The South Stand Report : Toronto v. San Jose... or grasping at the final strands of a meaningful season

I know this one is weak. If you can come up with a better name than
the San Jose Sh*theads, I'll consider it for next year.

Meaningful. We use it to describe sentiments, feelings, pathetic uphill struggles that shouldn't have come to this and macaroni-art cards we get from our kids for Valentines Day. If I had kids.

Whatever.

After a dismal week weather-wise, we are treated to the potential of partly-cloudy autumn weather, which is PERFECT football weather.

Toronto FC has been really working hard off the pitch with the whole good news-then-bad news angle. This latest turn has been 'we got grass' then '15% ticket price increase for sh*tty sh*tty football without direction the exciting 2010 campaign'. On the pitch, there's no media magic to be had. One of our beloved Yorkies received a call from their ticket bugger in the TFC office and ripped into the poor guy. Bet he was disappointed when reading the MLSE employee handbook that "customers would be and should be lucky and thrilled to renew their tickets for mediocre entertainment, even after price increases" (this undoubtedly applies to ALL their holdings. Except the Marlies - no one cares).

So here we are. 3 games to go and not a clue in sight. Sure, what's 3 points out with a game in hand on some of the teams directly in front of us. To be honest, we couldn't have asked for a better last 3 games. Then again, I don't think MLS schedule makers thought that San Jose, New York Red Bull Barcelona and Real Lago de Sal (that's Salt Lake in Spanish, kids) were going to have a bed-crapping of a season.

On to the epicenter that will be a natural disaster

1 – The Chad fires a shot wide to remind us what we've been missing out after nearly a month without a home game. He's “probably crampin' up like a salmon up a stream”

8 – Free kick set up and White gets some skull on the ball but it ends up in the hands of the keeper.

9 – (More than a) Fellinga gets a run down the left wing, and catches the keeper off his line. His attempt beats the backstop but lands safely at the feet of a covering defender.

18 - “The Malvern Muscle” O'Brien White fights hard in the San Jose box to get a shot off. We appreciate that kind of hustle at TheYorkies.ca and made more impressive by the fact that it was created solely on his own effort and determination. Quite the rumbling.

23 – Serioux catapults a throw in leaving a bit of a goal mouth scramble. Resulting effort had to be cleared off the line by the defender as the goalie was nowhere near it. Harrowing stuff early in the game.

I would like to take this time for an editorial. Yes, I'm paying attention to the game. Seriously. I, for the most part, ignore the 'male chorus' that goes on around me because I like to be a bit up my own arse with an opinion that the world has to, no, NEEDS to bask in. The fact that the next important event is another 15 minutes away doesn't mean that the game was boring or uninteresting, but you can only say “The Chad blows another pass” or “Brennan clears a ball” or “DeRo calls for the ball” so often, that at this point in the season, just assume that if nothing is said, those things happened in random sequences.

36 – White seems to be about the only one who is prepared to pull the trigger on a regular basis, with another attempt, this just wide of the net. In other news, The Chad doesn't want to shoot.

If this ends up nil-nil, at least I'll be drunk
~ gentleman behind me to my left, Quote of the Game

39 – Three attempts all weak ending with a floating slo-mo chip that would've hit the cross bar has the San Jose keeper not lept to catch it.

44 – DeRo floats an off-balance random ball into the box only to have “Supershank” Barrett just get his foot on the volley to smack it into the beer gardens behind goal. If Chad wanted to be a legend, this could've been it.

Half-Time : Pathetic. Seriously, with every attempt and offensive move we make, no one wants to run wings. It's sad to say we're missing Wynne, but not because he's a stalwart defender, but because he's usually OUR BEST WINGER.

47 – GOAL – While in line for a chip butty, DeRo threads a ball through the 18 yard box missing the legs of three Cheesequake defenders and two pink shirts only for the diving head of Attakora to connect and beat the keeper. Pretty goal.

48 – Chad vainly goes for heroism and shanks one over the bar. Even the guy behind me in line groaned.

