What/When Toronto FC will return home to BMO Field to take on the Ottawa Fury FC of the United Soccer League in the second leg of a 2017 Canadian Championship semifinal on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 7:00 pm EDT. Ottawa Fury FC leads 2-1 on aggregate. TV/Video This match will be shown live on TSN (http://www.tsn.ca/, English) and RDS (http://www.rds.ca/, French) in Canada. Radio/Audio None as of yet
Vanney must take this serious this time..it was Obscene the lineup he selected up in Ottawa...that team had no chance to win..And with reports from TSN Seba is likely to play in the 2nd leg at BMO should help TFC's cause, because we were in troble without Jozy and Bradley being called for the silly USA friendly//
^ The team he sent out lost 2-1 on a penalty and a bad defensive error. They had 65% possession and 10 shots to Ottawa's 11. Hardly an obscene line up with no chance to win. It's unfortunate they didn't do better but it's become a standard strategy in the Canadian Championship for the MLS team to put out a backup squad for the first game against the D2 opponent. It gives young players some valuable playing time and there's always room to come out with a stronger squad in the return match if things don't pan out. I imagine Vanney has thought this all through. I do expect a stronger squad for the home game but, even then, it wouldn't surprise me if it isn't the strongest squad he could assemble from the available players. Remember, too, that he has to start at least three Canadians and that Edwards is unavailable due to his red card.
is a standard strategy that has to end...if the players are not good enough to play first team football week in and out then they are not good enough for a cup sf/final...looks like Seba will play which is great, that way they dont risk him on the NE shit surface on saturday... that 3 canadians starting has to go too....vanney should play the 3 canadians first 5 mins the sub all three at once sending a message to the corrupt csa for having this stupid rule to begin with
Have to disagree - our best XI can't and won't play every game - fatigue alone prevents that (never mind injuries and cards). Also at some point you need to rotate in youth, to give them an opportunity to succeed. If you can't do this in the away leg against a 3rd division side, when can you? Yes there is a risk you might not get a result, but in a two-legged tie tournament - this can be addressed with a stronger lineup in the second leg. As for your last sentence/point, that's ridiculous. The CSA wants to ensure Canadians get playing time in their sole sanctioned tournament - doing anything besides playing our best Canadians in those spots is tactically deficient. Seba should play both fixtures if he's healthy.
disagree csa has not right infocing that 3 canadians play...no ofter FA do this in any league...focing piss poor players on a manger is unfair...Edwards is the only canadian worth being on TFC, the rest are rubbish...and more worthy of the CanPL IF it ever takes off.. we had a bit of a lead in the east where rest our regulars would have been fine, as a pub team could have been the Crew the other night, shockingly poor/ sad part of what you say...this can be addreessed with a stronger line up in the second Leg? hmm the damage is already done..having a strong lineup does not= w in in this game..all Ottawa needs is a goal and bye bye cup/
Seba wanted to play against the Crew but x-rays showed he wasn't 100%. Good move by TFC not to play him. This is a good game for him to get back into form and just in time since they won't have Edwards, Bradley or Altidore. That Spencer guy looked pretty good.
CSA obviously has the capability to do this - and a cursory google shows that the A-League has a domestic quota far more restrictive than this - and since TFC has regularly been showcasing three Canadians (Edwards, Ricketts, Osario) in MLS - this is hardly an imposition. Vanney chose to play the remainder and likely we'll see more of at least Hamilton, if not Morgan this summer. TFC should be fielding it's best XI for MLS games - what with it being our main competition and all - and while I want TFC to win every competition it enters - the first game against Ottawa was the best game to get our depth some playing time. We've never deliberately fielded a weaker lineup in MLS, because, on average, it contains markedly better competition and we would diminish the club and league if we did. As for the Cup, the damage is most definitely not done - we have an away goal - and a home tie to play. Even if we give up an away goal to Ottawa we need only win by 2 to advance, not really something we've struggled with since we've done it four times already in the league. Similarly a 1-0 win has us go through.
In fact, Chinese Super League teams can't field more than three foreigners in a match, at any time, and that's a league that some see as better than MLS.
Even Vanney said that he's available for Saturday but might not feature because of the turf. I hope he sits that game out as there's no need to reaggravate what seems to be a nagging injury.
My lineup would be something like this for tonight: Irwin Alseth Taintor Hernandez Morgan Camargo Chamman Osario Endoh Spencer Hamilton In a straight 4-4-2....no one comes off unless injured...if that group can do the business...fine, if they can't ah well, we can get into the CCL by beating this year's Canadian Championship in a one match playoff at BMO later this year!
I might swap Aubrey in for Alseth with your line up but I see what you're getting at. I'm really torn on this one. With the August option and the fact that our B team can probably win, I can see the idea of throwing out a B line up for a second consecutive game and hoping for the best. That said, it seems less than professional not to try to defend the Canadian Championship for this year. Your line up modified to add Moor, Vazquez, Cheyrou, and Ricketts at the appropriate locations should do it. If (and only if) Vanney wanted to let Giovinco test his leg, Vanney could even sub him in for a short time.
So is TFC the Canadian representative in this year's CCL? On Wikipedia the Canadian slot is blank with a note explaining that there will be a 1 game playoff at BMO if TFC doesn't win this years C.C. Isn't the 1 game playoff (if necessary) to determine the 2018 spot?
No. TFC isn't in this year's CCL...they adjusted the schedule and now it's the winner of THIs year's CCL that makes it. But in an attempt to be fair to Toronto, if Toronto does not win, there will be that one-game playoff.
Well we won it.....and our reward is a cup match on June 21 in Montreal followed by a league match at home on June 23rd....somehow I just can't shake the notion we would have been better off losing the tie......and qualifying for CCL with a single game playoff at home against the winner of Montreal and Ottawa. This is just crazy
The extra crazy part is that, if we lose this two legged event against Montreal, it will be Montreal we play in the August game. It feels a bit like the Page playoff system from curling!
it is totally bizarre.......not blaming anyone, the CCL revamp caused it and they had to repsond somehow......but last night TFC faced the option (if they thought about it) of losing and getting to a one match final against (likely) Montreal or winning and getting to a 2 or 3 match series with Montreal to get in. It is just totally compounded by the fetish TSN has for Friday nights and all of a sudden you have a team competing in its national title match on a Wednesday and facing a league match 2 days later on a Friday.
It's not much of a consolation, but Montreal does play the same number of games in the same 2-week period: TFC plays Saturday-Wednesday-Friday-Tuesday-Saturday MTL plays Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday Although, they don't have the Wednesday-to-Friday thing. Given that MLS moves games around to accommodate things like TV schedules, CCL games and David Beckham you'd think that they could at least move TFC's Friday game to a Saturday. Or perhaps CSA can move the Wednesday game to a Tuesday.
Me too....I have already told my ticket rep that if we have anywhere near 5 home Fridays next year the chances of me renewing get very slim.
I'm saving that nuclear option in the hopes of seeing a schedule next year prior to deciding. Hopefully TSN does Fridays with the CPL instead.
5 games that are hard to attend and not fun to get to and easy to skip, effectively wipes out the season ticket holder discount (even at my "day 1 discount" level....so anyone who signed up later is easier to see it wiped out).....and, as you know, schedules come out long after season tickets have been renewed.....so I have just told them if they cannot promise me there will be less than 5 Friday night home matches....I cannot promise my renewal.