The Unofficial TFC Blog | Toronto FC

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

Much has been made over the tactical formations of Aron Winter and whether he will choose to play a 3-4-3 or a 4-3-3. I think, however, that the labeling of his formations is a big misunderstanding. Each time Winter is asked about his preference for formations, he reiterates the same thing:

His exact quote is “in fact, nothing has changed, just that one of the midfielders are playing deep between the two center backs”.

TFC always want to play with three strikers in the front. That is the club’s consistent philosophy in terms of the players they put on the pitch. Depending on who they are playing against is how deep Torsten Frings will play.

Watching Toronto FC for quite a while now, you notice something basic about their style of play. Two central defenders (last night in the CCL it was Aceval and Harden), two outside backs (Morgan and Eckersley) and three strikers (Plata, Koevermans, Johnson). Those are always constants.

So you can’t really say TFC play a 3-5-2 because they play with the regular 4 in the back. The only difference is that Frings never ventures past the halfway line as a defensive midfielder in the run of play. In other words, the differences are semantics.

The middle of the pitch is where Toronto are dynamic. Last night TFC started Frings, Dunfield and Silva. Frings is your basic defensive midfielder, but dropped back all the way to playing in front of the two center backs. Dunfield played in the middle of the park and Silva played all the way at the top.

The formation basically amounted to a 5-1-1-3 (or 5-2-3), with Dunfield the lone “central midfielder”. It appears that that midfield weakness needs to be supplemented by Eckersley and Morgan pushing up. You could see last night that the basic tactics of the formation was for Eckersley and Morgan to overlap with the strikers on the wings – at times playing like a 3-3-1-3 formation.

To me that was where Toronto’s weakness in possession lay. They were good attacking on the wings, but Dunfield is simply not good enough to cover the middle of the field and keep possesion. In the formation where Frings drops deep, Dunfield has the difficult task of covering a massive amount of ground. It will be interesting to see if Winter keeps Silva and simply changes Dunfield for de Guzman, or plays both of the Canadians in favor of more defensive midfield.

The first 15 minutes or so of the first half was a dream come true for TFC. The crowd was going crazy, the pitch was bump, David Beckham was getting rattled by streamers and Toronto netted two quick goals to stun the MLS champions. But LA proved to be the more dominant side, eventually settling in, taking control of possession and scoring two goals to tie the game up at 2. They also had a bunch of other chances, as neither Buddle or Keane got on the score sheet despite having ample opportunities to do so.

LA clearly look as good as advertised. There was a point in the game where Buddle had a beautiful crafted give-and-go with Robbie Keane with a back-heel flick to the Irishman, only to result in a shot fired wide. These are two Major League Soccer golden boot candidates playing alongside each other and both of them fit and in fine form (Keane was tearing it up for Aston Villa in the off season).

Toronto showed some good signs as well. Ryan Johnson looked good on the wings, as did Plata. Luis Silva looks like a future great player for TFC and Frings was solid as usual. Ashtone Morgan showed why he could steak a claim to being one of the best backs in the league very soon, showing he can defend well and take players on with his speed on the wings.

Terry Dunfield had a game that wasn’t so great for Toronto in midfield. Hopefully de Guzman will do a better job in the second leg. Danny Koevermans took a while to get going.

Toronto were obviously the second best team on the pitch, but had chances and could’ve prevented the both goals if there defending had been a little bit sharper. It was their first competitive game of the season and they drew against the league champions in an amazing atmosphere. Not an amazing result – but a result nonetheless. [Continue Reading]

TFC are set to take on the LA Galaxy in “The biggest game in club history” stay tuned for updates throughout the game (unless I’m too engrossed in the action). Can’t wait!

The Toronto FC Academy has been making great news this past year, from the team building a $20 million training facility, to having homegrown players becoming contributing members of the first team, and culminating with the youngsters showing themselves quite well in a 1-0 loss to a team of mostly MLS starters on the Vancouver Whitecaps.

But the thought occurred to me, that Toronto FC still has the opportunity to create a Canadian “Ajax academy” for youth located in the Durham Region of Ontario. The logistics of the move aren’t bad, as some affiliation in the Toronto suburbs would be good for the club as traveling from Durham to Toronto takes about 45 minutes to an hour each way.

All we would then need is for the club to nickname it De Toekomst.

In the second time in two games, Toronto FC defeated FC Dallas 3-0. First round draft pick Luis Silva scored twice. Here is a post-game interview with Aron Winter. Winter discusses Frings, Silva, the starting goalkeeper and whether the team is ready for the CONCACAF Champions League match against LA coming up in less than a week.

Those of you who kept track of the myriad of personnel moves made by Paul Mariner and Aron Winter will remember a highly touted Serbian – Alen Stevanovic – being brought on loan from Torino in the second division of Italy in March of last year. He was brought in at around the same time as Joao Plata and touted as a “highly promising young player”. Once fit, he didn’t disappoint with his on field skills with his vision, smooth passing, close control and his ability to play keep away and take on defenders clearly evident. One could say that he had a rough time physically, constantly looking like he would get injured on every play.

The physical nature of the game wouldn’t have mattered anyway (it is usually a cliche for people who like to dump on Major League Soccer – Joao Plata has managed fine in the league despite being less than 5″5) since Torino decided to recall their player in mid-June.

Stevanovic was at one point touted as the “Serbian Cristiano Ronaldo” when he used to play for Inter Milan before being sold in part to Torino. Arsenal were tracking his moves then and the Daily Mail in England is reporting that Manchester United seem to be keeping tabs on him now and are reportedly weighing up a $9.5 million move.

I didn’t get a chance to watch TFC’s first victory in the preseason, but from all accounts the team was firing on all cylinders, with Johnson, Plata and trialist Moises Orozco scoring in a victory of the Swedish side.

Read the full game summary here.

Not a great result for TFC, and one which Aron Winter certainly won’t – and explicitly wasn’t – happy with, but not terrible frightening for fans of the club.

Here are the basic notes to take away from the game: [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]