Yeah, it was a sh*t pun...
Who remembers the MISL? This guy..
After all of the f'ing rain we've been delivered and promised, we break with tradition and are blessed with a sunny day with moderate cloud cover. I was starting to think I was travelling to Glasgow on match day...
In our next-to-final game before the World Cup break *cough*En-ger-land*cough*, TFC is defying all odds, well mostly ours, and playing some productive, aggressive and, dare I say it, victorious football lately. I know, I'm startled just re-reading that. All predictions came flying in with pro-TFC results, including my own 2-0. Yes, I know predictions are pointless since I never get them right. Except that one time I called for a hat trick from Chad and he bagged a brace... strange.
Wonder how Garcia will screw up this game. Own goal perhaps?
Anyways...
8' - Vanilla Peterson gets a through ball from DeRo and fires a shot that was stopped by KC's Nielson's face. You're welcome.
16' - Barrett gets a low cross in that ricochets around and goes out for a corner.
Seriously, 16 minutes and THIS is all I've got to report. It's gonna be one of those games...
27' - RED - Nick Garcia for a clumsy tackle barrelling into Kei "Whups" Kamara. Bookable? Yes. Send-off-able? No. It was a overblown call, but the ref maybe doing us a favour. He must know we hate him too.
I think the main point was that this moment sparked discussion:
Are we better off having Garcia on the pitch as an 11th man or having 10 without him?
That's some serious philosophical pondering in there...
32' - Ryan Smith fires a ball from 20 yds out forcing Frei to make a leaping-tip over the bar type of save. There's probably a better way of writing that out, but I don't care.
38' - The Chad breaks free and stumbles over the ball, but manages to maintain control slotting a pass through the box to DeRo who gets hauled down and NO CALL but the pass had enough momentum for deGoo to fire a shot at Nielson forcing a great stop from 15 yds out.
43' - Kansas City press, (finally) threatening as a looping ball comes into the 6 yd box for "Whups" Kamara to head it wide.
44' - Barrett takes a glancing boot to the face from a high ball and NO CALL for a dangerous challenge. Maybe MLS finally issued a memo to the refs to resume calling sh*t against TFC for the season. They did last year when it looked like we were going to make the post season sitting mid-table.
2 minutes of extra time
45' - YELLOW - DeRo goes into the books for getting held onto by Harrington and as another KC player flies past him to get the loose ball, goes to ground after brushing DeRo. Yeah, stellar call.
HALF-TIME MOOD: If there's a middle point between boring and stupid, this is it.
SUB - Sanyang off for Harden, Vanilla Peterson off for our favourite apple Gala
51' - DeRo pops the ball over himself and loses his defender, then pokes it to Gala who, does the unthinkable, passes it before losing it by being closed down by the requisite two defenders. It's that notable and boring that this fact makes the cut.
57' - 2 yellows equal 1 red for Rocastle as KC is now down to 10 men as well. Given how well TFC have been playing with 10, KC should be in for some pain.
64' - SUB - The Chad off for O'Brien White. The Chad looks to have been limping a little but he played well.
Potential Quote of the Match
"Who names a kid after a colour?"
"Or a duck?"
"God, I HOPE it's the colour..."
~ Julie and I on Teal Bunbury
65' - deGoo has a go from 25 yds out to be parried by Nielson. You have a sense that he's going to score an absolute rocket one game and maybe they'll finally have a song for our DP
68' - OBW springs the annoying KC trap and passes on two good shooting opportunities to take up a third nearly flush with the face of goal. Keep your head up
sir.
70' - deGoo looks to be favouring his hamstring and we're all out of substitutes.
85' - First sign of offensive threat in over a quarter hour and the result? DeRo well offside.
Dammit it IS one of those games. Even the Vancouver one from Wednesday was more interesting, rain and humidity and all.
88' - Ty Harden floats a ball over the top that OBW can't quite get to, but the clear ends up in the path of deGoo and he destroys the ball towards Ontario Place (which for you out-of-towners is an amusement part about a kilometer south of the stadium)
Quote of the Match :
It's like I'm trying to watch the game through a Kidstreet Rebus
~ Josh on the U-Sector flags waving way too early
Brilliant. Sorry Julie, but it is.
89' - deGoo is still limping. Hopefully it's a strain
2 minutes of extra time.
Toronto 0, Kansas City 0
Man of the Match : Wow. In an unremarkable game all across the board, it's hard to pick a standout. If I had to pick one, deGoo stood out for me the most but this choice is done under duress. Also, Attakora would've been our MotM except he rarely saw the ball, but when he did, he did excellent.
Goat of the Game : Garcia. Any guesses why?
Ref Rating : 1 out of 5. Those 50/50 calls all went against TFC all game. Sure the ref "made it up to us" by the two yellows, but the real head-scratching calls and over-bookings were appalling. Good thing TFC didn't lose. Too bad the 100% record is lost.
Kansas City's shallow offside trap was excellent, and that kept TFC aggression at bay. I question OBW's substitution given how far up the pitch KC was playing the trap and how, shall we say, "un-fast" White is. Preki is doing wonderful things with this team. I'll write my apologies at season's end (even if I still don't understand why Gerba was let go).
This was a stale-mate and a boring one. You know those graphs that they put up in FIFA percentage of where the game was played on the pitch? It would read 5%-92%-3% from KC to Toronto. It would be like watching Royce Gracie have a jiu-jitsu match against himself : lots of rolling around, no one really doing anything.
And nobody wants that. Not even Royce Gracie.
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