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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Toronto FC's "Unlabour Day" Parade

Unlabour Day cheezies.... let us pray...

We've always found those strange "almost holiday" days that come right after a very recognized special day to be quite odd. For example, the day after Halloween is known as All Saints' Day, a Christian holy day where every saint, known and unknown, is celebrated. I guess that includes St. Lucia - Patron Saint of Stretchers. Then there is Boxing Day, the post-Christmas Day celebration where we commemorate when the Baby Jesus kept his receipts for gold, frankincense and myrrh. Seriously... myrrh?
 
As we blearily return to work/ school on this post-Labour Day Tuesday, we thought it would be appropriate to designate today as one of those unofficial post-holidays. How about "Unlabour Day"? A day to celebrate not really working all that hard and doing the bare minimum to achieve a paycheque. Of course we have to put a Toronto FC slant to it, so we give you a specially wrapped Unlabour Day gift of TFC's starting eleven players who had all the tools to have an impact - but never quite did. Sometimes through laziness and sometimes just bad circumstance, these ex-Reds never fulfilled their promise in Toronto. Put up your feet, open your traditional bag of Unlabour Day cheezies and lounge along with these heroes of not working too hard. We would have alphabetized them... but why try harder?
 
JEFF CUNNINGHAM - One of the league's all-time leading scorers - never looked arsed to be here. Was desperate to score his 100th league goal, didn't care if it was in a win or loss.
 
GABE GALA - An "original" TFC member who was touted as a local home grown star of the future. Mostly touted by himself. Scored against Real Madrid in friendly. Likely still talking about it.
 
LAURENT ROBERT - He came. He sulked. He left. The Frenchman with the Premier League pedigree and wicked foot turned up his nose at all things MLS during his petit tenure as a Red.
 
O'BRIAN WHITE - The Malvern residing NCAA stand-out was seen as the answer to TFC's non-existent scoring. Quickly earned the nickname "Malvern/ Montego Molasses". Slowly moved to Seattle.
 
OLIVIER TEBILY - One of the highest touted defensive imports in the Mo Johnston era never got off the ground in Toronto through a mysterious cocktail of injury and homesickness.
 
ROHAN RICKETTS - Professional Tweeter/ Bridge Burner, Ricketts has dined off his Arsenal/ Tottenham tenure for years. "Dazzling" personality never covers lacklustre work ethic.
 
AMADO GUEVARA - Controversial we know. Great numbers at TFC but always a feeling he could have done so much more. For every goal scored, he disappeared for a few halves.
 
ALI GERBA - Many fans still feel that the straight-talking Gerba could have made good here if it wasn't for Preki. One thing he made good was his promise to clean his plate after every meal.
 
COLLIN SAMUEL - Speaking of cleaning plates, this portly Trinidadian arrived with a decent scoring record in Scotland... where he no doubt found his love for all things deep fried.
 
CARLOS RUIZ - Perhaps the first hint was when he didn't show up for five weeks after being picked up by Mo Johnston. Never wanted to be here - fact that Mo released Robert for him is sweet irony.
 
MISTA - Possibly the perfect encapsulation of the Mo Johnston record of buying the wrong player. The broken down Spaniard didn't score an MLS goal and destroyed the little goodwill that real star Dwayne De Rosario had over his wage issues. Did look like Sean Penn though... that was fun.

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