Is this 'impactful' enough?Ahhh. A proper Wednesday evening in springtime Toronto. It's cool, not a cloud in the sky and so much skirt action I nearly made a mess the promise of a new era in footballing cohesion fills the air. This week has provided us so many shocks so far: TFC defeating Seattle, Cummins burying Mo, and Carver NOT burying Mo... I don't know if I can handle a Chad Barrett hat-trick right now.
Prediction : 3-1 Montreal for the shock value pattern, but really 4-2 Toronto. Other predictions include: Collin Samuel interview reveals truth about catering; the Saputo group lobbying for entry into the Scottish League; and Preki's real name is actually Dave.
1' - We were running late. I blame my cohort for the evening.
10' - GOAL - Adrian Cann takes a shot and the resulting deflection ends up with DeRo who pokes the loose ball in.
13'-18' - SUB - Ty Harden out with a cartible injury, in comes Hščanovičs (thank you Wikipedia)
20' - Peterson beats three defenders, gets hauled down, ref lets it play and no call... which I felt he called correctly.
30' - DeRo hustles down a wayward ball to keep it in touch somehow, and with no Montreal defenders, picks it back up from the touchline and runs it in for 25 yards, which resulted in a wide shot but way to go after it!
33' - deRoux of Montreal gets a cute pass from the left side, but can only get half control on it and pokes a shot that Frei easily gobbles up.
34' - YELLOW - de Guzman booked for some bad tackle
36' - RED - Roberto Brown lays out Garcia and knocked him out.
Quote of the match:
39' - SUB - Garcia out, White in. Shocking is that it is a swap for a defender for a forward. Doesn't sound like Preki but I like it. There was talk asking who we send the fruit basket to, Garcia or his assailant?
44' - YELLOW - Adam Braz booked for touching the Golden FroTM and taking him down.
45+9' - Montreal free kick curls a beautiful ball around the Toronto wall which prompts a great save from Frei.
HALF-TIME MOOD : Peculiar. Curious even.
Also... I ♥ Victoria (requested to write that in notebook under duress... she looked violent)
56' - de Guz rockets a ball across the pitch to DeRo. Pass back to Gala who crosses a low ball into the box and the diving Chad just misses, ending up in Jordan's arms
60' - plenty of Toronto pressure. It actually looks like Toronto has a man advantage at this point. So strange.
61' - GOAL - The Chad! WOW SON! Stutter-steps two defenders leaving him dead centre of goal 16 yds out and pummels it into the back right of the net. He did not miss. Outstanding!
62' - SUB - amidst the delirium, Peterson is off, Labrocca is on. Peterson was largely ineffective and disappointed regularly.
66' - Gargan makes a beautiful tackle to the right of the goal line to outright mug the ball from the Montreal forward. So pretty.
67' - DeRo with a bullet that caught Jordan by surprise (as everyone else) as it was curling towards the left post and would've snuck in had the startled keeper not got in the way
73' - In what can only be described as grossly ironic, Gala squanders a chance to pass to an open Barrett and rockets the ball way over the bar... then The Chad looks like he's stating that he should've been passed the ball.
80' - YELLOW - Frei for taking his dear sweet time with his goal kick. I don't have a problem with this as Montreal was just getting their momentum going.
FULL-TIME : Toronto 2, Montreal 0
Man of the Match : I'm going to go out on a limb and you can hate on me, but I'm giving it to Chad Barrett. Sure, he had a few crazy shots, but I expect that. But the goal he scored wasn't like the typical Barrett... it was a much cooler shooter.
Goat of the Game : Peterson was a disappointment. Nothing disastrous, just lacking in much of his touches.
Ref Rating : 4 out of 5. Almost want to give 5. Couldn't disagree with many of the calls (that I saw) and the cards were correct and fair. Outstanding work.
Props to Gargan for improving. Still fears making a run down the wing, but was getting comfortable with his possession and distribution. I'm happy The Chad scores. He's been working hard for the last 15 games from last year where he kinda eased off the notion of forward, and reconsidered being a winger... which works. We ride him all the time. I've grown to appreciate that he's not a forward who misses alot, but the positioning, setups, deliveries are really top shelf. If he can bag another 6 goals this year, he may end up being a bargain.
As much also as we hate on Garcia (and rightfully so), we wish him well and if concussed, we hope he takes as much time as needed to recover. No, seriously. Not as a "don't come back" jab. It's sincere... I swear!
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If Peterson is going to take some time coming back from injury, the Nutcan games are the ones for him to play. Like you though, I have my doubts.
ReplyDeleteLaBrocca as a sub looked better vs MTL than he did against Seattle. Much more settled on the ball- but then again he was on the pitch against MTL less a player and DeRo on the other wing was superb all night.
all my thx