Independent, biased, subjective match reports, thoughts and feelings from a fan in the stands (or at times the sofa). Previous season match reports from 2009 and 2010 can be found by clicking here.
I really hope this isn’t a sign of things to come for the season ahead. No not the clubs 5-1 victory over the University of South Florida — which, while not unexpected, will still be a good boost to early season confidence — but rather me coming in three days later with a few words on it as was all too often the case last season. Such is life and besides I didn’t see any of the game and can only speculate on game reports as to how they played.
It’s hard to believe that this time last year I was freezing my nuts off at BMO field waiting until 9.30 p.m. for a game to kick off that would eventually run into extra time and therefore into the wee hours of the morning. That was the MLS Cup Final in Toronto, but now twelve months on, I was on my couch at 9.30 p.m., warm, with a cup of tea in hand patient for the game to get underway from Los Angeles, though still wishing I could be at it again. The game – as tends to be the case in finals – wasn’t much to write home about for anyone who did make the trek across the continent, as the Galaxy, with the home crowd behind them, left it late but finally got rewarded for their persistent pressure, scoring the only goal of the game and winning the MLS Championship.
That’s never a fun title to type out, even after a season that could, at best, be described as distinctly average. And only upgraded from awful to average by way of the fine Champions League run. Still, it’s better to have distinctly average or awful football to watch than none at all and that’s why I wish the season was going on a little longer, not to mention the fact we’ve started to play better lately than at any other point in the season.
It’s been a long time coming. Yes there have been those Canadian Championship victories, but they never truly gave us belief that as a team we were actually moving forward. As each season passed and this team remained outside the playoff picture the frustration would only grow. Well, they still remain outside the playoff picture, but last nights 3-0 victory over Dallas to progress on from their Concacaf Champions League group and into the knockout stage really seems like a breakthrough for a side that is virtually unrecognizable to the one that started this season.
Here is a match report from a game I wasn’t at and didn’t even see. Well, it’s more a short musing on the reality that we can no longer officially make the playoffs. Yep, with one Thierry Henry (cheating bastard) strike late in the game to level it at one, the mathematicians officially released their findings that Toronto could no longer do what most of us accepted sometime around late May.
If you’d quietly offered me a point prior to this game I think I might have taken it. Ideally I wanted to win and held out hope that at home we might get the required breaks to steal one over what was always going to be a top end opponent from the Mexican leagues, but deep down I knew it was always going to be difficult. A point would keep us very much in with contention of qualifying and in the end that is exactly what we got. We were made to work for it and while we gave the Pumas side a fight in the first half, we spent the last part of the game hanging onto that point. It was one of the better team efforts against one of the better teams we’ve seen at BMO field this season.
I was about to stand up and start the chant, “Can you hear Tauro sing? No, no”, just out of amusement for the fact that there was surely no travelling support for the Panaman team when suddenly a man draped in a Panama flag and his wife wearing a team scarf sat themselves down beside me. Yes, I should have acted the roll of drunken lout and bellowed the song out anyway, but instead I smiled politely and watched the match.
Earlier in the season, in a match like that, we would have found a way to throw away the three points. Actually, earlier in the season we probably couldn’t have concocted two goals in a game and certainly not two by the same player. Danny Koevermans got both goals in this one, making it an outstanding six goals in seven games, and the TFC defense clung on as Colorado pressed for an equaliser to ensure Toronto remained unbeaten in six of their last seven games.
Proper Shaped Balls is a site that aims to give a fans perspective on Toronto FC and the sport as a whole from a mainly lighthearted and at times humorous angle, though don’t rule out the odd rant. Articles, stories, blogs and match reports will appear at random with no set frequency though expect match reports to often arrive late. Read More»
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All the goals of 2011
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My TFC Record
W 17 | D 11 | L 4
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I really miss the football
EDITORIAL
With everything gone a little quiet in the western front, with the western front being the TFC training camp, I thought I'd take a minute to go off on a little rant about everything I am beginning to dislike about football at the other side of the pond -- the football I grew up watching, supporting, following and loving. Maybe more than ever the way it is being covered -- scandal, gossip and rumour upon scandal, gossip and rumour -- has left me longing for the return of the MLS and in particular, TFC, to get my football fix and to watch games without the circus and sideshow that has become part and partial of following the Premier League. Maybe for a while the indepth, hyper-analysis, gossip loaded coverage was interesting, amusing and entertaining, but the way it is going and the depths to which it is sinking, has been losing patience altogether.
Unless you seen the Manchester United, Liverpool game on Saturday you would never have known a game took place. There was little to no mention of the result afterwards or any talk of the performance by either team. Not even the referee got a look-in this week. No, unless you seen the game take place you would have assumed that both teams turned up at Old Trafford, lined up for a handshake and then went home again.
The nutmeg is delivered two, three, and if you're lucky, four times a week at random and is a non-to-serious look at the beautiful game beyond the boundaries of BMO Field and across the pond. Read More»
Luis Silva
Proper Shaped Balls is a site that aims to give a fans perspective on Toronto FC and the sport as a whole from a mainly lighthearted and at times humorous angle, though don’t rule out the odd rant. Articles, stories, blogs and match reports will appear at random with no set frequency though expect match reports to often arrive late. 
