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2017 Toronto FC season (aka the 2017 MLS Cup clinching thread)

shermanator

By shermanator
in Major League Soccer

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BenFisk'sBiggestFan Newbie

BenFisk'sBiggestFan

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10 hours ago, MCEAXN said:

Do you think Toronto have good chance to win Champions League next year?

If there is any MLS club that could, it would be TFC. Other clubs have good players, but they can't match the depth Toronto has. Toronto should be able to rotate their squad enough to stay healthy and fresh. Its just a matter of Gio and Altidore being hot at the right time and they could win it. I still think overall the Liga MX teams are better. But it is a cup competition in Concacaf. Literally anything can happen. I think Toronto is one of the top 3 bets to win it next year.

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Jith12 Explorer

Jith12

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If Montreal could get to the finals a couple years ago we should be able to make it this year. The fact that it goes straight to the knockout round for us might help since there are fewer games. If we are on form at the time we've got a good chance.

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Yohan Contributor

Yohan

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3 minutes ago, Jith12 said:

If Montreal could get to the finals a couple years ago we should be able to make it this year. The fact that it goes straight to the knockout round for us might help since there are fewer games. If we are on form at the time we've got a good chance.

Pre season time for MLS teams going into CCL knockout stage while Liga MX teams are already in Apertura season.

Another reason why MLS teams tend to not do so well in CCL knockout stage. (And why Klopas pretty much devoted all of IMFC preseason in Mexico couple of years ago)

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Free kick Grand Master

Free kick

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7 hours ago, jpg75 said:

FYP. ?

The key will be Giovinco.  In the past, when MLS clubs faced off against Mexican clubs in CCL,  There was sence that the mexican clubs could tease the MLS clubs into thinking they were in it and then when crunch time came, the Mexican club would turn it up an notch and blow them out of the pitch. 

But no Mexican club has a player of the quality of Giovinco when he is on his game.  Thats why i am really looking forward to the CCL.  In 2015 and 2016 he showed that he could win games on his own. Having the best player on the pitch can make a humongous difference in soccer in big games. 

Because of the salary cap, MLS clubs will never be able to have the roster depth  of the mexican clubs.  But Giovinco could be the big equalizer in that area.  It would have been great to get to play in CCL last year, you never know if he will still be around next season.  

PS.: i think that TFC (with this squad and with Giovinco in full form) have a better chance to win the CCL than they have to win the MLS cup.  The MLS cup has always been a crapshoot. 

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Free kick Grand Master

Free kick

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Speaking of the CCL,  since TFC have won the supporter’s shield and that the Supporters shield winner get a spot in the CCL.  Does this mean a second canadian team gets a spot? Or, will the spot go to the team that finished second for the supporters shield?

Mathematically, the Whitecaps could still finish second for the supporters shield.  Wonder what they would do in that case? The Whitecaps would the runner up in league but not the V cup?  So would they give it to The Whitecaps instead of Montreal.

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Unnamed Trialist Grand Master

Unnamed Trialist

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17 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Speaking of the CCL,  since TFC have won the supporter’s shield and that the Supporters shield winner get a spot in the CCL.  Does this mean a second canadian team gets a spot? Or, will the spot go to the team that finished second for the supporters shield?

Mathematically, the Whitecaps could still finish second for the supporters shield.  Wonder what they would do in that case? The Whitecaps would the runner up in league but not the V cup?  So would they give it to The Whitecaps instead of Montreal.

The Supporter's Shield spot is designated by the US federation, not Canada. We cannot take one of their spots off their designation. More likely, they will designate the highest ranking US-based MLS team to get that spot.

If we had a Voyageurs Cup with more teams involved, including early rounds closer to the US Open Cup, we would be in a position to ask for a second CCL spot.

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paul-collins Newbie

paul-collins

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9 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

The Supporter's Shield spot is designated by the US federation, not Canada. We cannot take one of their spots off their designation. More likely, they will designate the highest ranking US-based MLS team to get that spot.

