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    The waiting game

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    How do you prepare for play in a salary-cap soccer league when you don’t actually know what the salary cap will be?
    If you’re Toronto FC, apparently you do it cautiously.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    For all the Canadian MLS side’s aching roster needs – striker, winger, central defender – things have been very quiet on the off-season player-acquisition front. Defender Ty Harden from Beckhamburg. Knee injury specialist Jacob Peterson from Rocky Mountain FC. A couple of long-shot craft picks.
    Yeah, the Reds took a bunch of bright-eyed trialists down to Florida for some exhibition games. None has returned to Toronto with the team.
    This leaves TFC with an undermanned roster and a serious lack of money. The cash crunch could be eased by parting with well-paid veterans Carl Robinson and Nick Garcia, but that isn’t happening either.
    I expect it’s a waiting game – and that might actually be a very good way to go forward. GM Mo Johnston never starts a season with a finished team anyway. Early-season pick-ups are standard operating procedure up here. With money tight and no clear salary-cap number, it’s not a bad time to lay low.
    But losing again to New York Energy Drink – only 4-0 this time – with Garcia looking pointy, stationary and bright orange – is absolutely amplifying angst and anxiety amongst the support.
    New coach Preki may not share the concern. Try this on: for all of TFC’s woes in ’09, they missed the playoffs by a single point. Preki may feel, with a full season of Julian de Guzman to look forward to, he’s no worse than solidly in the eternal churning backwash for the final playoff spot.
    MLS is a coach’s league – just look at the job Bruce Arena did with that formerly abominable L.A. Galaxy squad. Preki is a good, veteran MLS coach. That, alone, is going to worth a few points, even if Preki’s and Johnston’s great old friend and former teammate Garcia gets pluperfectly posterized every now and etcetera.
    Can he reasonably expect promising young defenders Nana Attokora and Emmanuel Gomez to mature into reliable pros? Maybe. Will O’Brian White become TFC’s long-lost go-to striker? Possibly. Is the playoff dream doomed if none of that happens? Not necessarily. But it will be the Preki show for sure.
    Personally, I think that as soon as the money situation is settled, Mo will swoop to make a significant signing. It doesn’t have to be a superstar. Nick Garcia five years ago would likely be sufficient.
    Once again, all concerned in TFC-land are playing the patience game. It’s not comfortable, but it might be just exactly crazy enough to work.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Drat this little league

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    I am so tired of “understanding” Major League Soccer.
    All the blessed ins and outs of the league’s financial life-support system. Allocation money, discovery claims, low salary cap and young players who make less money than I do. (And, lately, I don’t.)
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Yes, it’s all done a lovely job of keeping Our Little League alive in the bad-old economy. No, players have no guarantees in their contracts, any paycheque can be their last, and if they do get cut mid-season, no other team will sign them.
    “It’s the only way it can be,” thunder the league’s defender-protectors, who can’t wait for a season when all sixteen clubs finish within a game of .500. How exciting will that be?
    If that’s what you want, BigSoccer, why not save a ton of travel money, put sixteen logos in a bingo bin and draw your champion at random? Then the fans can all spend their ticket and travel money on booze and gummy bears, and no one will have to pay the players a thin, blessed dime!
    I know, I know. Be happy that we have a league at all. I am. But I wanted so much more from the current CBA negotiations. I actually like the idea of salary caps in soccer. Just not with such stiflingly low ceilings.
    Economy, economy, right, right, the economy.
    My highest wish for MLS players, as the contract talks crest the cliff, is that they not sign a new deal. Leave the status quo and see what happens in another year. If you don’t feel better about things then, defer it again a year from now. Do anything possible not to sign a multi-year straitjacket until things brighten up economically.
    I know, again … what difference does it make? A stunt like that is going to take so many years, might as well sign the three-year deal and at least have labour peace. Except you won’t, really, and I hate to see current framework “endorsed” for another three seasons.
    If this league can’t offer up any way at all to increase the spread between the best and worst teams – a little, not a lot! – they might as well sign a huge advertising deal with an artificial sweetener company, and sew packets of Splenda on to everybody’s shirts.
    I want a real soccer league, not one that just cleverly survives at the cost of real competition. The only way to guarantee that every game in October will be meaningful is to rig the whole deal so that nothing means anything.
    Best hope now is that MLS annoys enough of its own teams past the point of endurance, and some of the ownership groups start assessing their options.
    The Vancouver Whitecaps were made some promises about youth development and the signing of academy players. Doesn’t sound now like they’re going to get anything near what they wanted. Given how important that issue is to them – and to the future of Canadian soccer in general – it’s no wonder there are folks in their front office regretting the decision to move up to the “show.”
    I know this column is way too premature. It’s born of frustration, and that’s rarely enough to overcome a snarling wall of facts. I just refuse to accept that the MLS model is the best that American/Canadian pro soccer can ever achieve. MLS is getting way too comfortable, and their slightly gilded little cage needs a good rattle.
    For now, I hope the players don’t sign anything.
    (And I’m off to see how many times the word “hippie” shows up on the BigSoccer message boards.)
    Onward!
    Guest

