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1 hour ago, mpg_29 said:

Also for the sake of the field...because I'm not sure starting this early at BMO can become the norm. 

Edit: Actually come to think of it this is going to be a problem for every pro Canadian team that isn't on the west coast in the future. How is the Canadian team in CCL supposed to play home games in late Feb/early march?...

Yes, agreed, we have a problem here. 

 

 

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TFC2 had a preseason game against Ottawa, lost 1-0.  Some strange names in there, trialists??  Anyone have any insight to these guys?

Toronto FC II
Angoitia,
Andrews, Eckenrode, Boskovic, Bjornethun, Fraser, Srbely, Uccello, Daniels, Telfer, Spencer

Angoitia--is this the former RGV keeper??  

BJornethun--is this the former T-2 Defender??

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1 hour ago, Bison44 said:

TFC2 had a preseason game against Ottawa, lost 1-0.  Some strange names in there, trialists??  Anyone have any insight to these guys?

Toronto FC II
Angoitia,
Andrews, Eckenrode, Boskovic, Bjornethun, Fraser, Srbely, Uccello, Daniels, Telfer, Spencer

Angoitia--is this the former RGV keeper??  

BJornethun--is this the former T-2 Defender??

What's RGV & T-2???... They Canadians or foreigners? 

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On 2018-03-04 at 12:48 AM, Free kick said:

Way over the top.    Its the guy’s first game.  In a new league, in a new continent, in a new culture.  Considering all that, i saw enough to be moderately impressed. 

Does anyone remember Chris Mavinga’s first game last year?   It was a disaster.  And yet at the end of the year, the coaching staff were touting him as the best defender in MLS.  For what its worth,  Akexte had far rougher game.  

Don’t get me wrong, I was never hating on the Dutchman. It’s just his presence is what I question.

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It might be a little early to make this call, but it seems like Osorio is really stepping into the MLS Elite level player potential that we all thought he could after his first year. He's playing with so much confidence right now and he already had the attacking instincts and feet. He really seems to be putting it all together right now. When he's on the field with Vazquez, Gio, Altidore and Aketxe TFC is really fun to watch, the ball really gets moving fast and Oso shows off a little.  If he can keep this up and TFC wins the CCL or another MLS cup I could see Oso moving to Europe at the end of the season when his contract is up. Would love to see him with a Celtic or another team like that, lower level league but a high quality team that is a Champions League hopeful, but Europa League Challenger.

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Awesome night. Great job TFC. Bradley was a monster and to my mind was the MOTM. When he got direct and started carrying the ball forward, for me, that's when the game changed although we were doing well throughout.  

It's a shame about the away goal though. That just should not have happened, at least not like it did!

 

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51 minutes ago, BradMack said:

If he can keep this up and TFC wins the CCL or another MLS cup I could see Oso moving to Europe at the end of the season when his contract is up.

If not, you have to figure there might be a few Mexican teams that might be interested after this performance

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42 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

If not, you have to figure there might be a few Mexican teams that might be interested after this performance

Ya I was thinking the same thing. The fact he speaks Spanish might be helpful too. The recent success of Lucas Cavalini may have opened some eyes to the possibility of a Canadian on one's team.  

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1 hour ago, Gian-Luca said:

If not, you have to figure there might be a few Mexican teams that might be interested after this performance

I hear he's pretty good friends with a guy who's scoring goals at Puebla right now...

I would like to see him in Mexico too but I thought he said something about possibly wanting to try Europe.

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Way improved in the midfield play tonight compared to the weekend.  In this formation the three starters in the central midfield combined well to close down space and time for their opponents.  Though Tigres carried possession for stretches in that first half, I felt that the TFC shape and work rate did the job needed.  Osorio had a terrific cheeky finish to cap a strong overall performance, Bradley was a dominant force out, and Delgado made some timely key tackles to snuff out counterattacks to go along with the quality pass he quickly delivered on Altidore's goal.  Way to go! 

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43 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

For the success TFC has had recently...they still never look very fluid offensively to me. Their attacking is pretty rigid and direct. 

Remember the field conditions.  Will be interested to see if their passing game improves in Monterrey.

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1 hour ago, Ivan said:

Remember the field conditions.  Will be interested to see if their passing game improves in Monterrey.

Not to mention it's still early-season form as well. Although I thought TFC's attacking was quite fluid at times and not really direct (not that direct is a bad thing in of itself - Tigres scored 1 and nearly had a 2nd by playing that way).

Re-watching the highlights I now see what the Tigres players were whining about after the Osorio goal - the sort of shoulder barge that Altidore did in the box there was probably closer to a foul than some of the ones he was whistled for earlier in the game, so I'd say at the very least that the Ref was inconsistent. But not going to feel too bad about that since Tigres earlier got away with a handball in the box, so the scoreline is about right. And that breakaway at the end should have been flagged for offside, even though Mavinga made the tackle at the end (though it was close to a PK, but wasn't).

