THE KICKABOUT: Three weeks after playing at the "Dome where ankles fear to tread", TFC finally hosts its true home opener on the grounds of MGM Presents: Exhibition Place & Casino" (Pending).
The gang is all here to review another week of MLS action. Ted is locked in a glass case of emotion with his feelings on MLS referees, and Scott gloats about being top of the Western Conference. Oh and Chris is here too. We also have our correspondents to review another great week of in the world of MLS.
Article by William Schulz Week two of Major League Soccer has come and gone, and it left a few surprises with us. Several "bottom dwellers" claimed victory from the "big boys", and the Goonies still refuse to say die. Let's grab a can of Red Bull, enjoy the first half, pour the second half of it on the floor, and dive in shall we?
The Around the League crew returns! Scott and Chris are here to break down all the action from Week 1 in MLS, rip on Ted's absence. They also discuss the huge attendance problems at Chivas USA. We also open up our phone lines and talk with our correspondents. Correspondents include: DC, Dallas, Columbus, Chicago, Toronto, Colorado, Salt Lake, and San Jose.
Toronto FC's new manager Ryan Nelsen just finished playing in the Premier League for Queens Park Rangers, so it should not be a surprise to lean that Nelsen is tapping his UK contacts to help out TFC.
Ephraim has not started a game for QPR all season, but obviously Nelsen saw something in training to make him want to take Ephraim on a season long loan.
"Change" is the predominant word around Toronto these days, as the club is coming off a league-worst 23-point season.
The club has changed its president and general manager, hiring Kevin Payne away from D.C. United after 18 illustrious years of work and four MLS Cup titles.
Toronto and Columbus offer their fans different views on the Major League Soccer season and Portland is the latest MLS club with injury trouble. Read More
Time to bite a new badge monsieur The worst kept secret in MLS is officially out. As was pretty much announced over Twitter on Friday evening by FC Dallas, the Texan side has grabbed Eric Hassli from Toronto FC for a conditional 2nd Round Draft Pick in 2014. While that doesn't quite make up for the short-sighted gifting of TFC's 1st Round Pick to Vancouver in the first place, it sounds possible that Toronto could get a better deal if Hassli plays well in Dallas.
Recently Twitter has created a new layer of mistrust and cynicism toward anything resembling a Major League Soccer rumor due to the rapid growth of a few accounts (and their parodies), in the past two years, that deal with such topics.
Fans of the Philadelphia Union may be some of the more critical groups of supporters on this issue because of the atmosphere of deceit when it comes to the same thing in baseball.
Seattle has a significant issue only a week into training for the 2013 Major League Soccer season and has anything really changed with Toronto FC? Read More
During Toronto FC's media day, Ryan Nelsen announced he will leave Queens PArk rangers to start his new job as coach of Toronto on February 1. Read More
It's one of those days that requires a little bit extra. Here is your bit of extra as news comes in outside of the Sound.
Two Canadian MLS clubs have new coaches as Toronto picked up Ryan Nelson and Montreal chooses "Swiss Volcano" Marco Schällibaum (name copied and pasted from MLSsoccer.
After the Voyaguers Cup Semi-Final 1st Leg, Montreal supporters' groups were tremendously unhappy with their club's lack of showing in a 2-0 loss to Toronto. To "voice" what they saw as a lack of passion from their club's leadership in regards to the tournament, they sat in silence during Impact's following fixture to Chicago Fire.
Sporting will play another home opener this week when they travel to Toronto to take on TFC at the Rogers Centre. With the earlier start, Toronto is moving the game from BMO Field to the larger facility.
TFC comes into the game on the heals of a 1-0 loss in Vancouver in the opener. Overall I wasn't that impressed watching them last week, but they were missing a few players as well.
TFC: Calm, Cool, Collected How many times did those three words show up in the same sentence as "Toronto FC" last year? Probably only when accompanied by "not." But the Reds looked calm and composed, compact and difficult to break down in defense.