    At least give us something

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    And as long as I’m writing emotionally ….
    A few small things are clear, seeping through the smothering silence that has long engulfed Major League Soccer’s hunt for a new collective bargaining agreement with the guys wot actually kick the ball and stuff. The salary cap isn’t going up very far, and what ye have seen is what ye will get.
    Oh, joy!
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Three years into this thing up Toronto way, and you could still run the same eleven guys every week in different visiting-team shirts, and not a lot of fans would really know the difference. And since better than half of TFC’s opponents wear all white on the road, you don’t really have to change those, either.
    Sure, the Los Angeles Galaxy have big names on the roster, but David Beckham has never appeared at BMO Field, except for the 2008 all-star game. Landon Donovan’s Toronto non-appearance for L.A. that same summer utterly crashed the local market for pink streamers – but that’s another story for another time.
    The wisdom of MLS’s uber-control of the purse-strings is clear. In the worst economic times since the 1930s, every team in the league survived and $70-million (U.S.) in expansion fees poured in. There was a thrilling playoff race and a good upset in the cup final.
    That’s more than enough for some folks. But an serving sixteen versions of the same dish does not satisfy my appetite for all-you-can-eat buffets.
    I had naively hoped the new CBA would widen the gap a little. I don’t want rich teams that never lose and poor teams that never win. All I want is somewhat-richer teams which, when they lose, are clearly victims of an upset. The playoffs are the great equalizer anyway.
    So – one more time – I’m going to argue for the one best hope for creating some spread in this artificial universe of limited competitiveness.
    A second designated player – with no hit to the salary cap.
    In three years, the DP rule hasn’t had a whole lot of effect on the league. Beckham, Blanco, six games of Julian de Guzman – I over-simplify, but no DP has ever made his team clearly and presently better than the rest.
    Part of the snag is the $400,000 cap hit, which puts a sixth of your entire player budget in one place, in a sport where a single player hardly ever lifts a team to glory on his own.
    A second DP slot would allow each ownership group the option of investing their own money (gasp!) to create a tandem of talent that might actually make a team noticeably better. Donovan-Beckham had a good year in L.A. last year. TFC fans are hoping De Guzman and Dwayne de Rosario will do something similar now.
    DeRo’s not a DP, of course. But he would be in an instant if the rules allowed it. He has a case for thinking he’s worth more money, too, what with leading the team in scoring a season ago, and being one of the finest players in MLS for years.
    MLS is obviously going to maintain the guts of its present system, apparently for another three years. But a second DP would be an intriguing operational experiment, as well. It allows a simple, limited move away from utter parity, without trashing the status quo. It could result in big teams that aren’t really that big, and small teams that can still kick can in the playoffs.
    And it would make things more interesting. Why not have a team fans everywhere love to hate? L.A. hasn’t achieved it. Neither has TFC.
    It makes no difference to me – at all – which teams decide to invest in this idea. I just want fans to look at the schedule for the upcoming season, see that Team X is coming through in August, and already start gearing up for the grudge game against the hated foe. It simply doesn’t happen enough in this league, and three more years of “this” seems a pretty heavy burden to have to bear.
    Give us something, MLS. A little tease … a different flavour ….
    Honest to mercy, y’all – how many two-scoop vanilla ice cream cones can any human being stand?
    Onward!
    Guest

