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Archive for the ‘Canadian Championship’ Category

You can add another homegrown signing to the Toronto FC team from the TFC Academy – this time more out of necessity than out of any desire to develop talent. After Stefan Frei broke his leg, the team needed to fly in a backup goalkeeper. Now, instead of going outside of the club to find a backup, they have promoted from within. This shouldn’t affect TFC much except for in Canadian Championship play, as Milos Kocic has shown that he is more than capable of handling the starting keeper duties.

With a mixed but inspired result against Mexican league leaders Santos Laguna in the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League, Aron Winter and Paul Mariner will have managed to learn a few things about the club that, if they didn’t know yet – they definitely know now.

Despite the cynicism of fans, Toronto FC have actually played decently enough against both Seattle and San Jose – losing primarily because of bad defensive mistakes. This was also the case with the goal the club conceded against Santos to Hercules Gomez – a simple spacing error and lapse by the back line that led to the opening for the lob pass forward from Darwin Quintero.

You also have gotten a much different tone from Aron Winter in each of the past games this season as opposed to last season. Last season Winter would focus on how badly the team played even when the club got results and even when they won the Canadian Championship over Vancouver. This season he spends most of his press conferences talking about how he felt the team was “unlucky” or “played well but made defensive errors”. Maybe it is because it is now his team after a year of changes or – more accurately – we have seen a real change in the style of the team. Well, actually, they actually have a style of play now as opposed to the mess that went on with Preki in charge.

We have learned that TFC, under the management of Aron Winter and with the attacking players he wants on the pitch, are going to be a smooth flowing, creative, attacking side. Reggie Lambe, Joao Plata, Ashtone Morgan, Nick Soolsma, Ryan Johnson and Richard Eckersley clearly demonstrate the attacking mindset of the club. TFC are going to be quick and creative on the wings. They also have great depth in those positions. [Continue Reading]

TFC get set to take on Los Angeles Galaxy tonight in the return leg of the CONCACAF Champions League with two influential players coming back for the club after sitting out the first leg due to yellow card accumulation. Game time is 10:00 p.m. Eastern

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]

Now that both Montreal and Vancouver have left the North American Soccer league to join MLS, Edmonton is left as the solitary Canadian club in what is officially sanctioned by USSF, the CSA and Puerto Rican soccer as the second division (not that it really means anything anyway). I will propose a system in which FC Edmonton leaves the NASL to join a freshly constructed and organized Canadian Soccer League, which will be established as the second division in Canadian Soccer (yes, I know this is a complete fantasy). [Continue Reading]

This moves makes a lot of sense from the Toronto FC front office. Not because of the cap space he takes up, but because of the number of internationals TFC already have on their roster. It could also mean that the organization is likely to be tying up Miguel Aceval, the left back that they were rumored to be looking into.

Yourassowsky will be remember for his great goal against Vancouver that helped Toronto win the Nutrilite Canadian Championship.

CONCACAF has announced that they are changing the current format of 4 groups and four teams in each group. The number of teams competing in the tournament (24) will remain the same, except that they won’t have to go through the current process of preliminary qualifying. Instead the teams will go directly into the group stages and be placed in eight groups of 3.

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In case you didn’t know who that was, it’s Joao Plata, who was honored with the George Gross Memorial Trophy for MVP of the Nutrilite Canadian Championship. He was also voted Toronto FC player of the year.

This is a move that most people knew was coming for a while and we will soon learn the specifics of the contract and whether it was another loan deal or if TFC have purchased his rights outright.

Here is a Video Tribute From YouTube

As everyone knows by know, Canadian Soccer News has broken the story on the TFC schedule leak. Look like we will be getting two games in a row in the CONCACAF Champions League on March 7 and 14 and then playing @ Seattle three days later on the 17th.

Meanwhile Joao Plata is reportedly close to finalizing a deal with the club. [Continue Reading]

A chaotic 2011 season has come and gone for Toronto FC, full of transition in terms of player movement and the management’s vision for the club. Aron Winter was constantly managing expectations in his interviews with the press, constantly repeating that TFC are in a “rebuilding” phase. [Continue Reading]