In FC Land

My very cool birthday present from Q was a pair of tix to see TFC play New York Red Bull last Thursday. 

I've been to one soccer game at the National Soccer Stadium down at the Ex, Canada v Costa Rica last fall, a 1-1 draw. I have a lot of good memories of football by the lake, my first live game was a Toronto Blizzard - New York Cosmos match in 1979. There were 29,000 people in the stands at the old Exhibition stadium that night and Giorgio Chinaglia got the goal for the Bad Guys. About 48 hours later the Blizzard played San Diego and I went and about 5,000 people were there. Back then the stars drew crowds, not the home team.

Such was life for young soccer fans in the 70s and 80s. The Blizzard was a decent side most seasons and played for the Soccer Bowl twice, losing inexplicably to Tulsa in 1983 and then to Chicago as the old NASL breathed its last a year later. But I got to see some pretty good players thanks to the Blizzard: Peter Lorimer, Jimmy Greenhoff, Jimmy Nicholl, Jomo Sono, Roberto Bettega, Bruce Wilson and many many more. And the friendlies were good too: Notts Forest when Cloughie and Taylor were in charge, Juve too. 

One of the best moves the team made under Clive Toye's management was moving from the Ex to Varsity Stadium for its final seasons. It was a great place to watch a game: grass, intimacy, easy access, loud even if the crowd was small. Most nights I remember between 8 and 11,000 people in the stands and I like to think that the seeds of TFC's present-day success were planted in those final fitful seasons of the NASL. 

If you went to a Blizzard game at Varsity there was a small knot of fans that sat at one end of the stadium all kitted out in red and white, with banners and scarves and singing and cheering for the entire 90 minutes. They were a novelty. Blizzard crowds were like Leaf crowds: watchers for the most part, maintaining a certain distance from the team on the field. But these guys were the real deal, there was no distance between them and the players they cheered for.

It's that lack of distance that makes the TFC experience so much fun. I saw a bit of it at the Canada-Costa Rica game. For once the home fans were louder than the visitors (I remember the 1994 World Cup qualifier at Varsity between Canada and Mexico which we lost and had to take a back seat to the noisy supporters of the Tri. Adding insult to injury was being in Mexico at the time and having to listen to the locals party away the night with their ticket to USA 94 booked.), and there were a lot of Canadian fans who were coloured up: scarves, flags and jerseys.

Of course I have seen TFC on TV and have friends who have season tickets so the experience of a game at the stadium is not a mystery. But seeing it up close was fun and an education.

It was a cold, wet night, people were wearing their scarves as hoods. The Red Patch Boys and their south-end kin were singing up a storm and every Red Bull corner was greeted with a hail of red and white streamers. The singing, drumming, chanting, stomping, clapping, drinking and laughing never stopped. I was also struck by the prodigious quantities of beer that was drunk, notwithstanding its extortionate cost ($9 a can!).

The product on the field had its moments. The conditions weren't ideal, it was windy and the artificial surface at BMO Field is an abomination especially when it gets slick. The good players could still do their thing, so Laurent Robert and Amado Guevera showed flashes. Robert's free kick set up the first goal of the game. Juan Pablo Angel had a couple of nice touches and showed his soft feet and good vision. 

But it wasn't the Premiership for sure, even if some of the players had competed there. The speed of the game was one thing that stood out. There were moments of good, fluid touches, the triangles that make the game move forward. But more often, especially with TFC, the attacks were predictably Championship in quality, the long ball to the targetman rather than building pressure with possession, width and speed. Ball support was lacking on both teams. Players would find themselves without options for passing, so would either be caught in possession or forced to play a speculative ball into a crowd. It was an interesting contrast with the best of the best we saw on TV the day before from Stamford Bridge (well, almost best, that was on Tuesday from Old Trafford). The best clubs in Europe play with pace and intelligence that leaves our side here in the dust.

But nobody is comparing MLS with the Champions League.

How about the Mexican league?

I've seen enough Mexican football to say, that on balance, the best Mexican sides (Chivas, Cruz Azul, America, Pumas, Pachuca, Santos) would be among the elite in MLS. The skill level is a bit better, the tactics superior at the moment. The football is sweeter to watch, for sure. My best evidence of that is the CONCACAF club championships, which has yet to produce an MLS champion. The winner goes to the World Club Championships. Pachuca is going back to Japan in December as cannon-fodder for either Chelsea or Man U as well as the winner of the Copa Libertadores. Clubs on our continent have not managed to win these sorts of games and MLS clubs haven't even managed to get there yet. There remains a ways to go to compete with the big boys at mid-season form. The Mexicans clubs compete in the Libertadores now, and I'd love to see MLS sides play in that tournament as well. It would give us a really good benchmark to measure our league against. 

But any TFC fan (or a fan of a Championship side in England, or Serie B side in Italy) will tell you, that's not what it is all about. This is OUR team, that is the message from the 20,000 who fill the seats at BMO Field 15-plus times a season. The "show-me" distance that marked Toronto's relationship with the Blizzard is gone. This side is at one with its supporters, no separation there at all. Real fans. The little knot of Blizzard singers in the corner of Varsity has been cloned into the mass of FC Nation. 

UPDATE: I WAS WRONG!

As you can read in the comments, I got WAY ahead of myself on the MLS and CONCACAF Club tourney. The LA Galaxy has won it and was deprived of the chance to play in the World Club because of its cancellation in 2002. DC United won it too, in 1998, has also had success against South American competition with a win against the Libertadores holder Vasco da Gama in the InterAmerican Cup.

Thanks to rumourmill for the corrections. 

Those results tell me that MLS is further along that I'd thought, and I would still love to see MLS clubs in the Libertadores. It also tells me that our region's club competitions deserve more attention!