    Expanding the Voyageurs Cup

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    With this week’s happy news that Edmonton is joining Whatever The Second Division Is Called in 2011, Canada now apparently has four men’s professional soccer teams.
    Edmonton sources confirm the CSA has already invited the new team to join Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in the Voyageurs Cup a year from now.
    Much has already been written about possible formats for such a tournament, so I’m going to write from a more emotional perspective.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Maybe you have to live here – and be immersed in the soccer scene – to understand why a true Canadian soccer league is never going to fly. Geography is unalterable. The lack of facilities will take decades to address. Lack of public interest longer still.
    Personally, I’ve always welcomed the obstacles. It’s much more competitively and dramatically interesting to have Canadian teams in a cross-border league with the Americans.
    Canada-only could easily become worse that Scotland, with the same teams winning all the time, and everyone else struggling to put a few hundred fans in the stands.
    I have always argued that the Voyageurs Cup should be opened to amateur and semi-pro teams, as well. The reigning CSL champions from Trois-Rivieres should have been given some oddball chance to qualify. Maybe a home-and-home with the Montreal Impact, who finished last in the V-Cup round-robin a year ago. The fact that TR is Montreal’s farm team feels like an irresistible bonus.
    But with Edmonton’s inclusion, I’d like to suggest putting further expansion of the Canadian championship tournament on hold – for one year.
    Let’s do a four-team round robin in 2011. A double one – with everybody playing everyone else twice.
    It’s not a practical long-term solution. Too many games for teams with limited resources and tiny rosters. Also, it’s almost inevitable one or two teams will be mathematically ousted early, and several of the late matches will be essentially meaningless.
    A single round-robin would address this. Everyone plays everybody once, with two teams getting two home games, and the others just one. Six matches in total – just like now. Maybe a seventh – please! – a one-game national championship final, held on Canada Day.
    (That last part is going to be really tough to swing. Either you ask all four teams to hold July 1 open on their schedules (which is a waste of a primo date) or you award the game to one team at the get-go, and hope like heck you don’t end up with a neutral-site game, which will be a very hard sell wherever the game is played. Toronto-Montreal in Edmonton? Whitecaps-TFC in Montreal?
    What would be wonderful – for one year – is a shadow Canadian league. We’re never going to get one any other way.
    Remember – Canada is the world’s greatest hockey nation, and does not have its own top-flight pro league. Superb regional junior hockey leagues? Oh yeah! – and that’s also the best model for moving Canadian soccer forward. Pro teams in MLS and Insert Name Of Division Two Here, junior clubs all over everywhere developing future Canadian World Cup stars.
    Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton. Run it for a year, and then figure out how to crown a national semi-pro champion, and get them involved in qualifying.
    There will never be enough clubs or resources to make Canadian pro soccer thrive on its own. Yes, MLS is saddled with the blandness of endless interchangeable opponents, most of whom still don’t have distinct identities for TFC fans even after three full and dramatic seasons. But seeing nothing but Canadian opposition all the time will get dreadfully dull, really fast.
    A four-team double round-robin is not sustainable, nor should it be. But it would be an awesome thing to experience once – and a fine dramatic yardstick for all future Voyageurs Cup formats to be measured against.
    And it will be huge fun – especially if nobody even remotely understands it Stateside.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Preki: first impressions

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    He’s got some rascal in him, this one.
    Thursday’s BMO Field presser announcing details of the 2010 Voyageurs Cup tournament was the first chance I’ve had to study Toronto FC’s new coach eyeball-to-eyeball.
    Preki – new to the whole thing, lurching back and forth between loosey-goosey and tentative – put on an intriguing show.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    While his fellow coaches (Marc Dos Santos of the Montreal Impact, Teitur Thordarson of the Vancouver Whitecaps) sat obediently and somewhat nervously behind their respective microphones, Preki lounged/sprawled way back in his chair, making occasional whispered jokes, clearly enjoying himself.
    Asked to speak of the Canadian competition’s importance, he shrugged off his total inexperience with the tournament, noting he has already seen that the V-Cup generates far more excitement in Canada than its American counterpart – the U.S. Open Cup – does Stateside.
    He was prepared for that one. The intriguing part, for me, was watching this sharp, calculating, Mercurial man when caught a little bit off-guard.
    Comes a good question (Lee Godfrey, GOL-TV) about the relative importance of league and V-Cup matches. Thordarson fields it, saying the Voyageurs Cup is very important to the Whitecaps, and that his team is looking forward to giving its all in what he expects will be some entertaining, high-quality matches.
    Preki, deeply reclined, suddenly realizes everyone is looking at him. He straightens, wondering aloud if he was supposed to answer the question too. No one says “no.” Now he’s improvising. And, interestingly, he tells the truth.
    The TFC coach rambles on for a good minute or more, stating beyond any doubt that MLS matches are far more important. His main goal is to win in the league, therefore league games have to take priority. Perhaps sensing the cup-happy room has suddenly gone a bit quiet, Preki adds a slightly awkward tag line that cup matches are great, too.
    I’ve seen lots of coaches get caught off-guard in many different ways. Some get flustered; some go all quiet. Some crank up the used-car-salesman routine, deflecting the question to offer you power wiper blades on the way by.
    Preki, there to bolster the cup, emphatically thudded on about the Canadian competition’s relative unimportance.
    This opens an intriguing possibility. There may be real profit for the TFC journo crowd in asking Preki vague questions. It seems as though, when he’s not completely clear on what he’s been asked, he answers all the possibilities at once – straight from the heart, gut and truth.
    Hmm.
    Whatever strategic shortcomings former TFC bench bosses John Carver and Chris Cummings possessed, they were blessedly frank and straight-forward talkers. Preki is clearly a man of many layers, and it won’t be nearly so easy now to deduce the spot-on from the spin.
    The trick may be – and I’ll let you know how it goes – to concoct a sufficiently vague question.
    This is going to be fun, folks.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Passing the armband

