Among the Thugs

Ok, well not exactly. We're Canadians, eh? In a close tie with Australians as the friendliest travelers (slash beer drinkers?) around. This week I was able to confirm, thanks to a hook up from a buddy of mine, that I'll be heading down to the Columbus game this season on March 28. Rolling down with U-Sector Saturday morning into OSU campus, catching the game and back the next day! Woot!

Getting very excited for the '09 season where TFC will be my newfound profession. The best part about this job is that it doesn't pay! In fact it costs ME money, lots of it, hurray! The only saving grace is now that AC Milan is toast on all fronts, and quiet rumblings suggest Beckham won't be staying there, looks like we can all now once again sell our LA Galaxy tickets for $500.

Have no clue what the Columbus game is shaping up to be like this year in terms of numbers but hopefully it's like this because this chant is amazing.



I was trying to find something witty to say about Columbus' nickname ... "The Arch City" but as you can see, it is IMPOSSIBLE.

NO WAIT

Columbus the only arch you will see March 28 ... IS FROM THE BALL DWAYNE DE ROSARIO WILL BE KICKING INTO YOUR NET!!

HEYOOOO! 10 OUT OF 10!!!!

Let's all love Montréal

Beautiful city. Beautiful women. And tonight, beautiful football! I don't know about everyone else but wtf is up with CBC? Unless I am super dense (definite possibility) I could not stream the game off their website and had to resort once again to watching it on justin.tv in spanish. The only plus to that is these commentators are hilarious and super animated and made it worthwhile:

GooooooooooooooooooooooooooolSEBRANGO!!


I can remember watching the last COPA and can't remember who Argentina was playing but my roommate was translating for me and like any other country or continent different regions have different accents/expressions. So the Venezuelan (I think he was) commentator apparently kept referring to the players foot as "pato" which means duck so it sounded like he kept saying they were kicking the ball with their duck. Then when Crespo had a penalty kick (if you remember this) he scored but injured himself right after which lead to:

Gooooooooooooooooooool!! GOL! Look at me! Me score a goal ... me no longer play. Oh those crazy Chavezheads.

So I know it's customary for everyone to hate TO but sorry to say I love Montréal and I'm super stoked they are now up 2-0! Unless a major catastrophe *knock knock* sometime next week they will hopefully have sealed up a semi-final birth (Houston? Houston?). So congrats MTL, I'm sure I'm speaking for most of Toronto that we're backing the Impact - UNTIL MAY 13!!!

Seriously.

Wow what a day. All the pre-draft talk, all the "You can guaranty #2 pick will go" blalblabla. Well damn, we kept our picks, drafted arguably the top prospects AND got the guy we wanted all along. I'm going to crack open a cold one now and toast our main man Mo. Another Scarberiar...ite...onian? joins the fold into a line-up that almost looks 100% rounded. All this arguing, we need strikers, we need a CB and now we have both. Well, one more CB just to be safe wouldn't be so bad. HA. And without ever signing a DP! It's become pretty clear that the 400K against the salary cap for one player just isn't worth it when you can get 3 quality starters for that total.

It's also a great feeling to ramblings in old posts become somewhat justified. But let's be honest we all knew Serioux was going to come here, it was just a matter of time, right Ives? Then we get our Canadian Championship dates set and when are our home games? WEDNESDAY!! Oh man life is so good. LOVE WEEKNIGHT GAMES. Straight from work to the game on a warm May night ... is it warm on May nights? Let's see:

Average maximum temp: 17ºC / 63ºF
Average minimum temp: 7ºC / 45ºF
Lowest on record: -4ºC / 25ºF, Highest on record: 34ºC / 93ºF
Toronto has a short, mild spring. Visitors can expect rain about 11 days out of 31 in May.

I'LL TAKE THOSE ODDS!


TFC with Serioux on Wednesday nights against Vancouver and Montreal! Who I will be rooting for tomorrow. Je suis serioux Montréal, je t'aime - je t'aime!!

A wonderful day in the neighbourhood

After a CRAZY Friday night (aka burnt-out from work, sick, tired, asleep by 11pm), I woke up super early today to see it was bright, blue, and somewhat sunny out. Eeeeearrrrrr *STRETCH* I thought this was the perfect opportunity to go out for a walk nice and early and check in on ol' BMO Field and hold down the fort while the boys are in Florida. This was also the perfect opportunity to take my new camera for a test drive for the first pics of the 2009 season! My last set of pics were from the final game of '08, which I had to use my roommate's camera because my old Canon A85 broke. So this year I'll be rocking the mighty Panasonic DMC-TZ5 which so far has been pretty sweet.

So I kicked off the trip heading south from where I live past the good old Dufferin Gate. Come with me on my path I'll be taking to the games this year.





Everything looked to be in order ... UNTIL I SAW THIS!! WTF!?


MUCH BETTER


My seats for '09. Everything looks good here.


