THE MATCHUP: Not internationally known

'Executive Hawk Class' - Almaty to Toronto in 37 Hours

TORONTO VS. CHICAGO
　
BMO FIELD - WEDENSDAY 7PM ET
TV: TSN
　
While the good majority of Toronto-area football fans are still mostly interested in the qualifying quest of the Canadian National Team, those other boys in red - your Toronto Eff Cees - are back at BMO Field. The quality Chicago Fire are here to test the threadbare Reds who are hosting the re-scheduled fixture in the middle of an international break due to being money-hungry Liverpool-fodder victims of an unavoidable yet useful and rewarding mid-season friendly.
　
Due to internationals, TFC will be without the help of Canadians Terry Dunfield and Ashtone Morgan while Jamaicans Ryan Johnson and Dicoy Williams (he's still here?) are also absent. One man who could still rightfully be with his national side but is back with TFC deserves a mention. Darren O’Dea asked the Irish team to release him from a friendly vs. Oman and travelled all the way back from a World Cup Qualifier in Kazakhstan to be with his new side. O'Dea is showing some very good leadership and team-building qualities while proving worthy of his new-found captaincy. While not a DP, the young Irishman may be about the brightest thing TFC has to show for at the end of 2012. Very nice!
　
MANUFACTURED DERBY NAME: "The International Breaker"
　
PLAYERS TO WATCH:
TORONTO: Eric Hassli, Darren O'Dea, Luis Silva
CHICAGO: Alvaro Fernandez, Sherjill MacDonald, Dominic Oduro
　
THE ODDS:
- Match re-scheduled to accommodate big money friendly with Liverpool Alumni team: 10-1
- Milos Kocic asked if his newborn triplets would think about filling in on TFC's back-line: 5-1
- TFC managing to suck away any left-over euphoria from BMO Field's hosting of Canada v Panama last Friday within 5 minutes: EVENS
　
WHO ARE YA?
As mentioned above, TFC's Darren O'Dea made the selfless decision to return all the way from Kazakhstan to Toronto rather than returning to Ireland. However, it was not an easy journey. As his Irish teammates chartered back to Dublin, O'Dea was driven by donkey-drawn 1987 Skoda hatchback from the Glorious People's Footkick Coliseum in Astana to the rural town of Topar. This was only agreed upon after paying his handler "Yerzhan The Philanderer" the princely sum of a quart of industrial-grade Fanta and a photograph of Robbie Keane's wife.
　
Upon reaching Topar, O'Dea had to join his driver in a prayer to "The Mighty Hawk" before being carried overnight by eight virgins to the shores of Lake Balqash which was later crossed on a traditional Kazakh dog-ferry. 79 hours later (as The Hawk flies) and O'Dea finally reached the Almaty International Aerodrome and Meat Market where he boarded his Kazakh Airlines flight to Toronto (via Bishkek, Tashkent, Odessa, Tunis, an unmarked Sub-Saharan airstrip and Newark) while enjoying two full-length in-flight films - "Erkebulan: Adventure of The Eye Stabber" and "Karate Kid III".
　
POST-MATCH HEADLINE: "MID-SEASON FRIENDLY TOUTED AS 'TOTALLY WORTH IT'"
　
And... much like TFC, he's not obsessed with being internationally known, however, unlike TFC, he is known to rock the microphone...