"No Roquefort at halftime? Savages!" It just wouldn't be a Toronto FC training camp without a little bit of the amateur dramatics. Despite the best efforts of the new regime to try and promote a "new direction" (much different than the last seven new directions) and a harmonious camp, it seems as if one of TFC's star attractions in très malheureux.
New scarves from the Yorkies Collection... ok, they're not, but I wish they were. I had a whole "prediction" bit, but since most of those could not occur, including one where Bitchy takes off again, but gets caught in the north end goal netting, this had to be removed. Pity, really.
Ahhhh... the best seat in the house. This feels nice. I'm finally at home for an away game, which sounds like an oxymoron, but I assure you this is correct. The majority of you who are watching it are either in the same predicament, or are enjoying your footie with a pint or two, perhaps some wings or nachos, at your local.
Dallastasaray. Damn its colder here than I thought it would be. Welcome to game five of Toronto's season. Seriously I could've used some mitts. Bloody lake effects. 5 degrees my ass.
Dallas is one of the hottest teams in the league leading the West. Conversely, my fingers are like icicles.
I know, this needs to be updated. Hopefully they'll sign someone equally rediculous to make it easier on me. Springtime in Toronto. Is it here? To be fair, it's not important as long as it FEELS like spring by kick-off and maintains its springness until the final whistle. If mother nature wants to do a heel-turn and make a blizzard by 4:30, so be it.
The Philadelphia Union thought they were robbed of an equalizer. Then they got an equalizer. Then they were one missed shot away from victory. All this occurred in the span of a few minutes, and it all added up to the Philadelphia Union drawing Toronto FC 1-1 at PPL Park on Saturday afternoon.
The first half was a dull and listless and boring and unentertaining and every other unsavory adjective that you can think of affair.
Friday Sporting Kansas City - DC United: 5:30 PM In our Game of the Week, the Uniteds (sic) travel to... what is that arena called now? Just Sporting Park I guess. United has performed better than their spot in the standings would suggest, so this should be a cracker. Prediction: 2-1 Kansas City
Saturday Toronto FC - FC Dallas: 1:00 PM The battle of the FCs, it isn't hard to predict a Dallas victory.
There's no debating that the New England Revolution got their man on Thursday.
After nabbing the first overall pick from Toronto for the fourth spot and allocation money, the Revolution selected Louisville defender and Generation adidas prospect Andrew Farrell.
Farrell scored four goals and collected one assist in 21 games for Louisville in 2012.
We all knew that trading picks was a possibility this week, especially with the New England Revolution holding a commodity like the fourth pick. A high draft pick is always an attractive bargaining chip. Really, though, if anyone would have been willing to put money down that the Revs would not only deal their first-round pick, but deal it to Toronto for the number one pick in the draft, surely most Revs fans would have called them crazy.
That was a lousy game to watch as a neutral fan, worse as a Toronto fan. It probably wasn't very pleasant to watch as a Rapids fan but at least we can celebrate 3 points at the end of the day. Two teams that were lucky to string 3 passes together wasted 90 minutes on the field. At the end of the day the difference was that one team (Toronto) were absolute clowns and one team (Colorado) were merely lousy.
With a slew of great games to choose from, this week we're going with a theme for the recap. Three teams asserted power with their wins this weekend and made it clear that we should be paying serious attention to them (in case we weren't already). The Games Toronto FC 1-2 New York Red Bulls Against the Red Bulls, Toronto gave up yet another late goal, which this time meant a loss instead of a draw.
Another stat for you, Sporting's landmark goals. This year KC hit two marks, Aurelien Collin got the 700th league goal for KC, scoring in first half stoppage time against FC Dallas in March. Then in June, CJ Sapong scored KC's 500th goal in all competitions at home with his goal against Toronto. Next year KC should get their 300th league away goal and their 900th in all competitions.