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Jim Brennan is a wonderful guy.
    Friendly, approachable, clever, smiles a lot, cares hugely about what he does.
    But as Toronto FC commences training camp for the 2010 MLS campaign, it is clear that Jimmy B should step down as the captain of the Reds.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Yes, he was the first player the franchise signed. Yes, his experience – England, Canada, three seasons of fulltime play for TFC – dwarfs most, if not all, of his teammates’.
    Age is one factor. Although he had some great moments in 2009, the 33-year-old has slowed a bit – which was painfully clear at times, particularly at the back.
    Versatility should work in his favour. Even though he’s mostly been deployed at fullback, he was the only man on the team last season who could semi-reliably get a decent cross in from the left side.
    But as the youth on the roster continues to develop – Attakora and Gomez at the back, Cronin and maybe Sanyang in the mid – competition for playing time will increase. Brennan’s on-field minutes are very likely to decline.
    Then there’s the ceaseless turmoil that gripped Toronto FC throughout 2009. It’s more than reasonable, methinks, to question the effectiveness of a captain who failed to put a clear stamp on either the controversial ousting of popular striker Danny Dichio, or that humiliating 0-5 loss to the PopCans on Massacre Night at the Meadowlands ©.
    When TFC began, Brennan was go-to experienced veteran. Three years later, both Julian de Guzman and Dwayne de Rosario have clearer claims to that crown. One of them should take the mantle now.
    On the sidelines, there is little doubt that new coach Preki will not settle for the clammy, clinging inconsistency that murdered this team’s post-season chances a year ago. But the players need one of their own to commit to leadership by example – and make it actually stick.
    Brennan remains valuable, but is now a diminishing resource. Let him pass the armband on, and concentrate on staying healthy, and making plays.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Logo no-go

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Sorry for the long absence, folks. I’m very much in off-season mode, and my life has become quite interestingly busy (in two cities!) behind the scenes. Onward! will become a regular part of my life again come spring, but there will still be intermittent (and, I hope, amusing) updates throughout the winter.
    Last week, the not-quite-so-breakaway group of former USL-1 owners who are now trying to pass themselves off as the new NASL held an annual general meeting, and issued … a logo.
    If you’re a fan of the old – the REAL – NASL, you probably recognize the typeface. It is exactly (or no worse than 97 per cent of exactly) what the old league used.
    And this has me feeling concerned.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    As an avid tabletop sports gamer, I’ve invented quite a few imaginary leagues in my time. Generally, they’re a hodge-podge of ideas from all over the place. I never felt that grabbing used logos was particularly honourable, but certainly it happened from time to time.
    NASL-2 is feeling more and more like a league someone just dreamed up. And it is, of course. The someones in question just happen to own real soccer teams, and want to get the heck out of the league they were in.
    And of course I understand there was a lot of last-minute edge work to deal with, significantly including hammering out a deal with the United States Soccer Federation so the second tier of men’s pro soccer in the United States and Canada could actually kick off come spring.
    But, honestly, this is getting sloppy. First, you grab the name of an old, legendary and still-loved league which you will never even remotely equal. Then, just in case we didn’t get the point, you boost its logo.
    It feels like that nerdy friend-of-a-friend who’s always nagging you to come see the toy train set in his basement. I love trains – and I adored the NASL – but this is getting embarrassing.
    It’s one thing for a league to be a hurriedly thought-out, largely improvised idea. It’s another thing – entirely – to look like one.
    If you want to be taken seriously, NASL-2 – and if you’re going to be home to the Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact, you’d darn well better be the real deal – please lose the shortcuts, and create your own identity.
    Otherwise, guys like me are going to spend all the attention we give you writing about what you’re not, instead of what you are.
    So … what are you?
    Onward!
    Guest

    Not feeling a draft

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    “Trader Mo” was quiet on draft day.
    Left with only a second- and fourth-round pick in the annual MLS auction of NCAA product, TFC GM Mo Johnston resisted the temptation to make headlines dealing up into the first round. He settled for a long-term project and a longshot, and the Reds roster remained relatively unruffled.
    Good.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    I admit I’m one who finds Trader Mo a bit of a carnival sideshow. I’d honestly be happier if the tents came down and the carts moved on.
    But there’s a very good reason why Toronto FC didn’t have a lot of selections in this dubiously legal exercise in restraint of trade: they cleaned up last year.
    Sam Cronin, Stefan Frei, O’Brian White. The first two instantly became solid, bankable MLS starters. White, battling back from a career-threatening knee injury, showed significant promise in limited playing time.
    As soon as all those deals went down, Johnston fired off his top 2010 pick down to Texas to FC Fairground-Fun-For-Frolicking-Families for Canadian international Adrian Serioux.
    TFC is now a team loaded with promising youth. Gambians Emmanuel Gomez and Amadou Sanyang wandered in later, and Fuad Ibrahim is still a hot prospect – and will still be a teenager for another year and two thirds.
    The Reds also have some front-line stars in Dwayne de Rosario and Julian de Guzman.
    In other words, they don’t need any more kids. Toronto’s gaping holes – striker, wing play, central defence – would be better filled by … players. Just some good, effective better-than-average pros would pretty much nail it.
    The parallel truth is, there aren’t that many current TFC players who could ever be dealt straight-up for a draft pick. Carl Robinson or Marvell Wynne – both rumoured to be on the move yesterday – just can’t match the future potential of top young college kids who won’t count against the salary cap for a while.
    When Mo finally got his moment, with the 24th pick overall, he grabbed 17-year-old central defender Zac Herold. How is a desperately young kid going to fill a position that cries out for veteran leadership? He isn’t. The hook here is he’s got six years of “Generation Adidas” exemption from the salary cap. He’s free, in other words. If he can play in three years, great. If not, he’s a really useful throw-in for a future hole-filling trade.
    Pure game-playing, in other words – which is most of what this silly draft exercise consists of, anyway.
    Overall, I’m giving Trader Mo a solid B for his drafting yesterday. It was a time to do nothing, he knew it, and got a couple of spare parts that might actually help him solve one of his many larger problems.
    Now we need a new CBA, so everyone knows how much money there actually is to spend. Then Johnston’s got to get to work filling holes for real.
    And while we’re in the neighbourhood, am I the only one who’s getting concerned that Nick Garcia is still on the Toronto roster? The veteran defender showed neither speed nor height last season, and opposing teams were deliberately – and successfully – running stunts on him down the stretch.
    Garcia, of course, was Johnston’s teammate for many years in Kansas City, but new coach Preki builds on his back four, so that’s got to be the end of that, right?
    Except Garcia, of course, was Preki’s teammate for many years in Kansas City as well.
    I understand the real dealing hasn’t started yet, but there are few Toronto players with more miniscule trade value. Why is he still here?
    Onward!
    Guest