If we had a Voyageurs Cup with more teams involved, including early rounds closer to the US Open Cup, we would be in a position to ask for a second CCL spot.

As it turns out, this year the SS and other conference winners don't get spots, because the US is doing their rationalization next year, and so for 2018-2019 they have both the MLS 2017 and 2018 Cup Winners, and 2017 and 2018 Open winners.

Of all years to have Canadian regular season champions, this is the best for USSF for CONCACAF reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_in_CONCACAF_club_competitions#Teams

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Unnamed Trialist Grand Master

Unnamed Trialist

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47 minutes ago, paul-collins said:

As it turns out, this year the SS and other conference winners don't get spots, because the US is doing their rationalization next year, and so for 2018-2019 they have both the MLS 2017 and 2018 Cup Winners, and 2017 and 2018 Open winners.

Of all years to have Canadian regular season champions, this is the best for USSF for CONCACAF reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_in_CONCACAF_club_competitions#Teams

Thanks @paul-collins I was going on memory did not know that.

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Jith12 Explorer

Jith12

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9 hours ago, Bison44 said:

No, because I dont think TFC (or VAN Impact etc) value it enough to make it a priority.  Which is a shame.  

Didn't Bezbatchenko say that "the Champions League is our biggest goal" or something along those lines?

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RS Grand Master

RS

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16 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I love it that TFC fans are talking about the Champions League when they are uneven in league the last few games, best thing that could happen for the rest of us is for you guys to be focussed on next February. 

 

I don't think TFC's fate in the playoffs will be determined by what the fans are focused on.

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paul-collins Newbie

paul-collins

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4 hours ago, Jith12 said:

Didn't Bezbatchenko say that "the Champions League is our biggest goal" or something along those lines?

---quote---

As noted during the playoffs last season, the players’ lounge at TFC’s training facility has three trophy cases along one wall, with spots for the Voyageurs Cup, awarded to the winners of the Canadian Championship, the MLS Cup and the CONCACAF Champions League. The first one is occupied. The other two are not.

Toronto are favorites to fill the second this season, but the third... well, that would make further tilt the scales in TFC's direction in conversations of the 'greatest ever teams' in MLS.

“That would be one factor that fans and media would use to placate the narratives,” said Bezbatchenko. “We're motivated to get to the [FIFA] Club World Cup because no team has done it. It would be a testament to the talent and the creation of this team; to Greg [Vanney]'s work and the players work.

“We would love to get [there], but it's so far down the road. We have to take it chronologically. Win the Supporters’ Shield and lock in first place, make a deep run and put ourselves into position to host the Cup again. If we get there, let's win the Cup. And then we can start focusing on the Champions League.” 

---end quote---

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017/09/20/toronto-fc-chase-history-tim-bezbatchenko-reflects-clubs-journey

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BenFisk'sBiggestFan Newbie

BenFisk'sBiggestFan

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19 hours ago, Free kick said:

The key will be Giovinco.  In the past, when MLS clubs faced off against Mexican clubs in CCL,  There was sence that the mexican clubs could tease the MLS clubs into thinking they were in it and then when crunch time came, the Mexican club would turn it up an notch and blow them out of the pitch. 

But no Mexican club has a player of the quality of Giovinco when he is on his game.  Thats why i am really looking forward to the CCL.  In 2015 and 2016 he showed that he could win games on his own. Having the best player on the pitch can make a humongous difference in soccer in big games. 

Because of the salary cap, MLS clubs will never be able to have the roster depth  of the mexican clubs.  But Giovinco could be the big equalizer in that area.  It would have been great to get to play in CCL last year, you never know if he will still be around next season.  

PS.: i think that TFC (with this squad and with Giovinco in full form) have a better chance to win the CCL than they have to win the MLS cup.  The MLS cup has always been a crapshoot. 

