Toronto FC games and 1 under-20 Canada friendly.
It’s time for Mo Johnston to put Jim Brennan in the midfield.

No more of this centre-back stuff. And it is centre, not center.
Give Reda another shot. I’m not buying the line that he’s not in match fitness.
He’s had his rough patches – but a goal is not the fault of defence alone. It takes a number of breakdowns to result in a goal. And when you think about some of the guys who were playing midfield in front of him in the first couple of games (Mulrooney, Nagamura) – well, i’m not sure i can blame him for anything now that it’s clear that both of those jokers didn’t even want to play for Toronto FC.
Reda did have a number of good header clears in the games he played.

Move Brennan into the midfield. Left-side where he can carry the ball, and cross it with authority into the box. Also have Brennan take the spot kicks. (Let’s not rehash how ineffective the team has been thus far on corners and free-kicks. I think having Brennan take these would be a vast improvement.)

Wait, doesn’t this mean that Andy Welsh gets relegated to the bench? Yes.
Welsh is overpaid for what he’s done for Toronto FC. The problem is, as an import no other team is going to want him. Toronto is stuck with him. He’ll have some good moments, but the rightful (or leftful) spot on this team on the left side should be Jim Brennan, not Welsh.

Give it a go, Mo.

Here, I’ve gone through the trouble of filling in your line-up card:

Esky – Dichio

Brennan – Edu – Robinson – O’Brien* *if ready

Goldthwaite – Reda – Boyens – Wynne
Sutton

Give it a go Mo. There’s really nothing to lose.

Bye bye Paulo

Paulo Nagamura is gone from Toronto FC.
Good.
In the four games he didn’t look very good. It was strange to see a Brazilian guy not be able to play soccer. It was as if you had a 7 foot 6 American guy who couldn’t play basketball. (Wait, there was one named Shawn Bradley)
It turned out, via the grapevine, that Nagamura didn’t want to be in Toronto.
In that case, double good.
Nagamura joins a list of guys who didn’t/don’t want to be in Toronto to play for the FC.
You know what? As a fan, I don’t want them here either.
There are guys you can see who give it their all out there – Alecko Eskandarian for example.
They want to play in Toronto. They’re going to help this franchise grow into the best one MLS has ever seen.
If you don’t want to play, get out.
I know it’s tough with the import rules to move every player may not want to play for your franchise, but the sooner they’re gone the better.
The guy we traded Nagamura for didn’t want to play for Toronto FC. It turns out he didnt’ want to play MLS. No worries. Take the draft pick – it will be much better than Paulo ever was.
(Let’s begin a season long experiment to see if the draft can be good for your team. Keep your eyes on Maurice Edu and we’ll talk how he turns out.)

Aston Villa Benfica

Toronto FC just announced two friendlies they’re going to play this summer.

May 23 – Benfica

July 25 – Aston Villa

The season ticket package comes with a number of friendlies including this Friday’s Canada – Argentina under -20 tilt.

It’s going to be a great summer of soccer.

Toronto FC: the good

Toronto FC lost their first official MLS match last night 2-0 against Chivas USA.

The team doesn’t look bad.

They started the game with an amazing energy. Passes were on target, they had a number of chances.

Captain Jim Brennan looked good in the left-back position. He sent a number of nice balls up to the forwards, Eskandarian and Buddle. It will be good once Mo Johnston is able to put him back in the midfield.

The Toronto defence looked shaky. Marco Reda left with an injury and was replaced by Adam Braz. Andrew Boyens (playing right-back) moved a couple of balls out of danger. Brennan was the best they had back there.

Toronto’s goaltending should be fine all season. Greg Sutton had a number of key saves, and controlled through balls as they came into his area.

Canizalez filled in for an injured Ronnie O’Brien and was effective in moving the ball.

Mulrooney and Welsh looked okay. Not outstanding by any stretch of the imagination.

The jury is still out for Nagamura. He’s not afraid to carry the ball – but we’ll see how he works out.

Conor Casey was ineffective. While Dobson lauded Casey’s ability to hold-up the ball, all he did was a back heel and a wall pass that both went and ended up on Chivas’ player’s feet. He’s a large forward so maybe he’ll be better once Toronto gets some second half corner kicks (which there weren’t too many of last night).

In all, it wasn’t the greatest debut for an expansion franchise – they didn’t win. Then again, Toronto FC didn’t look  like they’re going to have a terrible season either.

The best players on the pitch last night for the FC were Brennan and Sutton.

Players that look to have a great upside in coming games are Carl Robinson and Eskandarian. It was great to see (well it looked like) Robinson was really getting into the game and showing some emotion. 

That’s not a stain, it’s their sponsor.

I did a double take the other day.

I thought i saw that Toronto FC have a new sponsor on their shirt.
It turns out, they do.

BMO is at it again, this time sponsoring the team and getting its name on the jersey.

I actually don’t have that much of a problem with corporate sponsorship of teams. I have a couple of Liverpool shirts with Carlsberg written across the front.

And, in terms of bad team moves, this is nothing like the NY/NJ Metrostars changing their name to the Red Bulls after the energy drink.

No, what Toronto FC have done isn’t the worst thing in soccer.

But i was looking forward to a clean Toronto FC shirt this year with just the team patch over the left breast.

One year of purity is what I was hoping for.

That they did this with about two weeks to go before the MLS season begins means that I won’t be able to get a jersey without the BMO logo on it.

And now, i’m not sure if i’m gonna buy one.