    West Africa, 1966

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Way, way back in early 1966, I was a seven-year-old Canadian kid living at a university compound in Ibadan, Nigeria. I was attending Grade One, was deeply homesick, but quite entranced and influenced by the sights, sounds, colours and cultures of West Africa.
    Rainy season storms that went from clear blue sky to deluge in under five minutes. Vibrant cloth markets, bathed in a thousand colours in the hot intensity of an overhead noonday sun. The Milky Way and Southern Cross fairly blazing in the utter darkness of the midnight sky.The endless dust and lush jungle greenery of a place unimaginably different from my quiet little side street near Bloor and Spadina in downtown Toronto.
    And then the civil war broke out. The whole Biafra thing.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    There was never any shooting where we lived, although the Lagos airport got shot up on a day we would have been there had we waited for my younger brother to get over the mumps before we fled.
    But there were lines of armed soldiers on the hillsides. There were burned-out and shot-up buildings in the city. People I had come to know sometimes disappeared. Other people told me they’d been shot. A tank came to our school one afternoon, and soldiers told us not to come to school the following day.
    And I did once have a rifle pointed at me at a checkpoint.
    None of these things compares, in any way, with the recent attack on Togo’s national soccer team in Angola. People died. People saw friends and colleagues die.
    I’ve only ever been on the edge of a war. But the casualness and suddenness of what little I saw left me with dark, obsessive thoughts that still haunt me – in one way or another – forty-four years later.
    I don’t know how the Togolese could possibly have been expected to play soccer in the African Nations Cup under those conditions. Certainly no one expected the Sri Lankans to play cricket after their team bus was ambushed by gunfire in Lahore, Pakistan, a year ago.
    The president of Togo sent a plane to get them out of there. The team called a three-day mourning period – and even that seems pretty optimistic as a realistic return to competitive form.
    But international soccer tournaments have tight timelines, and Togo were supposed to play Ghana on Monday in the opening match of Group B. The game did not go ahead, and Togo have been disqualified.
    I don’t really have an argument for what is right and wrong here. People dying in bus ambushes is so far from the experience of just about everybody I know. What I do want to say, though, is that a little terror – when you actually taste it – goes a long, long way.
    For all the factual arguments about what should or shouldn’t happen here, for all the inevitable logistics of both tournaments and armed rebellion, only the team know how they really feel this morning. … And all they’re getting is whatever emotions – so far – have been able to filter through the shock.
    What happened to me in Africa was hugely minor compared to most people who have ever lived in the shadow of an armed conflict. I saw only aftermath. But even then, I could taste the terrifying uncertainty in the everyday air of the lively, sprawling, vibrant city that was my home throughout my first year of grade school.
    No one – even those who were with me, and are with me to this day – knows how it felt to be me back then.
    Only the Togolese should decide whether they can – or should – play in this tournament now.
    Onward!
    Guest

