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Archive for the ‘BMO Field’ Category

Much was made about the desire of the Chivas USA organization to copy the model of their “parent club” Chivas of Guadalajara in only playing Mexican players. In fact, this rule led to the Guadalajara based side releasing Omar Salgado, who had to leave the club after deciding to play internationally for the United States. Eventually he was drafted first overall by the Vancouver Whitecaps last year. Chivas has gone on to produce fantastic players such as Javier Hernandez of Manchester United, Carlos Vela of Arsenal and Carlos Salcido of Fulham.

While not all Torontonians either play for Toronto FC or for the Canadian national soccer team, there are quite a few good ones out there both in Major League Soccer and especially in Europe. Let’s take a quick look at the list of GTA talent. [Continue Reading]

The start of the MLS regular season is less than a month away, with TFC set to take on the Seattle Sounders in an away match at Centurylink Field after two (hopefully successful) CONCACAF Champions League matches against the Los Angeles Galaxy at the Rogers Center. On Saturday, March 24, the reds will return to BMO Field to host the San Jose Earthquakes and former Toronto FC striker Alan Gordon @ 1 p.m. in the afternoon. [Continue Reading]

Both Winter and Mariner joined The Soccer Show on the FAN 590 to discuss all things TFC as well as a slight digression to discuss the Terry and Capello drama with the FA. Here are some of the highlights from the hour long show:

On Most Important Part of a Player: The main thing when Toronto FC looks for players on the team is their personality. They want players that buy into their style and care about that as much or more than the players’ qualities and abilities

On LA’s Cap Situation: Paul says that the only way he can understand how they’ve managed to do this is if they received allocation money for loaning Donovan and Keane out to clubs in the premier league.

On the Academy: Winter expressed his happiness that they have the new facility close by to BMO Field, he says that this gives young players extra motivation to make the first team every time they leave the academy and pass by the pitch. Mariner added that newly hired director of the TFC Academy, Thomas Rongen, is “excited about the academy and has never seen such talented youth”. The club has a “few prospects” that are close to breaking into the first team. [Continue Reading]

Canadian home games for CONCACAF qualification for the world cup are going to be played at BMO Field this time around. The Canadian soccer association has announced the dates, at home to Honduras June 12, Panama September the 7th and Cuba on October 12th. There will also be an additional game – a friendly – played between the United States and Canada on June 3.

Toronto, and BMO Field is an easy choice for the CSA because it has the best pitch and is located in downtown Toronto, where fans of all different cultures can attend the game, meaning there is a good chance at a sellout no matter which country Canada will be facing.

The Canadian Soccer Association has announced that the Canadian Championship, formerly sponsored and titled after Nutrilite, will now be sponsored by Amway and renamed the Amway Canadian Championship.

As with last year’s edition of the tournament, only four Canadian teams will take part in the competition. In a sort of Eastern and Western dividing of the games, Toronto will face Montreal and Edmonton will face Vancouver. [Continue Reading]

During today’s Toronto FC Media Day at the beginning of the press conference Aron Winter announced the long-rumored signing of Geovanny Caicedo, the Ecuadorian international center back. We expected an announcement to be happening, we now know what the TFC lineup will look like for their upcoming match in the CONCACAF Champions League.

During media day, members of club said that they had been tracking the defender since they saw him play at BMO Field for Ecuador against Canada and that they think he is a “monster” and great in the area.

Camp has officially resumed at BMO Field, with Toronto FC getting ready for their 6th season in MLS and their first foray into the knockout stages of the CONCACAF Champions League, starting with a game against the LA Galaxy on March 7th at Rogers Center. Nearly everyone was in attendance (including new winger Reggie Lambe – picture from TFC Twitter account below) besides for Joao Plata, who is soon to arrive in Canada and Richard Eckersley, who is still in negotiations with the club. There are still a couple of rumored signings that have not been announced that many think will be happening imminently.

Many will point out that, despite the five year period of suffering fans of TFC have already endured, support for the team has still been amongst the strongest in Major League Soccer. Few clubs have stronger attendance and sponsorship deals than Toronto. However, making the playoffs even as a wildcard would put this team on a whole new level financially.

The real financial incentive of making the playoffs isn’t about getting a possible couple of extra home games and a couple million extra in ticket sales. The real value would be their ability to expand BMO Field to approximately 30,000 seats. Right now that wouldn’t work so well as fans are skeptical about the on-field product.

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A few weeks ago, I did a post discussing the ownership group’s decision to move the quarterfinal match of the CCL from BMO Field to Rogers Center. I thoughts that the reason they gave wasn’t so great but that I agreed with the move anyway because I thought it would truly be amazing and beneficial to the club if they could sell out 50,000 seats for a “playoff type” soccer game. [Continue Reading]

The Toronto FC front office decided, because of reasons of the weather, that their CONCACAF Champions League match against the LA Galaxy on March 7 of the coming year, will be moved from BMO field to Rogers Center. Paul Beirne, the director of TFC’s business operations, cited frozen pipes as the concern and that Rogers Center would provide a much more enjoyable atmosphere from a weather standpoint. [Continue Reading]