shame. I've reaaly liked Osorio these last two games
Kurtis Larson @KurtLarSUN 59m Think Bloom moves to right mid. Orr starts at the back. Hall could come in for Osorio.
Speculation from Larson but that's intriguing. Hall had to play sometime I suppose. Time to find out if the bench can do the job.
Hall's been injured. Is he even ready to play a full game?
Jeremy Hall? Brutal, just brutal. Hall should join Lambe on the waiver wire.
Seems like Nakajima-Farran is officially signed
http://www.torontofc.ca/news/2014/03...akajima-farran
will he be able to play Saturday?
I would rather see Bekker in CM next to Bradely rather than Hall. We have done well so far with one two way player and one more offensive player. Bekker at least is more like Osorio in tbat he looks to create through passes. Hall hives me a heart attack every time he plays.
I would not want both Issey and Bekker to start tomorrow because if TFC have a bad game they could take the blame and be moved below Bloom/Orr on the wing and Hall in the centre. I want the best players playing but I still have hope that the Canadians on the team can get a good chance to shine and not be thrown to the lions.
Ive been wondering if Morgan could get a look in a LM. Rather have Bloom/Orr/Issey at RM with Rey LM but curious if Morgan could move up. Idk won't happen, just a thought.
Edit- Id like to see Bekker over Hall. Want to see if he has developed defensively. You would hope he has been learning from Bradley, tho early days.
Last edited by pdubs; 03-28-2014 at 03:03 PM.
I don't think Osorio is out necessarily. Nelsen said it was precautionary and that they planned for Osorio to only take part in the start of training.
I think Hall gets a lot more hate than he deserves. He was a terrible fullback, but as a CM, he holds his own IMO. Sure he makes the odd mistakes and gets caught out of position as a result, but I think due to his bad reputation that he got as a fullback, people pick on his every mistake. Whereas Bradley has made his share of mistakes resulting in being caught to far forwards, but no one mentions it because no one has any reason to not like him yet. My point? I think Hall can cover a lot of ground, break up play, and is a pretty decent passer of the ball. Overall he's a decent CM option.
As for Bekker, I think it would be good for him to play next to Bradley. It could potentially light a fire under his ass and make him realize that he has to work a lot harder if he wants to make it as a pro. Up until now, he hasn't ever been paired with someone that he would have to recognize as superior to him. I've always gotten the feeling from him that he thinks he's good enough. Playing next to Bradley could change his attitude.
Either way, come WC time we're going to have to start one of these two in midfield next to Osorio. When that time comes, the drop off in quality will be a lot less if they go in having played with Bradley, feeling confident than if that's the first time they play. Mentality is huge, and so if Bradley can spread some of that hard working and winning mentality to more than just the other ten starting XI players before he leaves for the WC, then that would be great.
Not that losing Oso doesn't suck, but we can't be crying about his replacements. Bekker and Hall were always going to get PT. Better they get it now with Bradley than not get it until they have to replace him
That's a good question. Even small (500m) increases in altitude degrade aerobic performance (Vo2 max). RSL is about a 1300m diff and TFC trains at around sea level. So a drop off, but not huge. Think 5-10 sec in a 5000m race. But this is soccer, not track so that decrease may be fairly meaningless in context. Maybe a little reduction in time to exhaustion, but you're still going to be able to sprint just as fast.
If you live and train at altitude, you'll adapt by creating more hemoglobin, which carries more oxygen. Awesome. However you'll have to train at a lower intensity than at sea level, and your muscle fiber recruitment will be lower. Overall, it's a wash and there won't be any significant difference between TFC and RSL players at altitude.
Altitude training tries to take advantage of the benefits, while trying to avoid the negatives by keeping it short(2 weeks). There is some conflicting evidence for this. Coaches swear by it though (anecdotal)
Live High/Train Low attempts to reap the benefits of both. Sleep at simulated altitude to generate more hemoglobin, train at sea level to work at higher intensities. Results are inconclusive. There seem to be responders and non-responders when it comes to altitude training.
Oxygen masks and other limiting devices attempt to simulate high altitude, but there is ample evidence that they don't work. This has led to research into air pressure as a possible mechanism.
Long term high altitude training was a thing a few decades ago, but hasn't been taken seriously once the negatives were discovered. The one outlier is those born at altitude (and whose ancestors were born at altitude) seem to be mostly immune to the negative effects.
tl;dr - living and training at hi alt has good and bad effects - but they cancel each other out. If you were born at hi alt, congratulations, you are a Kenyan and will win many gold medals.
Totally agreed. I think some people are just remembering Hall under Mariner, when lets face it, ALL the team was hopeless! But when Hall moved into midfield last season he held his own very well. He's definitely a decent depth mid and I think he will be fine when he gets a call up to play as starter.