    New league for Impact, Whitecaps

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    As expected, compromise ruled the day.
    The two disputing factions in the feud over who runs second-division men’s pro soccer in this part of the planet has been resolved – for the coming season, at least – under intense pressure from the United States Soccer Federation.
    The two sides – old, existing USL-1 and new, rebellious NASL-2 – will each form a conference in a new 12-team league that will kick off this spring.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Canada’s two sides, the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps, have been drawn in the “NASL Conference,” along with Carolina, Miami and expansion sides St. Louis and Baltimore. The “USL Conference” includes Portland, Rochester, Puerto Rico, Minnesota, Austin and new boys Tampa Bay.
    Scheduling details have not been announced. But if we assume that the two sides still don’t really like each other, and each “conference” feels like it could be its own league a year from now because the other guys are jackasses yadda yadda so there, I think I see a way all this could be hugely good for the Canadian franchises.
    Pure speculation, but let’s weight the schedule in favour in conference play. That could easily produce a 32-game regular season, where everyone plays their conference mates four times each, and the other guys twice.
    All of a sudden, the ‘Caps and Impact get eight games against expansion teams in their own division. They also get four each against Miami, which has rarely played above bad expansion level for any sustained period of time. Carolina can be a fine squad, but there’s absolutely no difficulty securing high playoff spots here.
    Tough, established sides like Portland, Rochester and Puerto Rico? Twice each. C’est tout.
    Again, no one’s said this is how it will happen, but the sked length is about right, and it rather honestly reflects this “two-league” thing we’ve all been tap-dancing around since Nu-Rock Holdings bought the USL, and teams started jumping out of every door and window they could find.
    No, there will not ultimately be two leagues. But I’m sure both factions are still planning ways to be “the one” in 2011 – when Vancouver and Portland move up to MLS, leaving bad teams, second-year teams, Rochester, Montreal and Carolina.
    (Yeah, that’s tough on Minnesota. Bring it, boys!)
    Most importantly up here, Montreal and Vancouver have a league to play in, and the Voyageurs Cup will go on unhindered. The future of the entire rest of the operation is still far from certain. But there should be a good share of sloppy wins for both Canadian sides come spring.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Canadian soccer – the year ahead

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Eight things we long-suffering followers of the beautiful game in the Great White North need to see in 2010:
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    1) Major corporate sponsorship for the Canadian men’s soccer team. CSA general secretary Peter Montopoli knows you can’t finance World Cup runs on a fraction of the registration fees ponied up by amateur soccer players. He and the whole world outside of Metcalf Street agree on this. With the economy brightening and a World Cup year dawning, it’s time to bag the elephant. I want to see Montopoli, head coach Stephen Hart and a delighted corporate president, grinning in front of a giant mock-up cheque, by St. Patrick’s Day at the latest.
    2) Quick resolution to the USL-1/NASL-2 dispute. The USSF has given both sides a week to find a compromise. The blogosphere is ripping this as indecisive inaction. I think it’s a thoughtful, measured move – which should have happened two months ago, but it’s too late to cuss about that now. Scotch-tape-and-string together a one-year compromise, and make the split permanent next fall.
    3) MLS expansion to Montreal. A done deal, according to my pal and colleague Ben Rycroft, and I have no tangible reason to doubt him. But an official announcement would be lovely.
    4) At least ten international matches for the Canadian men. The CSA is whispering/shouting/mumbling about playing every designated day on the FIFA international calendar. We all know that won’t happen, so let’s just hit most of them. And get a major draw – Italy, Portugal, England – on the gleaming new grass at BMO Field. And make sure the private boxes are filled with corporate CEOs with money to spend on something happening and cool.
    5) A second Designated Player in MLS. The current single DP remains a huge cap hit, and the three teams that have won championships in the DP era (Houston ’07, Columbus ’08, Seagull City ’09) didn’t have one. A second DP – with either a split cap hit or (ideally!) no cap hit at all – could quickly ease the choking over-parity in Our Little League, without causing too much unaffordable inflation in the overall player pool. And it could be vital in keeping Dwayne DeRosario happy at Toronto FC, now that Julian DeGuzman is making bigger trips to the bank.
    6) The Vancouver Whitecaps continuing to do everything right. I’m starting to feel that even if the ‘Caps don’t have a league to play in, they’ll still keep building just fine for next year’s MLS debut. Play some friendlies with the Portland Timbers. Invite Seattle and Toronto in for matches. Invent some cornball yet compelling reason to play the Montreal Impact every month or so. Host some minor international sides! Montreal took on Haiti (0-0 draw) and Syria (2-1 win!) at Stade Saputo last July. Vancouver can do that – and more.
    7) A Voyageurs Cup tournament, even if there’s no league for Montreal and Vancouver. Okay, maybe it’s unofficial. Maybe the winner (other than Toronto) doesn’t get to play in the CONCACAF Champions League. It’s still important to play the games, because this competition matters. Especially after the strange way last year’s tourney ended, with the Whitecaps sitting rain-drenched in the seats while the Impact B-team lost 6-1 to TFC.
    8) Toronto FC in the playoffs. Yeah, they missed by one point, and the team they beat in the second-last game squeaked in ahead of them, and won the whole bun-feed. We all know it wasn’t that simple. It took naïve coaching, bad discipline, fifteen late goals-against and a midfield-heavy roster void in strikers, wingers and centre backs to not get that point. That and a 0-5 loss in the rain in Joisey, which proved the need for a new captain more than any of the many other things you could actually point to. May new coach Preki be the ass-kicking bastard this town so urgently needs.
    That’s my wish list. What’s on yours?
    Onward!
    Guest

