Payback

Yes that one felt good. Did the term 'revenge' come to mind for anyone else? All I could think of coming into this game was August 20, 2008. I actually had butterflies in my stomach for that match, something I had never really felt ... maybe ever for a Canadian football team? This was such an important game and to come out 1-1 ... I can't remember who had the quote but everyone seemed to know that those were three points that we 100% needed and one just wasn't going to cut it. It was like we had fallen out after the first game, even though there were five more to go. I ALSO remember how brutal the refereeing was and how I thought it was messed up they had a Guatamalan ref in this game (I'm actually not sure why that mattered but it did at the time!). I don't know the politics but it didn't seem on the level, and one of my clearest recollections is of blatant fouls against Canada that were waved on and the softest bumps gave Jamaica free kicks.

Moving on ...

July 3, 2009 we see FIFA referee Terry Vaughn as the arbiter of this game and to me, this made a huge difference in the kind of match we saw. This guy had no tolerance for diving or drawing soft fouls - which I think is strange the Jamacians pull that business because they are clearly the bigger, stronger more BUILT side. He actually let Canada play the kind of game Canada can play (did that make sense??), which is a mix between gritty and technical.


All that I'm going to comment on that game is I know every TFC fan had turned up a little extra decibel level in their yell when Ali Gerba scored. I'm thinking exactly how I was all, "Klukowski is good man ... whoa that's a bold cross ... whoa that is a PERFECT cross ... oh man he's going to be wide open! ... oh man that's Gerba! ... HOLY SHIT YES GERBA SCORES!!! FUCK MAN THIS GUY'S GOING TO BE PLAYING FOR TFC YES YES YES!!!" Hahaha Seriously that is what TFC has needed is a no-nonsense forward who is built like a truck and just has that heat-seeking instinct for the back of the net.

I'm loving that we got two great nuggets (sorry that's the only word I can think of) from that game - Canada starts off with three points, and TFC's new man scores the goal. I think as long as we see refs like Vaughn calling games like that Canada has a really good chance of making a statement in this tournament.

VAS-Y LES ROUGES!!