RESPECT


And to wrap it up all is good at BMO Field. Except instead of that stupid bubble there should be an insulated tarp protecting our finely manicured grass!!


28 DAYS 7 HRS 22 MINS TO GO!!

Jobbed!

Well if you have taken note of my daily routine, and follow similar sources, you might have heard the same rumour as I have. I'm not one to complain (ha!) but I do find this one strange and would be curious to know how this is set up each year.

For the last four years MLS has broken away from the "traditional" set up of a North American All-Star game, choosing not to play East vs. West, but to bring in a notable international club to play against their best. The first one was Fulham, which seems pretty lame, but the game was in Columbus and Fulham had Brian McBride on their roster. In 2006 it was Chelsea (nice), '07 it was Celtic (also pretty sweet) and for the 2008 All-Star Game in our very own Toronto ... West Ham United?

Again I have no idea how they pick the team but find it weird that in a city like Toronto that has shown a passion for football (arguably the best fans in MLS), is clearly one of the most multi-cultural in North America, that West Ham United was the team picked (or maybe they were the only team who would agree to come here?). Any significant team from Portugal, Italy, Argentina, or Brazil would have made more sense. Or at least a top 6 EPL! So you can perhaps see why I find it slightly shocking (and disappointing) that for the 2008 MLS All-Star Game we got this:



And the 2009 All-Star Game in Salt-Lake City could get:


PS - Remember! This is not a rumours blog!
THANK YOU PLEASE COME AGAIN.

An amazing find

Given the current "economic situation" *barf* one thing that I've made it a point to go do is go out and buy books at my favorite book stores. Both Pages and Swipe are amazing spots and have been hit hard by rent increases and just people not wanting to spend over the last 3-4 months.

At my stop at Pages I found this amazing gem. Yes as you can see, a footballing comic book! wtf! Yes it's none other than ROY OF THE ROVERS!!! Read up on Roy Race, player/manager, of the Melchester Rovers adventures each week (20+) years ago, as he deals with player transfers, injures AND LOVE. Yes, this comic book had it all.

Here is the quote from the back:

Relive the glory years of England's premier footballer, ROY RACE - the legendary player/manager of Melchester Rovers!

Presented for the first time in 25 years, this is a collection of one of Roy's most exciting dramatic seasons - when he faced not only the unbelievable threat of relegation but also an assassin's bullet!

GO ROVERS!

My non-linear path to football history - Pt. 2

I mentioned a little while back that for the last few months I have been religiously listening to the World Soccer Daily podcast. Stephen and Kenny are funny dudes and although some of their regular callers are completely useless, for the most part their insight and commentary is really dead on. Being a Canadian who definitely hasn't followed football their entire life, it's as if I've traded off the hockey call-in show for football. The show is based in the U.S. so there are many callers who are new to the game, or are like myself and picked it up later on in life. So if you aren't born into the game, what team do you follow? Again, I draw a parallel to hockey where growing up in Toronto it's almost a given you are a die-hard Leafs fan through thick and thin - and I lived and breathed Leafs through the 80s. I can even remember crying every year they lost in the playoffs (ok when I was seven!!). It wasn't until during the '94 World Cup that I really saw, or better, started to appreciate "the beautiful game". I followed the internationals but of course there had to be a domestic league and team to call your own. I've heard Stephen Cohen say on more than on occasion - your team picks you. Who is it that makes you want to stand up and yell at the TV screen? Or makes you want to fly across the ocean to see just one game live?

There is more than one layer to this blog referring to "red". It's TFC, Team Canada, but also the team that I was drawn to was Liverpool. I can't really think what it was that made me pick them though. It might have been Fowler, Owen, the UEFA cup win in the late 90s. Something about Liverpool and the Reds, their passion, I couldn't help but think "this is the team, this is my team."



Now if you read Pt. 1 of this 13 part series you'll know one part of my family history, and that is on my mother's side, going back to my great grandfather is Jamaican. My father's side is a bit of a different story. I don't really know the details beyond my grandfather, who was born in Canada. My last name is Clarke so I just assume it's British. This week my mother received an email from ... My Grandfather's sister's son - I have no idea who that is to me, some sort of cousin I guess. He is researching our family tree and forwarded his findings with regards to the Clarke name, of which I am the final male (OH THE PRESSURE!!!).

It turns out that my great, great grandfather John Clarke was born in 1841, was a police constable and lived his entire life in ... LIVERPOOL. Holy shit! My great grandfather James Henry Clarke, was born in Liverpool in the 1890s and also lived there until he immigrated to Canada around 1920. This means the Clarke's were in Liverpool upon the founding of Liverpool FC, which happened in 1892 when Everton FC refused to pay the lease increase on Anfield and moved to Goodison Park. Thus Liverpool FC was formed. If I have my way there is no doubt that John and little James Henry were no doubt original Liverpool FC supporters and would be proud to know that generations later across the ocean their great, great grandson has continued the family line of being a proud scouser. (And no, I am not entertaining any thoughts they might have supported Everton, there is just no way!)

