TFC2 2016 Discussion

[Rocket Robin]

April 17, 2016 TFC II vs Pittsburgh Riverhounds

my take on the game: 

http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports16/16tfc243.htm

April 19th pictures now added! 

 

[Bison44]

Much more exciting to watch this year.  Bono does seem to like to take some liberties out there, hope he doesn't get caught out. And even ole Dunfield on the mike wasn't too bad!   

[shamrock]

Too bad they conceded late, but TFC 2 got me excited about the future. Their play looked much improved over last years' and they did it with even younger players!  Aidan Daniels and 16 year-old Shaan Hundal (!) are pushing out the other youngsters. This must mean quality of players in the system is improving. Raheem Edwards will surely be the next homegrown player TFC can add, this kid has the pace for the next level and technically he's not too bad either. Also it looks like a nice atmosphere in Vaughan, looks much more like a real club now than a second team. 

[shermanator]

What I find interesting is that Jordan Hamilton is not playing for either the first team or TFC II. Is he injured? 

[Bison44]

I would guess he is close enough to gameday roster he stays with the big club, but not good enough to get any playing time. Sort of like Roberts, stuck in a weird non playing vortex...almost there but stagnating at the same time.   

[shermanator]

Looks like Roberts, Chapman and Hamilton have all been loaned to TFC II. I would have to guess that Roberts and Bono will bounce back and forth between the clubs to get playing time.

[Bison44]

Tough spot for Roberts, its had to make any progress nailed to the bench, but hate to see him drop down to USL again.  I will be pissed if now is the time they give Irwin a break and Bono slips in for the start.  

[Ruffian]

From torontofc.ca post:

Who: TFC II (1-0-2) vs. FC Cincinnati (2-2-0)

When: Sunday, April 24 at 4:00PM ET

Where: Ontario Soccer Centre

Livestream: tfc2.ca                                    

[Dub Narcotic]

Tough 2-1 loss to a very nice Cincinnati team filled with a lot of solid veterans. The team, again, couldn't hold onto a lead after Raheem Edwards scored at the end of the first half on another nice solo run. However, it was less of a collapse than just not being as good as the Cincinnati squad, although it was a nice, well-played game on both sides despite mediocre conditions.

It is slightly worrying that TFC had five or six first team starters on the field and couldn't quite hang with an expansion USL squad. In particular, Ashtone Morgan, who may not have been too excited to be there, was quite poor, and I've yet to see a really exciting performance from Jay Chapman on any TFC squad.

On the positive side, Skylar Thomas and Nick Hagglund both very pretty solid and someone found Jordan Hamilton and put him on the field as a substitute, where he looked like his old Wilmington self for the first time in a while and skinned his fullback quite badly and created a great chance. I also think Raheem Edwards is now the all-time leading scorer for TFC2 and continues his near-guaranteed march to a first-team contract. I already think you an make a case for him being a better player than Morgan.

For a lower-league nerd like myself, it was nice to see this Cincinnati team full of familiar names like Andrew Weideman (who was very good) and Kenny Walker. Interesting how good marginal MLS guys like those two are at lower-league level.

[Rocket Robin]

April 24, 2016--my take on the TFC II vs FC Cincinnati game

http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports16/16tfc250.htm

[El Hombre]

1 hour ago, Dub Narcotic said:

It is slightly worrying that TFC had five or six first team starters on the field and couldn't quite hang with an expansion USL squad.

Five or six first team starters?

Roberts, Morgan (Bernal), Hagglund, Thomas, Charpie, Mannella, Chapman (Daniels), James, Edwards, Johnson (Jobe), Hundal (Hamilton)

Who are these first team starters?

I thought the team "hung" pretty well with this USL side.  Both goals were a lack of concentration, but other than that and 10 minutes early in the first half, it was a pretty even game.  One might even think that TFC II carried the play for the majority.  Johnson is a special player and Edwards could potentially be working his way into Delgado's spot sometime in the near future.  It would be interesting to have a wide player that can cross playing with the first team.