What About Gignac? Or Castillo? Or Vargas? These guys tear up a league that is much more defensively sound than the MLS. I am not interested in arguing about who is better Gio or Gignac, all i am trying to say is that Lixa MX has players of similar quality to Gio. This article gives a good summary of the talent that Lisa MX has: http://www.espnfc.com/mexican-liga-mx/22/blog/post/3170868/liga-mx-all-star-team-would-be-led-by-andre-pierre-gignac

I think TFC has managed their team amazingly and their depth is much better than the rest of the MLS. Unfortunately like you said, the top teams like Tigres and Pumas still have better depth than TFC. I still think that in a cup competition TFC actually has a chance though. As long as TFC have a healthy first team and use them in the Champions league.

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harrycoyster Contributor

harrycoyster

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6 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

While this is interesting, is there a short summary on how they come by these rankings? They don't seem to be based on how well a team is doing in its own league as they have the LA Galaxy well ahead of San Jose, for example.

"We take four metrics from each match — goals scored, adjusted goals, shot-based expected goals and non-shot expected goals — to evaluate team performances. Those evaluations are expressed as offensive and defensive ratings for each team. And those ratings, in turn, let us calculate win/loss/draw probabilities for future matches and simulate the season thousands of times to estimate each team’s chances of winning the title."

"To generate the league strength ratings, we’ve set up a system where we first assume that all leagues are of equal strength and determine how far above or below expectation each league has performed over the past five years. In order, we:

1) Run through all domestic matches in history and calculate domestic team SPI ratings throughout time.

 2) Look at each inter-league match from the past five years and calculate the expected score of the match based purely on each team’s domestic rating at the time.

3)Take the difference between our expected score of the match and the actual score and run these results through Massey’s Method to find a rating for each league, expressed in how many goals better or worse than average that league is.

4) Regress these calculated ratings toward market-value based ratings, weighted by how many inter-league matches we have for each league.

5) Run through all matches in history again, incorporating league strengths into the predictions for any inter-league matches to improve the final team ratings.

Our league strengths can be interpreted as a bonus (in goals) given to each team in an inter-league match. So, for example, if Real Madrid (league strength of 2.01) were playing PSG (league strength of 1.48) and Real Madrid were a 0.2 goal favorite based only on their domestic SPI ratings, our model would give Real Madrid an extra 0.53 goal bonus because of the difference in the two teams’ league strengths."

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Free kick Grand Master

Free kick

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7 hours ago, BenFisk'sBiggestFan said:

What About Gignac? Or Castillo? Or Vargas? These guys tear up a league that is much more defensively sound than the MLS. I am not interested in arguing about who is better Gio or Gignac, all i am trying to say is that Lixa MX has players of similar quality to Gio. This article gives a good summary of the talent that Lisa MX has: http://www.espnfc.com/mexican-liga-mx/22/blog/post/3170868/liga-mx-all-star-team-would-be-led-by-andre-pierre-gignac

I think TFC has managed their team amazingly and their depth is much better than the rest of the MLS. Unfortunately like you said, the top teams like Tigres and Pumas still have better depth than TFC. I still think that in a cup competition TFC actually has a chance though. As long as TFC have a healthy first team and use them in the Champions league.

I really dont think believe that Andre Pierre Gignac is of the quality of Giovinco.  Gignac has a few caps as a sub for France.  He is good but much more of the kind of player that you might see in MLS and that might not require DP money to sign.  He is more past his prime than Giovinco.  Closer to a Laurent Robert than Thiery Henry who both also played in MLS. 

A few years ago, before Giovinco signed with TFC,  the Guardian and l'Equipe (I think it was l'equipe) ran a list of the top 100 players in the world and Giovinco made that list.  Honestly, I don't believe that there is a player of Giovinco' s ability in CONCACAF.  I might get an argument and concede that he is not the same player that he was last year or two years ago.  

 

Edit:  i found the list that i was refering to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E2ULi3F1r33VKcFSl5E5K_P_m98OswJMbcMTFRGqhtg/htmlview#gid=3

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