THE MATCHUP: Fly like an eagle

"CAW!"

 

TORONTO VS. D.C. UNITED

BMO FIELD - SATURDAY 4:30PM ET

TV: TSN

 

WHY SHOULD I WATCH THIS?

- Home opener. 20,000 wildly optimistic hosers in long underwear. Nuff said.

- Was last week at Seattle the real life - or was it just fantasy?

- Dwayne De Rosario LOVES burning his ex-clubs

- Two clubs that were awful in 2013 try to show MLS who made the most off-season improvement

- Tim Leiweke is going all Nuremberg during pre-match, addressing the assembled crowd. No doubt he will update us on his quest for Magic Invisible Turf Paint!

- Luis Silva and (possibly) Nana Attakora return to BMO Field

- After an (ongoing) awful winter - will the pitch be a bog?

- Halftime contest to choose this weekend's Jermain Defoe WAG!

 

MANUFACTURED DERBY NAME:

"The 1812'er"

 

THE DUEL:

Michael Bradley vs. Luis Silva and/or

Jermain Defoe vs. Eddie Johnson

 

WHO ARE YA?

Part of last season's pre-game "ritual" was a truly disastrous and uninspiring effort to make Bitchy the Hawk into a thing. To a mundane rock soundtrack, our disinterested seagull-bothering Harris Hawk was flown out, then carried out, then just sort of briefly presented; all before maniacally attempting to escape her jailers, inevitably dangling sadly upside down in a flapping frenzy.

Not wanting anything to go wrong PR-wise at this season's big home opener, rumour has it that MLSE has hatched out a different bird opportunity for Saturday. In conjunction with the new Muppets movie and to honour our American capital visitors, the part of Bitchy the Hawk will be played by Jim Henson's "Sam the Eagle".

If "Sam the Eagle" is unavailable then Mick McCarthy will be playing the role.

 

WORTH A 1000 WORDS:



ON THIS DAY IN TFC HISTORY:

March 22, 2012: After being absent from the club without notice for 72 hours, TFC receives a call from Washington D.C. police notifying them that a drunken Miguel Aceval, Nick Soolsma and Luis Silva were found straddling the base of the Washington Monument giggling wildly.