FC Cincinnati was been built to win, which isn't necessarily true for all the teams in USL.  I think TFC II held their own pretty well against and experienced side.

[Grizzly]

18 minutes ago, El Hombre said:

Five or six first team starters?

Roberts, Morgan (Bernal), Hagglund, Thomas, Charpie, Mannella, Chapman (Daniels), James, Edwards, Johnson (Jobe), Hundal (Hamilton)

Who are these first team starters?

I thought the team "hung" pretty well with this USL side.  Both goals were a lack of concentration, but other than that and 10 minutes early in the first half, it was a pretty even game.  One might even think that TFC II carried the play for the majority.  Johnson is a special player and Edwards could potentially be working his way into Delgado's spot sometime in the near future.  It would be interesting to have a wide player that can cross playing with the first team.

FC Cincinnati was been built to win, which isn't necessarily true for all the teams in USL.  I think TFC II held their own pretty well against and experienced side.

LOL. I think he means they started 5 or 6 guys from the 1st team not 5 or 6 guys who are starters for the 1st team. Roberts, Morgan, Hagglund, Mannella, Chapman are all signed to the 1st team and Hamilton subbed in.

[El Hombre]

48 minutes ago, Grizzly said:

LOL. I think he means they started 5 or 6 guys from the 1st team not 5 or 6 guys who are starters for the 1st team. Roberts, Morgan, Hagglund, Mannella, Chapman are all signed to the 1st team and Hamilton subbed in.

Okay, but I think everyone would agree that considering those players "first team players" is tenuous at best.  FC Cincinnati had more MLS experience on the field than TFC II and all but Hagglund of those players spent the majority of the season with TFC II last year.  It seemed like a long way to go to find a criticism that doesn't hold any water.

[Grizzly]

2 hours ago, El Hombre said:

Okay, but I think everyone would agree that considering those players "first team players" is tenuous at best.  FC Cincinnati had more MLS experience on the field than TFC II and all but Hagglund of those players spent the majority of the season with TFC II last year.  It seemed like a long way to go to find a criticism that doesn't hold any water.

They are first team players by any definition of the term even if not all of them have played a lot of minutes for the first team. Morgan and Hagglund played quite a bit for the first team last year and Chapman played in more games (though less minutes) for the first team than TFC2. I do agree though that FC Cincinnati has a pretty impressive lineup and I am pretty sure its starting roster had a lot more MLS games played than TFC2 does as well as having a number of former NASL players. Some of these teams that are either fully independent of an MLS club or independent with a handful of loan players have really impressive lineups for USL level and are hard to beat for the teams that are solely MLS second teams without veterans. Still if you are playing 6 players from the first team one would expect to be competitive with a team like FC Cincinnati though not necessarily to win the game. I did not watch the game so I can't really comment on that.

Hard to say what the best strategy is, bring in some veterans for better results and influence on the young players or play the maximum number of younger players accepting that the results won't be great. In the games I have watched FC Montreal play both this year and last they are competitive with these teams during the run of play but are losing mostly because of the odd mistake and not being able to score so I suspect it is better to play the maximum number of young players. I wonder what Dub Narcotic thinks about this subject LOL?

[Dub Narcotic]

I think it's pretty clear what 'first-team starters' meant in context. BTW, Ashtone Morgan probably has more MLS caps than all of FC Cincinnati's roster combined if you don't count Omar Cummings. A problem TFC has always had, alebit one of many, is that they had too many scrubs on their senior team roster. In some ways, this was unavoidable pre-USL because if you had a younger player there was no way to keep them around but to give them a first-team contract and hope they got better through practice and cup games (early TFC) or USL/NASL loans (mid-era TFC).

I think it's less forgivable now with the USL team to have players on senior contracts who aren't capable of contributing at the senior level or whom are at least your really top prospects whom you want to pay a bit more. Vanney and Bezbachenko did a pretty good job of housecleaning at the end of last year (hello, Manny Aparicio) but I think the roster still needs one more good scrub in this off-season and that shows up a little bit in games like this.