    USL-done

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    2009 draws rapidly to a close, and the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps are missing something really basic and essential as they make their plans for 2010.
    A league to play in.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    It has already long-since been noted that the vast majority of USL-1 sides refuse to recognize Nu-Rock Holdings as the league’s new owner, and are attempting to split off and start NASL2 on their own.
    Nu-Rock’s attempts at “diplomacy” have so far consisted of expelling franchises, cancelling player contracts en masse and filing lawsuits against teams like Tampa Bay, Rochester and Baltimore who caught the stink from the kitchen and are now trying to tip-toe out the back door.
    All the while, the United States Soccer Federation – whose approval is needed for any league to operate – are doing everything they can to hold off making a decision, clearly hoping a solution is found that doesn’t involve their having to rule against one side or the other.
    Meanwhile, Canada’s only two division-two pro sides – Vancouver MLS-bound in a year, Montreal most likely a year after – don’t actually know for certain if they will be playing soccer at all this summer.
    It’s gone on long enough.
    Dear USSF: There comes a point when a ruler loses the confidence of the mob, far past the point when staying in power is possible. Nu-Rock Holdings passed this point before it ever assumed the throne. The ownership decision was so controversial, most USL-1 teams took it on the arches before the new guys ever assumed the throne.
    Since then, it’s been a one-way run to the exits. I don’t know what kind of soccer league Portland, Austin (if they still exist) and Puerto Rico can run on their own, but I can’t imagine any way it’s going to be worth the airfare.
    The honourable thing would be for Nu-Rock to concede, and get on with the business of running USL-2 and the PDL, which is becoming a better-than-useful player development tool. If any actual binding contracts have been broken, and any real compensation is due, I’m sure the courts can hammer all that out.
    USL-1 is dead. NASL2 is the de-facto second tier of men’s professional soccer in any parts of North America not flying red white and green flags.
    The new league needs an official sanction from the USSF, so its players, teams and referees don’t face the footballing excommunication FIFA would gleefully impose on any rebel “outlaw” league.
    This effort could get a huge boost if Portland, Austin (if they still exist) and Puerto Rico were nice enough to cross the floor and make NASL2 unanimous. Ducking lawsuits and staying loyal are admirable enough traits, but it seems impossible now that a USL-1 owned by Nu-Rock will ever kick off. It’s getting on for January and play has got to start in the spring.
    Someone has to explain all this to Nu-Rock, in ways they can understand. If even your expansion teams are jumping ship, and you’re having to sue just to hold onto teams that have never played a single game at that level – well, good luck selling season tickets for preliminary hearings and settlement negotiations.
    As 2009 ends, let this dispute end as well.
    Who in all this blessed world knows if NASL2 actually has the smarts and infrastructure to pull this off? But as long as we know the Nu-Rock deal exists on paper only, and will never, ever grace a soccer pitch – well, isn’t it time to get something done?
    Onward!
    Guest

    Quit messing with our openers!

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Only three of Toronto FC’s thirty MLS matches for 2010 have officially been scheduled, and already there’s controversy with two of them.
    First, MLS decided to send the Reds down to Columbus – again – for the March 27 season opener. This, despite the fact that TFC supporters’ groups are still refusing to organize fan trips to the Ohio capital in the wake of last year’s late-March fun-fest.
    (Yeah, yeah, jerks on both sides. Just a real shortage of fans up here who want to pay money to pose for round two. That will change – once TFC/Columbus becomes a real on-field soccer rivalry.)
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    No problem with the second match. New England, away, on April 10. That’s where the supporter money is going. Expect many busloads of red in Foxboro that night.
    Which brings us to the home opener. The first match on the new grass. New coach, new hopes – big names. What a way to spend a Saturday afternoon …
    Huh? Wuzzat? Thursday night?
    I suppose it’s an honour. A national ESPN2 television audience gets to see the new Philadelphia Union take a run in the calamitous red cauldron that is BMO Field. Canadian team on American TV! Get ‘em used to the idea that Seattle isn’t the only place they can get great atmosphere.
    Lost in all this? Well, let’s run a list:
    - Home openers are to be savoured, not whammed into whatever time is left over after work lets out.
    - No way is the grass going to look anywhere near as lovely under the lights.
    - BMO Field – given its height, isolation and immediate access and openness to Lake Ontario gales – is probably the coldest place in the entire city of Toronto (25 miles wide by 11 miles high) and surrounding area (that again, and then some). And it’s COLD ‘round here in April!
    At least the 8 PM kickoff will give everyone time to get there – with sufficient pub time ‘fore and aft – but it won’t be the joyous, luxurious, all-day soccer wallow it would have been two days later.
    Oh, and…!
    - Work crews installing the new grass pitch now have two fewer days to close the deal. And yes, it has been known to snow in Toronto as late as April 28.
    I know I’m being a bit whiny, but here’s the deal I’d like to make with the league to cover – oh, let’s say the next five years of season-opening fixtures.
    If you send TFC to Columbus, put the home opener on a weekend afternoon – with a nice, civilized, England-style 3 PM kickoff.
    If you send TFC to New England or New York or Philly or Chicago for the road opener, tell ESPN2 the Reds will take on all comers in a parking lot in Iqaluit, and they can set the kickoff for any blessed time they choose.
    (I worked up there for a winter once. Biggest obstacle to bus trips? No road. Ah, but we’ve got imagination, don’t we?)
    Did I just go all that way for another poke at the Columbus cops?
    No.
    Point is: while I don’t doubt MLS’s good intentions in all of this, getting popped on both the road and home openers seems a bit unnecessary. Of course, we’ll be good citizens and carry on whooping, cheering, singing and stomping – but please cut us one break or the other a year from now.
    Cool?
    Onward!
    Guest

    Spell-check this!