49 – Chip butty is stupid and overrated. Those are it's good qualities. A veritable 1.0 on the Richter Scale. They should call it “English taco” but that would offend our Latino demographic. And that's important given that TFC is “Brand of the Year” as designated by Marketing Magazine. That's right folks. It's a brand.

56 - DeRo pokes a ball through the San Jose keeper but gets enough of it to slow to a trickle. DeRo gets around, but a defender gets in the way and injures himself in the process. Keeper then “Bundy Splashes” DeRo's legs (and shook the foundation) to prevent a second goal going in.

67 – YELLOW - Serioux was booked for copyright infringement, looking too much like the Predator. About time too.

82 – SUB – The Chad out, Vitti in. Originally Fellinga was to come off, but thankfully The Chad did his usual 80 minute cramp-up. Shockingly, this was the only substitution Toronto made given how grossly stale TFC's play has been for the last 20 mins.

84 – With one goal lead comfortably in hand, Toronto institute their traditional “Torontonaccio” style of play with 10 behind the ball and White all by his lonesome up top.

86 – White (who is really slow) doesn't want to turn on a break, which results in another tradition of “I don't wanna shoot”, leaving the ball to DeRo's feet 25 yrds out and firing a low shot at the San Jose keeper.

4 minutes of extra time

90 – YELLOW – Brennan booked for time wasting on a throw-in. That was a good call.

90+2 – GOAL – Brennan throws himself desperately at a goalmouth opportunity to successfully block the shot, however the resulting ricochet ends up at Cornell Glen for a volley into the back of the net. Edwards makes a heroic effort launching himself desperately to stop, but no chance. The aftershocks result in more frustrating late game anemia that we've come to know and love from your Toronto FC!

Full Time : Toronto 1 – San Jose 1

Man of the Match : reluctantly Attakora. Not that he didn't deserve it, but it was a team effort to put us in this position of collapse. Late in the game. Again. Attakora to his credit had a very solid game otherwise.

Goat : Cummins. You get three substitutions. Use them much much sooner. Why does Gerba and Gala get no love, but The Chad, Vitti and White get regular game time? Our back four were no better or worse than what we've come to expect with second stringers, but with the depth and variety we have in the middle and front, why wait until it's beyond too late to make a difference. There are no aftershocks to be had with late game shake-ups.

Whomever came up with the plan to turtle up every game we're up by a goal needs to be beaten with a rubber hose. The WORST IDEA EVER.

I was a big fan of Cummins at the beginning cuz we played a 4-3-3, it was pretty, aggressive and scored a plethora of goals. Somewhere we reverted to a 4-4-2 and fared no better than before he took over.

Cummins is a solid manager, but I think he's lost the plot of the team. They look listless and don't seem to believe that the system actually works. White needs actual wingers to be effective. More players need the foresight to make runs on BOTH wings to open up the middle if nothing else. And giving the ball to the forward and 'hoping for the best' isn't a strategy, it's irresponsible.

Ref : 5/5. Excellent. Stayed out of the game. Didn't blow any big calls. Thanks for coming today sir.

O'Brien White has the makings of a great forward in football except he's just a step too slow. He's strong like bull, but fast like snail. He could be out run by just about everyone on the pitch. If he can work on his speed, he'll be the greatest draft pick ever.

I would also like to offer that Fellinga isn't bad, but I haven't seen enough of him to be frustrated. I think the team played well given their lack of inspiration or urgency to play post-season footie. But that isn't good enough. Not enough jobs will be lost to correctly depict the 2009 season. I don't rate either Gambian much and to say Gerba gets one half shot every game with little service and two defenders closing down on him is unfair to deem him unproductive or worthy of being on the bench every game.

A new system with a new manager shouldn't have any difficulty reconfiguring our roster to come up with a menacing enough starting XI to tsunami the crap out of the rest of the league.

It is beyond frustrating given the schedule we've been served... 9 points out of 3 games is far from impossible. I want to say that DeRo didn't appear the most inspired person on the pitch, but that may not be fair. It's difficult to get up when you're frustrated going nowhere on the table. It's only a matter of time before the fault lines appearing clearly instead of speculating where you think they are.

OK, enough of the randomly scattered earthquake-related puns. Here's to 2010.