Anyways, I don't want that minor discussion point from my recap to lead to an endless discussion. To @Grizzly's point, I'm very happy with how TFC2 is being run this year. It's like night-and-day from last season and the results are obvious, both in the team's record and play style but also in how the skill position players like Edwards and Johnson are developing. I don't even know that Jason Bent and TFC are doing that much differently than last year, but the organization as a whole is much more stable than it has ever been and they have had some time to evaluate their player pool.  If you have nostalgia for 2015 USL and want to see a lot of outmatched young players with no first-team potential get smashed every week, well, FC Montreal games are easy to find.

About Raheem Edwards: I don't want to see him on the senior team this year for more than a minimal amount of time. Jay Chapman got yanked up too early last year due to the roster disaster that was 2015 TFC and it has really hurt his development. Teams are going to start game-planning against Edwards now and he's going to have to learn to fight through that pressure and carry this team. It will be great experience for him. It's unclear to me how playing him at RM to get 'more crosses in' would work, given that's not his position in the first place and he would be playing inverted. It is an interesting question how a player like Edwards will fit into Vanney's narrow 4-4-2, given that he likes guys like Johnson and Cheyrou in the wing positions.

To wrap up this too-long post, here's that great sequence that unfortunately led to the winning FCC goal (mentioned in @Rocket Robin's post). One of the more exciting moments I can remember in a USL game: https://imgur.com/BtruI23

[El Hombre]

2 hours ago, Dub Narcotic said:

Anyways, I don't want that minor discussion point from my recap to lead to an endless discussion. To @Grizzly's point, I'm very happy with how TFC2 is being run this year. It's like night-and-day from last season and the results are obvious, both in the team's record and play style but also in how the skill position players like Edwards and Johnson are developing. I don't even know that Jason Bent and TFC are doing that much differently than last year, but the organization as a whole is much more stable than it has ever been and they have had some time to evaluate their player pool.  If you have nostalgia for 2015 USL and want to see a lot of outmatched young players with no first-team potential get smashed every week, well, FC Montreal games are easy to find.

 

So you don't think that portion of the success the team is having this year is due to having been thrown in the deep end last year?  I think last year was good for a lot of the TFC II players in their development and it also allowed the coaching staff a chance to figure out which players will sink or swim without having a bunch of 25 to 28 year-old journeymen as safety blankets.  I think that plays into it at least a little bit.

[1996]

So whatever happened to Manny Aparicio, this guy was everywhere last year, played with TFC2, the Pan Am team, the U20 I think and maybe the Olympic team if I'm not mistaken, is he even playing soccer anywhere this year? So does he join the long list of Canadian players that retired before even turning what 21 he is born in 1995.

[Complete Homer]

3 hours ago, 1996 said:

So whatever happened to Manny Aparicio, this guy was everywhere last year, played with TFC2, the Pan Am team, the U20 I think and maybe the Olympic team if I'm not mistaken, is he even playing soccer anywhere this year? So does he join the long list of Canadian players that retired before even turning what 21 he is born in 1995.

Released, I believe

 

Edit: Somehow I missed the point of your post. All his twitter posts are congratulating former teammates on new signings, etc, nothing about his movement. If he wasn't able to catch on with another USL team, maybe it's just time to move on anyway. Not everyone pans out, and maybe he decided he would rather pursue another path than to slog away for another year in the minors.

[Dub Narcotic]

4 hours ago, El Hombre said:

So you don't think that portion of the success the team is having this year is due to having been thrown in the deep end last year?  I think last year was good for a lot of the TFC II players in their development and it also allowed the coaching staff a chance to figure out which players will sink or swim without having a bunch of 25 to 28 year-old journeymen as safety blankets.  I think that plays into it at least a little bit.

I think we've kind of beat this to death. FC Montreal is following the preferred USL model of many here, we'll see between them, TFC and Vancouver who has the best success from their second teams going forward.

