TFC Academy Toronto Croatia result

[An Observer]

good result for their first match... a bit too early to tell, but at least they are not getting blown out

http://www.canadiansoccerleague.ca/news_archive.php?news_id=91004

TFC Academy surprised the defending CSL champions Toronto Croatia with a 1-0 victory in the season opener of the Canadian Soccer League at Lamport Stadium in Toronto’s west end Friday night.

Playing with good pace and moving the ball like a team that has been together much longer than the actual just two weeks, the senior of two teams in the recently launched academy program of Toronto FC played with good purpose to hold on to an early 1-0 lead, scored after 8 minutes.

TFC Academy’s Domenic Roberts took a 40 yard free kick to set up the goal struck by Adrian Pena who beat Croatia goalkeeper Marko Culjak for what turned out to be the only goal of the game.

The TFC team almost increased the lead 10 minutes later, striking the Croatia woodwork, and this was followed by Toronto Croatia almost tying at 39 minutes when Hugo Herrera found the net only to have the goal ruled offside.

TFC Academy is in their inaugural year in the CSL, whereas Toronto Croatia celebrated 50 years in Canadian soccer in 2006 and won the CSL title in 2007.

TFC Academy head coach Jason Bent appeared satisfied with his young side’s initial showing. “It was a good first game for us, we took a lot of positives out of the game. We have some things we need to work on, but in general a good first time out,” he said.

Tom Granic, coach of Croatia was clearly surprised at the result: “We don’t have our full team yet, a few players missing, but also we were not quite up to it and that’s disappointing,” he conceded.

Referee Isaac Raymond issued six yellow cards in the game, four to Croatia and two to the academy side. The opener was played before 853 fans, the first game played on the newly-resurfaced Toronto stadium.

TFC Academy will be back at the Lamport ground on May 23 for a game against St. Catharines Wolves, while Toronto Croatia will be at home to Portugal FC at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga the same day.

[Loud Mouth Soup]

Ah, it is a new surface. Did not know that, and saw it when I drove past on Friday morning. Didn't look too bad, to be honest (for a 5 second drive by)

[dbailey62]

quote:Originally posted by Loud Mouth Soup

Ah, it is a new surface. Did not know that, and saw it when I drove past on Friday morning. Didn't look too bad, to be honest (for a 5 second drive by)

I think it's called "Game Turf". On the surface it looks a like FieldTurf with its black rubber pellets but it doesn't have the deep cushioned gravel base that properly installed FieldTurf has.

It looked like it was laid on top of the concrete albeit with about 3 or 4 inches of cushioning under the surface itself.

Ben walked on it and hated it saying that it felt very uneven.

Apparently Esther Shiner has the same stuff.

It does look good though.

[jpg75]

Anything is better than the crap that was on there before. My knees alway hurt after running on that stuff.

[VPjr]

I park at Lamport on TFC gamedays so I've seen that turf being installed over the past few weeks. It definitely looks better than the astroturf that was there before but it definitely looks inferior to the Fieldturf at BMO. If Ben says it feels "uneven" that's not good.

my guess is that this "gameturf" stuff is cheaper than the real Fieldturf. I wonder if Gameturf is the product that got put down at Olympic Stadium last year for the U20's before the FIFA inspectors told them to rip it out and replace with a FIFA approved surface from Fieldturf.