Who will stay and who will go?

I did this exact title and record cover last year!!! Think of it as a yearly feature. Spark's Annual MLS Expansion Draft Protection List TFC Debate. Also known as SAMLSEDPLTFCD. Say it again. SAMLSEDPLTFCD. There you have it. The list came out and some eye-brow raising protected and unprotected players. The most notable for Toronto FC are Guevara and Robinson left unprotected, while some are seriously questioning why Barrett stays. There are legitimate arguments both ways as to why Barrett should remain in the line-up for 2010, same goes for Robinson who bare-minimum has a wealth of experience he can give to the likes of Sanyang, Cronin, even Gomez or De Guzman to an extent.

Guevara on the other hand seems to be a name bandied about as very likely to be making his exit. Whether or not it's directly related to Preki, well go ahead and speculate. I will say I was greatly disappointed with his play in 2010 and I'm pretty sure I pinned the success of the team on him finding his 2005 form and bagging somewhere around 10 goals. Well World Cup Qualifying hangovers don't help the domestic club cause. And with the actual World Cup this summer, I would think his head will be in South Africa for most of the season.

I think if TFC sort out the defence and find a true finishing striker, this will more than make up for him leaving. De Guz slides into his position, case closed. The only thing that still is in the back of my mind was the DC United game where in the first half both Sanyang and Robinson were horrible paired together. At half time, cue a substitution Robinson out, Guevara in, and now Sanyang is the second coming and TFC win 2-0.

Great talent, but for me the cons outweigh the pros and at 34 it's about time to cut the cord.

The East Wins!!

Yessir! Real Salt Lake - Eastern Division Champs take the Cup. I gotta say I'm feeling a lot of pride as a supporter of a club in the East right now. EAST RULES!

I can't help but think of a bunch of issues that need to be addressed with MLS that, to me, are pretty whack. Yes I said "whack" - as in wiggity whack.

Number one is listed above. I can understand why many things in this league were/are set up the way they are in the beginning, but at some point it needs to change. Eight teams in the playoffs to me makes no sense. And if there is going to be eight teams, then cross over makes no sense. One table makes sense so you don't have something so obviously stupid as a team on the West coast as your Eastern champs.

So last night I had to watch the game at home as it was my RNO responsibility to write up the post game. Issue number two - Rogers Cable sucks! That's right I lost my connection after about thirty minutes. WTF!? Ok I'll whinge some more in a minute but here is Spark's office play by play of the evening:

#1 - Real Salt Lake fans come out in force. Will this championship increase season tickets sales and overall attendance? See: Columbus.


#2 - SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH


#3 - WORST! CAN IT! NOW!!!


#4 - YOUR 2009 MLS CUP CHAMPS!!!


Well my last point to lament about is I'm hoping Garber took note of the red flag NYRB was waving last year. Eighth seed into finals, shit imagine if they had won!? I'm going to start trumpeting that parity is bullshit and something needs to give in order to ensure we see the best match-ups possible. If I'm an MLS club I'm not going to sweat trying to finish first. "Hey guys just chill, just finish sixth or seventh, hell even eighth! Don't expend all your energy, we just need to be able to turn it on for four games and we are set!" Is there really incentive to finish top of the league? Other than a trophy are there good bonuses handed out?

Sure it was a good game, but will RSL repeat? Part of being champs is walking around with a target on your backs because you are the best. If any team was set up to do it, it was Columbus who actually had a great season.

Anyway, whinging over! RSL wins! Will Johnson pukes his way to Canadian content on the 2009 trophy!!

Super Sunday

Well considering many football fans in N. America will have their eyes on the MLS Cup tonight, hopefully some witnessed this destruction. WTF!? I thought Tottenham would 'sort themselves out' and end up where they normally do. When was this supposed to happen? When the weather gets cold? Holy shit.

Jermaine Defoe!? Making his claim to get some action with the England WC squad and five goals in a game can't hurt. I'm more shock though at Wigan who aren't the best but have had some good games this season and, I thought anyway, no THAT brutal. Well this one will go down in history and I'm sure over the next week everyone will be checking their almanacs feeding us facts about the highest scoring games ever. I think though this is the largest win margin in EPL history? Download all your favourite EPL pods this week as I"m sure you will find out!

