Tonight, in my beloved home town of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, a galactically famous soccer squad is practicing on real grass.
The grass is laid down over BMO Field’s battered, dying artificial turf. Any takers at $15 a head are in seats normally held by Toronto FC season ticket holders to watch the Spanish giants practice.
Friday night – game night – most of the regulars will be absent. Thousands of curious event-goers who have scarcely ever heard of the home team will be in their seats instead.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
They won’t much know about the MLS East playoff race, or TFC’s early, optional exit from the CONCACAF Champions League. Many will be Real Madrid fans – and why not? Real is huge news – particularly in the wake of a record-shattering spending spree that has brought Ronaldo, Kaka and Xabi Alonso to the Bernabeu.
But before these newly re-gazillioned gazillionaires get to tread that sacred turf, they get a run-out at the Canadian National Exhibition. They will be much better-known than the home side, who will be playing on unusual grass in front of thousands of total strangers.
Okay, it’s a sideshow. It raises the profile of TFC and MLS – and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment gets serious room on the sports pages that won’t be devoted to the ongoing struggles of their other teams – the Maple Leafs and Raptors.
It’s a soccer game – but it ain’t TFC.
Yeah, we’ve only been at this for a little over two years, but there is now such a thing as a genuine TFC experience. It includes:
- Pounding heart-soaring vocal support from a full complement of Red Patch Boys, U-Sector, the North End Elite and all the other red-waving, streamer-chucking TFC supporters.
- Thousands of other loyal subscribers who, while not as conspicuous, cheer at the right times, buy lots of concessions, pay too much for parking – all the while falling ever more in love with Toronto’s all-but-impossible pro soccer dream-come-true.
- A hideous misery-floor of crippled Field Turf, ours to enjoy until a new artificial field can be sectioned off elsewhere, and the provincial government drops its contractual objection to real grass in the playpen.
- A team that consistently upgrades its roster, leaps briefly forward, then starts air-mailing lost standings points all over the continent.
- Heroes (Danny Dichio, Dwayne DeRosario), wannabe heroes (Chad Barrett, Pablo Vitti), aspiring stars (Stefan Frei, Sam Cronin), noble veterans (Jim Brennan, Carl Robinson), a Honduran dive villain we all forgive when he puts on red (Amado Guevara) and a whole supporting, dramatically pleasing cast of hopers and no-hopers.
Aside from DeRosario, most of the fans at BMO Field on Friday night will not have heard of most of them. Maybe 500 will know anything at all about once-soaring, now-struggling Toronto coach Chris Cummins.
And while there’s not really anything wrong with that, let’s be clear. This is NOT a Toronto FC game we’re cuing up here. It’s a slightly glorious dog-and-pony show – which Madrid will likely show up and play well in, given that the Spanish season looms and arch-rivals Barcelona waxed the Seattle Sounders 4-0 in Microsoft land last night.
You’ll see the Toronto players, but you won’t see the plotlines, the melodrama, the plight and most of the people who care so deeply – and give so much – to all of it.
I’m planning to at least attempt to wander into a bar and watch a half. I have dreams of my own I owe that to.
But the real Toronto FC experience – and this team’s real story – will be getting the night off. All that will resume a week Saturday, when we get our stadium, our seats, an MLS opponent and our terrible, terrible turf back.
Make some money, lads, and don’t get hurt. Oh, and what the heck? Have some fun with it, everyone who’s actually going to be there.
And if any late-arrivers watch the Madrid game and actually get curious about this team and want to come along for the ride?
Well, good luck getting a seat.
But there’s always room for new friends at the Dufferin Gate, Shoeless Joe’s and all the other TFC fan bars – if you’re ready to match our passion, and take the whole long and rough and sloppy ride.
Onward!