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    ‘Twas the weekend before Christmas, and I would’st like to drink a toast from a glass half-full:
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    And so it was that word filterethed down to the City of the Reds that the wise men wot runneth the Canadian Football League did’st tell the Cynamons and Sokolowskis they wouldst not be permittedeth to dock their Goode Ship Argonaute in the green and pleasant soccer harbour that isith BMO Field.
    And there was great rejoicing amongst the soccer tribes, for verily had’st they believed themselves to be pole-screwed by cruel and arbirtrary fate – just as the Curse of Turf haddeth been lifted from the sacred greensward, witheth the promise of sumptuous state-of-the-art sheep food to followeth.
    But now the threat t’was smitteted and slain – by the verye rules of the gridiron goliaths who had’st so darkly threateneded ye joyous tymes to come.
    Verily did’st Maypl Leaf Sporte and Entertainemente then quietly breaketh ground on a new north grandstand, putting paid to ye gentle Beer Gardyn, yetteth ensuring the BMO pasture would’st remain forever too small for the cruel and gouging ravishes of pointy balle.
    Now, when first blushe of spring doth cleanse away ye highway salte, and again paint the Gardner Yxpressway gray, local soccer heroes De Guzman and De Rosario shalt stand shouldyr-to-shouldyr on green and blessed grasse, united for to turn away such threats as Major Leagueth Soccer shal’t unhurl.
    True, ye Latin Lance of Guevara shal’t be gone. He and new boss Preki had’st jousted twice too often in the past, and such gifted free kicks as ever we have known shall now call fair Honduras home.
    And yet Vitti, the ungoode, and Fellinga, the unimpressing, hav’st also hastened hence, freeing treasure to be spent by Ye Trader Mo on strikers and stoppers and wingmen yet’st unknowable.
    Verily, grate heroes shall wear the flowing red this summer hence, yet who in helle shall getteth them the ball, or finish what theye start – these portents are but yet obscure.
    Yet fetch forth flagons of mede and ale, and let one and all utter a festive huzzah!!
    ‘Tis Chrystmas Tyme at TFC. That which shineth doth yet shine – and that which sucketh, sucketheth mayhap a little lesse.
    Onwyrd!!
    Guest

    Vitti

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    So, sure, everyone in Toronto FC land is talking about Amado Guevara signing with a team in his native Honduras and there goes the playmaker and we didn’t get anything for him and I’ll probably get in on that tomorrow or something unless something else happens and you know how it goes, right?
    So I want to write about Pablo Vitti.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    The young Argentine has also been let float away, having produced little more than a headed-in goaltending mistake every not-quite-900-minutes on the field for TFC. A couple of nice assists, too, one of which he didn’t actually get credit for.
    We all got sold a bag of hype on this one. A $300,000 contract was signed, even though the question “how does an allegedly good young Argentine goal scorer end up playing in the Ukrainian league?” never quite got answered.
    Flashes of brilliance? Certainly. A darting run that beat three opponents, followed by a perfectly weighted rolling shot an inch past the far post. Fans gushed. Bloggers happily relaxed and said things were going to work out fine.
    That play, alone, bought Vitti some very passionate defenders and fans. And man oh boy did I start hearing from them when I started noting publicly that the “kid” wasn’t producing anything that ended up on the scoreboard.
    And I was willing to buy it for a while, too. Heck, maybe he was being played out of position all the time. Maybe it was my fault that I saw good moves and lousy link-up. Maybe all his link-up work came when I didn’t see it. Which would mean it came when he wasn’t being flashy. Which made me wonder why everyone was praising his flash.
    So I just put my head down and kept watching. I’ve been wrong before. And I’d admit being incorrect if suddenly faced with a rising evidence pile of Pablo Vitti goals.
    In the end, I don’t quite understand how TFC GM Mo Johnston became convinced a chronic non-producer like Vitti was going to light up MLS to the tune of more than ten per cent of Toronto’s salary cap. Certainly there was pressure on Johnston to sign South Americans a year ago.
    But, in all blessed honesty, the answer to the question “how does an allegedly good young Argentine goal scorer end up playing in the Ukrainian league?” is – they don’t.
    Bringing a guy like Vitti in on a low-money gamble could have been a savvy move. Paying him that much – for that little – hurt the team.
    But the roster spot and the cap room are free now. A South American playmaker or finisher might still be a good gamble for a team with big holes up front and on the flanks.
    … As long as he’s playing south of the Equator, on this side of the Atlantic.
    Onward!
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