For me I would like to see this as a staring line up for Sat
--------------------------------------Cesar-----------------------------------
Orr----------------------Caldwell----------------Henry-----------------Morrow
--------------------------Bradley----------------Osorio-----------------------
Rey-------------------------------------------------------------------Issay
-------------------------Gilberto--------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------Defoe-----------------------------------
Subs:
Bloom
Bekker
Dero
Weeds
Bendik
Agboss
Defoe and Dero both gave good interviews. JD, especially, knows what he's doing in front of a microphone.
There was a bit in that interview where Nelsen was asked about midfield help and he looks like he just catches himself from talking about an injury to somebody.
I think Osorio's out for tomorrow.
None of the MLS Soccer "experts" picked Toronto to win again like they did with Seattle. Hopefully a good sign. Would be great to cause the upset again.
Top NHL'ers play 20 minutes a game with lots of breaks. Footballers play 90+ minutes. Big difference.
Lookin forward to the game, I checked out the RSL forum. Its very different and hilarious to read ie very american lol they talk about football like its nfl.
I never heard of "power ranking averages", but they dont seem to stop talkin about this. Didnt give it much thought after I found out it means."If two teams played tomorrow, given their current injury concerns, form, and other considerations, who is likely to win on a neutral field? This list is designed to tell you who we feel is most likely to win that matchup. All things being equal, who is the best team going forward, based on what we know now?"Comparing beckerman to bradley, they got a thousand arrows on a field diagram. they talk about it like theyre breaking it down play by play lol http://www.rslsoapbox.com/stats-anal...=articlebottom
-Richard Farley, NBC Sports ProSoccerTalk. 3/11/14
http://www.rslsoapbox.com/fanposts/recent
I hope we embarass them so they can break it down for me before we play our next game!!
Maybe they need a glowing soccer ball......
Last edited by dutch; 03-29-2014 at 12:12 AM.
Fair to say we are in the onyx again?
looked good last week, very intimidating
Toronto FC,#CMNT & #CWNT, Scotland, Heart of Midlothian FC, Tottenham Hotspur FC
"The Harder the Struggle, The Greater the Reward" - @OsoJ92AWAY DAYS - CHICAGO August 2017, MONTREAL March 2018
Morgan at LM would be a disaster imo, unless he has improved tremendously from last season. He can't hold possession, his passing is subpar, can't beat his man on the dribble and makes poor crosses. I suppose he might work as a late sub if we're up by a goal or two and need a energy guy to chase and close down.
Good Morning everyone from partially sunny Utah! It is currently 12C with a game day tempurature forcast for 18C. I have 4 goals today: get to Rio Tinto, talk to some RSL fans, cheer on our Reds and see if I can find the gate they leave by after the game!
Post of the week.
My comment is, the one thing we know about MLS is that, in terms of correlation to making the playoffs, it's based on the caliber of your depth, say you 13th, 14th and 15th best players, much more than it is your top three players. Historically anyways.
We are of course seriously testing this because, based on dollars spent on early returns, our top 3 may best the best top 3 in the league (repeat may, let's give it 15 games) ... but our numbers 13-15 (let's call it 3 of Hall, Wiedeman, Richter, Morgan, for arguments sake) are far weaker than the numbers 13-15 in RSL (say 3 of Mansally, Mulholland, Sandoval, Findley).
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
Looks like the TFC staff projected starting XI puts DeRo on the wing with Oso still in the middle, and Bloom starting again. Not sure what to make of that exactly. I know it's not official, but maybe Oso is good to go for tonight? Issey comes in as a sub when DeRo tires out? Maybe they're just trying to psych out RSL?
Last edited by redisthenewblk; 03-29-2014 at 11:43 AM.
Alright gamday. Time for some tactics and it also might determine our lineup.
Bradley will be responsible for owning the top of the midfield triangle, but who is going to be responsible for making Beckerman work. Im thinking Gilberto drops down to cover him. This might mean DeRo doesn't have a place on the left wing, since he doesnt have a good defensive workrate and most likely our wings will be pinching in to clog up the middle defensively. The rumours about Bloom on the wing actually make a lot of sense when it comes to RSL.
Also they play a very narrow game, so best advice to our fullbacks would be to push right up the field whenever possible to pin back their FBs and give them no width. From there you clog the middle of the field. I really feel as we either will be sitting 4-5-1 most of the game and that Gilberto will only move up top when in possession Or even I kind of feel like our wings will be pushed in and our fullbacks up so it will be more of a 2-5-1-2. I would almost say that Osorio might be better of pressuring Beckerman. Every team drops a striker to mark Beckerman and its not that good of a plan, rather have a midfielder chipping away at him so he gets a yellow card early and calms down.
So I would be extremely surprised if it isnt barring Osorio injury in which case Hall will take his spot 110% (hall is good)
defoe-gilberto
rey-bradley-osorio-bloom
morrow-henry-caldwell-orr
One more thing. If TorontoFC.ca people cant figure out that Henry plays LCB and Caldwell at RCB and that that actually matters I am going to lose all my faith in these people. Henry adds so much value as a lefty.