There was a lot of whining on social media fans that Delgado was starting ahead of Vazquez and, to a lesser extent, Aketxe. But I can see why Vanney would have done that (apart from Vazquez coming off an injury) - in a 3-5-2 against a Mexican club team they would need one of the 3 central midfielders to cover more ground that Vazquez would, and covering a lot of ground is Delgado's speciality and probably his greatest attribute. Note as well that when Vazquez finally did come on for Delgado, they also brought on Auro for Van Der Wiel to play on that right side so that they could compensate ground-covering wise. It is perhaps fitting that he and Altidore combined for the first TFC goal because I thought between them one of them (more likely Delgado in terms of who was closest) should have challenged for the ball in the air rather than just let them have a clear through ball off a header like that. Even if you don't win the header challenge for it so that they can't just launch a through ball like that. Unfortunately because of the whole away-goals rule it's not exactly a "eye-for-an-eye" situation. However, I think TFC are capable of scoring in Mexico despite all of the 8-0 predictions coming from Mexican fans or US fans on bigsoccer.

Also I can't help but wonder if TFC caught a break if Zavaleta isn't healthy enough to start next week as I think I would have gone with Hagglund anyway.  After Zavaleta gave the ball away two times in a row early on I was calling him Eriq Zava-let-them-have-the-ball and started counting the number of give-aways, which I got up to 5. Yet according to the Concacaf official stats he only failed to connect on two of his passes which really puts these official stats into question:

https://www.concacafchampionsleague.com/en/champions-league/game-detail/424591#tab_match=match-details

 

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I think CB is the weak link in TFC and playing a 3-5-2 does not help. Zavaleta is poor and Drew M. is past his prime; certainly not the stud CB you need in the centre. Mavinga is the only CB who has upside. Hagglund's lack of skill on the ball and passing is questionable. I cant figure out why TFC did not strengthen their CB position in the off season. In any case I think they should stay with a 4-4-2. They have a lot of quality midfield players now.

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4 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

I think CB is the weak link in TFC and playing a 3-5-2 does not help. Zavaleta is poor and Drew M. is past his prime; certainly not the stud CB you need in the centre. Mavinga is the only CB who has upside. Hagglund's lack of skill on the ball and passing is questionable. I cant figure out why TFC did not strengthen their CB position in the off season. In any case I think they should stay with a 4-4-2. They have a lot of quality midfield players now.

I thought Moor was the most reliable and stable of the three last night. Zavs had a bad start with two early giveaways. Mavinga, while he did make the game saving and brilliant tackle in stoppage time (although it was clearly offside and should have been flagged), he was asleep at the switch on their away goal. That was all way too easy!

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5 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

Yeah, I really don't know how the linesman missed that given that he's looking right at the play

Absolutely! What was up with that? It's the kind of non-call that leads the supporters to question the professional integrity of an official.  

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59 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

I think CB is the weak link in TFC and playing a 3-5-2 does not help. Zavaleta is poor and Drew M. is past his prime; certainly not the stud CB you need in the centre. Mavinga is the only CB who has upside. Hagglund's lack of skill on the ball and passing is questionable. I cant figure out why TFC did not strengthen their CB position in the off season. In any case I think they should stay with a 4-4-2. They have a lot of quality midfield players now.

There's only so much cap space to play with. Some guys got a well deserved raise. And trying to get someone new usually means takes a while to develop team chemistry, etc. Stick with what you got now and make decisions later on. Moor got kept because he's really the only good organizer on the defence.

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2 hours ago, Kadenge said:

I think CB is the weak link in TFC and playing a 3-5-2 does not help. Zavaleta is poor and Drew M. is past his prime; certainly not the stud CB you need in the centre. Mavinga is the only CB who has upside. Hagglund's lack of skill on the ball and passing is questionable. I cant figure out why TFC did not strengthen their CB position in the off season. In any case I think they should stay with a 4-4-2. They have a lot of quality midfield players now.

I see the 3-5-2 as a defacto six at the back as necessary with holding mid Bradley often becoming the 4th CB when required and with Morrow on the left and (last night) Van der Weil on the right taking care of the wide threats. For me it's a more flexible game plan with the wingbacks playing such an important role at both ends of the field!

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As good as Van der weil is in that wingback spot, I would eventually like to see him as the 3rd CB aside Moor and Mavinga. Not his natual position, but he's intelligent enough to be an upgrade on both Zavaletta and Hauggland, who have improved but are still weak links at the CCL level. 

Auro is more than capable of doing Van der wiel's job at wingback. I don't think it is much of a downgrade from what I have seen.

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5 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

So in the link above Toronto FC is said to have 89% passing accuracy vs. Tigres 87% passing accuracy. But in the MLS link:

https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2018-03-07-toronto-fc-vs-tigres-uanl/stats

TFC is given 82% passing accuracy while Tigres is a 84%. The number of pass attempts also seems to be a variance for both teams.

My question is.......wtf? It would appear that there is a subjective determination of what is meant to be objective statistics depending on who is doing the compiling of stats.

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