By Michael Crampton
A month and a half ago, with Toronto FC nearing the conclusion of their epic CONCACAF Champions League run, Aron Winter faced the question of how to approach league games at the start of a season when seemingly more important matches loomed a few days later. Now, with the season off to a worse start than possibly imaginable, the Amway Canadian Championship for the Voyageurs Cup is set to kick off once again and Winter faces another stretch of managing two competitions at once.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]In the very recent past any game between Toronto FC and the Montreal Impact would have been a rare and important enough event on the Canadian soccer calendar to not even merit the question of whether Toronto should field a full strength line-up. Now however, with the Impact’s elevation to Major League Soccer and the league’s decision to move to a regionally focused league schedule, Wednesday night’s game will actually be only the second of five scheduled meetings between the clubs in 2012. In addition, having just journeyed to Montreal to watch the first ever league match between the two clubs four weeks ago, it seems most TFC supporters are taking a pass on repeating the trip in such short succession so, for the first time ever, Toronto is unlikely to have significant away support at the match.
Frankly, there is no good way for Toronto FC to approach this match. To restore any degree of confidence and attempt to change the already coalescing narrative for the season the team desperately needs a victory wherever they can find one. That suggests the only option is to ignore the dangers of exhausting the players who gave so much effort in Salt Lake City four days ago and starting the very best team available. The danger though, even ignoring how such a decision would affect Saturday’s match against DC United, is that if a full strength squad is soundly defeated at the Olympic Stadium it will further damage what little is left of their surely faltering self belief.
In a perfect world the Reds would have had at least a reasonable start to their MLS campaign by this point and could possibly consider rotating in some players on the fringe of the first squad to give them a chance at match action. Aron Winter consistently repeats his mantra that “every match is important” but surely that doesn’t necessitate starting the exact same eleven in every competitive fixture. With a squad of more than 25 players getting what is available out of every position on the roster over the course of a season has to be one of the goals of any MLS manager. What would it say about the confidence Aron Winter has in the rest of his team if none of players beyond the first 15 regulars are capable of stepping up and contributing when the team needs a result?
For their part, the Impact seem like a squad with the depth available to comfortably handle two domestic competitions and should be relishing the opportunity to satisfy their supporters by heaping misery on a worse than struggling Toronto FC. Head coach Jesse Marsch’s emphasis on a team with significant MLS experience can be seen in the players he is able to call on when the squad is rotated. In fact, in a surprise to most, Montreal was able to voluntarily drop both club captain Davy Arnaud and Canadian international Patrice Bernier from the starting line-up in the previous match against the Reds. The gambit paid off as one of their replacements, midfielder Sinisa Ubiparipovic, opened the scoring in the Impact’s eventual 2-1 victory.
That win in early April was the first of Impact’s season but they should draw further confidence from the fact that they remain undefeated at home. After finally picking up a point on the road in DC the schedule was kind to Montreal as they had a week and a half to prepare for the visit of the Western Conference’s bottom club the Portland Timbers last weekend. A 2-0 victory in that match was the club’s first clean sheet in MLS play and sets them up well for the visit of TFC.
All things considered a draw would be an excellent result for Toronto and probably a let off for Montreal. In a week’s time it will be the Impact who are travelling to an away match on the back of playing at the home of one of the league’s best teams and they should seek to take advantage of their home and schedule advantage while they have it. Granted, what sort of state Toronto FC will be in at that juncture is an open question but, for them, taking advantage of their higher seed in the tournament and making sure that the second leg will be the decisive fixture in the tie has to be the goal at this point.