About 'journeymen', however, I think finding good players who can play on the senior team regardless of their pedigree is one of the valuable functions of these USL teams, not just acting as a U-21 team for the residency players. Mo Babouli, after all, didn't come through TFC's system in any real way, and the Galaxy picked up Daniel Steres as a 24 year old from Wilmington in USL, played him in Galaxy 2 last year and he's now their starting center back. Those are hugely valuable contributions.

I'm a big fan of Aaron Nielsen's stuff at Red Nation Online and he has great columns every year on overlooked players in NASL/USL who should get a MLS shot and I hope all of the Canadian teams are doing some similar player scouting on their opponents as part of this USL process.

[Macksam]

12 hours ago, Dub Narcotic said:

About Raheem Edwards: I don't want to see him on the senior team this year for more than a minimal amount of time. Jay Chapman got yanked up too early last year due to the roster disaster that was 2015 TFC and it has really hurt his development.

Every player is different. Chapman didn't have the athleticism (mainly quickness....something he could potentially develop with the correct medicine ball workouts never the less) to cope with MLS' style of play. He still doesn't have it unfortunately and that will continue to be his issue. Edwards shouldn't have the same problem. I say throw him in there. I'm sure he'll run a fucking riot on most MLS defenders.

[Coramoor]

17 hours ago, Dub Narcotic said:

 

 

About Raheem Edwards: I don't want to see him on the senior team this year for more than a minimal amount of time. Jay Chapman got yanked up too early last year due to the roster disaster that was 2015 TFC and it has really hurt his development. Teams are going to start game-planning against Edwards now and he's going to have to learn to fight through that pressure and carry this team. It will be great experience for him. It's unclear to me how playing him at RM to get 'more crosses in' would work, given that's not his position in the first place and he would be playing inverted. It is an interesting question how a player like Edwards will fit into Vanney's narrow 4-4-2, given that he likes guys like Johnson and Cheyrou in the wing positions.

 

I disagree so strongly on this statement it isn't even funny. Chapman looked lost and out of place during his early few USL games, behind the game, not commanding the midfield well, just completely lost for such a highly touted prospect. After spending half the season with TFC and training with them regularly, he came down and was a dominant force, getting on the ball, passing well and commanding the upper half of the midfield. That time with TFC gave him exactly what he needed and he's still got time.

They've made it clear they have no interest in rushing Edwards along. He's incredibly promising and what he needs is more game time and more situations to develop the automatic instinct that makes wingers so effective. The two situations are very different.

 

As far as the game goes, I was only able to see the first 65, unlike last week where it was a bit of bad luck to only get 1 point. This time around, TFC2 was outclassed for much of the game albeit with very deadly counter attacking. If the front three ever develop a better passing understanding, this team is going to be absolutely deadly.

[Dub Narcotic]

Lost 1-0 to Richmond. Started slowly after what was probably a long plane ride and gave up a goal on a nice finish by ex-Dynamo Brian Ownby. However, they were never out of the game but couldn't generate anything in the final third and that was all the scoring. If this game is any indication, teams are going to play the defensive line back more to counter Edwards and Johnson, both of whom RIchmond contained very effectively.

Jordan Hamilton is not a striker for a 4-2-3-1, not having the workrate or holdup game. He seems more effective as a Henry or GIovinco-style player, coming off the wings. TFC2 seemed to be yelling at each other a lot this game, I imagine they'll be glad to be home after a long round-trip to lose in the rain.

[El Hombre]

14 hours ago, Dub Narcotic said:

Jordan Hamilton is not a striker for a 4-2-3-1, not having the workrate or holdup game. He seems more effective as a Henry or GIovinco-style player, coming off the wings. TFC2 seemed to be yelling at each other a lot this game, I imagine they'll be glad to be home after a long round-trip to lose in the rain.

Edwards was all over him at the half time whistle.  It looked like Thomas was on him as well.  I kinda liked that.

[Big_M]

Disappointing performance with many first team players on the field. Roberts as usual didn't come out well and a blunder on the 2nd goal. Will never be an mls player. Fraser and Davis have good potential. 

[masster]

Can they not light the field better? The far side of the pitch was so dark on the broadcast.