Eckersley, Iro, Marosevic, 35,000 fans and a training camp
Daily guff | Monday 23 January 2012 by Richard BlayneyYou spend one weekend away from the hurricane that is the Toronto FC news making machine and return to find all sorts of little stories to read about as the season draws closer by the day. From the great news that defender come midfielder Richard Eckersley is on the verge of leaving English side Burnley and signing on a full-time basis for TFC to the fantastic news that the CCL quarter final game at the Sky Dome against LA has now sold more than 35,000 tickets. Fears of large collections of empty seats are subsiding by the day it would appear as the club have even taken the step of releasing an extra 1,000 tickets.
The capacity for the game is 45,000 and with the lower bowl already completely sold out we can be sure of an excellent atmosphere. There are upper bowl seats available for as low as $13 which should make for late sales closer to the game time as the media hype around it begins to ramp up. When the fixture was first announced I was against the idea of it being in the Sky Dome, and while I still would have preferred it to have been played at home I have definitely softened to the Sky Dome, especially given the potential crowd coming through the doors. The only downer remains the fake turf though while that might be a disadvantage for the players, it’s the same for the boys from Los Angeles.
In other news this weekend the club announced the defender Andy Iro and forward Peri Marosevic will not be back having declined contract extension offers. “Both Andy and Peri declined our contract extension offers and now the club is ready to move on,” said Toronto FC Head Coach & Technical Director Aron Winter, seemingly happy enough with the outcome. If I’m honest with you, I don’t think either will be missed much.
And last but not least the news today that players reported to first day of training camp. It’s that moment that makes you realize just how close the season really is. The CCL game is just six weeks and change away with the league to come not long afterwards. It’ll be an interesting pre-season for the team who will have to be ready to go hard from the get-go. It’s not often that potentially your biggest game of the season comes straight away before a ball has been kicked in anger in the league and perhaps before you’ve even had many friendly games. It’ll be interesting to see how they approach it.
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