MLS CUP IN ...

A Hard Man

As much as I try to always find the wrong in everything MLSE does, it looks like today they may have got it right (although I probably said the same thing about Burke and Colangelo!). Despite Squizz's pretty funny, but actually dead on comments about his track record, here's hoping this is the right environment and make-up for him to take the team to the next level (not MLSE next level, winning attitude next level).

The only thing missing from his resume is clear post-season success, but he had it as a player and three years at Chivas probably isn't enough to take Bradley's team and make it into his own. But now that I think of it, they have been on the decline since!

Regardless (ha!) I am happy for the supposed hardline approach we should soon be getting because nothing annoys me more than players giving up or walking around with their hands on their hips acting all pissy.

Tactics?! Defending!? Oh my! I can not wait. These are parts of the package that we can look forward to. Could we have gotten a bigger name? Probably, but one step at a time. Next year I will be happy with a winning record (playoffs) and organized football.

So here's signing off keeping it 100% TFC related:

South Africa bound!

Well not on a Senior Team, but a pretty sweet gig none the less. Stefan Frei is off to the land the Sundowns, Capes and Great White Sharks!! He's added another accolade to his list of accomplishments for 2009. Along with an MLS nomination for Rookie of the Year, he was TFC's Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and is now traveling with the Generation Adidas Team to South Africa for a couple of exhibition games and seeing the sights.

Frei came with (and still has) a lot of hype given his play this season. I think the only other keeper to play this much as a rookie was Brad Guzan who is now at Aston Villa. I didn't follow Guzan's rookie year so I don't know where he was at this stage of development but it is clear that Frei has talent yet still has a ways to go before he legitimately earns the "europe bound" tag.

A slight but not complete sidenote - I'm curious to see what is in store for Brian Edwards. He must be chomping at the bit knowing he's fully capable of competing and winning games at this level and is roughly at the same stage of his career. For our sake I hope he stays on because IF Frei jumps ship, we could have a keeper who has paid his dues and is ready to take hold (and not let go) of the #1 position.

Late Pass Pt. II

I have no idea if this has been circulated everywhere but I got this link and laughed my ass of... eerr ... I mean LOLMAO!!!


You can see the back and forth which may or may not be real here.
Just to give you a hand with this, the President of France is 5'5. It also would have been 10X more amazing had Ireland won.

This also reminds me about a priceless crank call some comedy troupe in Ireland did pretending to be Steve Staunton wanting the Chelsea manager position. I couldn't find the audio file which is way back somewhere in an episode of World Soccer Daily.

Hats off to the Irish and their sense of humour!

Do MLSE read FourFourTwo?

This is a bit of a late pass, but I don't think I saw anyone talking about this elsewhere and thought it was a pretty interesting article and was relevant to the good 'ol Reds (which one I'm referring to, take your pick!!). In the October issue there is a good article on How To Rebuild A Club and lists some important points on what it takes to do it right. Bear in mind that this mostly relates to the UK so the point about a Stadium doesn't totally apply here in North America, but some of them are pretty dead on and you can see that at least TFC are missing the mark on some key areas to building a successful team. Either way, you can decide if these are being applied here or abroad, but in summary here are the key points to the article:

1. Build the Business Plan - Fill the boardroom with experts, hire dynamic staff, think big-time.

2. Hire the Right Gaffer - Take time choosing a candidate, do your background research, stay patient during the lumpy bits.

3. Grow Your Own - Cast a wide net for young players, encourage good behaviour, blod them early.

4. Freshen Up Your First Team - Try before you buy, go for quality over quantity, be conservative with contract.

5. Stadia - Only move if you must, choose quality materials, tread carefully in the world of rock.

6. Keep Fans Onside - Keep active in the community, get the fans involved, get the fans excited.



Overall a good read and lots to think about. A really interesting point with regards to a well run team and a poorly run one ... when Leeds was competing in the Champions League, the Doncaster Rovers were in the Conference. Not even ten years later, they are in the Championship and Leeds are in League One. That is how quickly things can go from good to bad (Newcastle?! Liverpool!!!) or if you keep the glass half full, from bad to good.