Wow, even though Stephen HATES Liverpool I think there might be one exception in this case based on his mantra that "you don't pick your team, your team picks you!"

COME ON YOU REDS!

Southern Comfort

Well I've let a whole week go by but let's be honest no BIG news since the boys have left for the Sunshine State earlier this week. Mostly we're checking out our new trialists who look alot better than the motley crew we assembled last season. I'm not sure who to be most stoked about. Gregory Richardson scored four goals against New England last year (in two games) with Joe Public and I don't know if NE's lineup was depleted but his goals were pretty tight, not to mention he set up the 3rd goal in their 4-0 thrashing.



AND to top it all off it looks we signed the long awaited Pablo Vitti today! (ok on loan). Hey people are complaining about no CBs yet but the truth is the last two seasons we could not finish for the life of us, now we have what *could* be some serious options up front: Dichio, Barrett, De Ro, Guevara all can pot them and if Vitti and Richardson (Vitti in particular) are what they seem to be, we could be deadly up front. Hey what's that saying? The best defense is a good offense? Or is it the other way around? DOESN'T MATTER. I LIKE GOALS. GOALS GOOD. I don't know how you can't be optimistic (you know, like not in the Maple Leafs way) about this season. If NYRB can sneak in the way they did, teams have got to see anyone can get through as long as they make the playoffs. Can't wait for the reports outta training and to see these guys fist hand!

So confused

Word is that if Mexico loses to U.S.A. on Feb. 11 you can expect Sven Goran Eriksson to get fired. How can this be you might ask? DOESN'T HE HAVE A CONTRACT?? He's in the HEX with USA, Honduras, and Costa Rica - they are all tough teams!! You can't blame him if they lose, these are really good teams! I mean, Canada had 2 main reasons they didn't qualify, but Mexico has THREE. How can Dale Mitchell be saved and defended but the horrible Mexican FA fire poor Sven?! Something is terribly wrong south of the border when a coach leads a team to failure and can't keep his job. Who's running the show down there? If I had to guess it's one guy (aka DICTATOR) and not a smoothly running, cooperating, democratic board of directors. VIVA CANADA!!!

Whoa. Doh. Uh Oh.

Canada. Just when everything was all quiet on the international front, our CSA player of the year lashes out once again, this time for real. De Guzman pulls no punches, so just if there was any doubt what he thought of the CSA and our Canadian program there you have it in black & white. I've listened around to a few different sources on these comments and what people think of what De Guzman/other players have said about the CSA and Dale Mitchell and I'm surprised how many people still go back onto the tired argument of, "they are the players, they need to take responsibility as well, can they look themselves in the mirror and say they all put in 150%?."



And I've said it before and I'll say it again, shit rolls downhill. The players and the game played are the last link the the chain of events that either leads us to victory or defeat. I'm sorry, this should not be Cameroon where players are paying their own way (hmm which I'm sure most of us do), practicing on their own, and when they succeed it is deemed a 'miracle' or 'feel good story' - if you want to think Canada is a third world country and third world footballing standards are acceptable then so be it. I for one expect more. Over 20 years ago we qualified for a world cup with a team that was so far off the level and skill of our team now, yet we can only beat countries with populations less than one million. How can this be???

To add onto the pile, the Voyageurs, Canada's National team supporter's club, have released a statement calling for the firing of Dale Mitchell. This comes off the heels of an interesting interview from a week or so back on a Vancouver podcast with Dale Mitchell who has some interesting things to say about Canada's recent failures and staying on as the head coach.


Part of me doesn't blame him for staying on, because it is the CSA's responsibility to fire him, but another part of me would really ask - if you care about this program do you really think you are the man for the job and can lead us to victory? Or will it be every time we fail you'll just point to countries like Mexico and Honduras and say "hey we can't qualify because they are better than us". I think if the guy actually cares he should resign. He can't be that delusional and think he can lead us to victory, especially when some of our key players now refuse to play under him. If this was any European country would we even be having this debate/issue? NO. Mitchell would be long gone by now, hell, he'd probably have been gone halfway through qualifying!

I for one am glad that our best player is still speaking up and getting press on this issue. I don't care if he isn't offering any solutions (in print anyways, he has said his ideas/comments have fallen on deaf ears) - to revamp the program is not his job. The heat needs to stay on the CSA and it needs to be exposed at all turns for what it is. I am sure they have hoped and been happy to keep soccer under the radar so they can continue bumbling along in the dark unaccountable. With our current crop of players who are succeeding in the biggest domestic leagues in the world, it will come out more and more how low our standards and level of professionalism are here. I truly hope this can't go on much longer and hopefully someone will stand up and force a change.