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Thread: 'Pure' TFC fans

  1. #61
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    Supporter since day 1. Favorite moments 1A. Treble 1B. Miracle in 09

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    I certainly didn’t grow up on TFC.


    But when TFC came to be I bought in from day one.


    As a true Toronto boy, I grew up on the Leafs and the Argos – pure and simple but mainly the Leafs.

    Keon, Sittler, Gilmour, Salming, Bower, Mahovlich, Clarky etc. ……


    The FA Cup would creep into the airwaves every now and then…I suppose something registered – don’t know what but it wasn’t a major event in our family.


    Grade 5 I had a teacher from England that thought the school should have a soccer team – I was on it and the only memory I have, and oddly it has stayed with me, is my teacher saying, ‘beautiful boot’ as I kicked a ball forward in an inter-school game – weird how those things remain.


    The Argos faded over time and the Leafs continued to slip into oblivion through their ineptness though I still pay some attention – the Jays and then the Raps came into being and I was definitely interested, just not captivated.


    Saying all this I got, for reasons completely unknown, totally into the Toronto Metro Croatia at Varsity stadium – I loved it. Went to most home games and loved the stadium. Great vantage no matter where you sat, and there was grass! When they moved to the CNE stadium I stopped – and full stopped at that. No interest.


    When the thought of TFC appeared I got seasons tickets immediately. When I found out there was to be a plastic pitch I wanted to get out. Luckily I didn’t.


    TFC almost makes me believe in reincarnation – There’s really no reason historically why I should be so engrossed. I love going to the games – it’s almost a ZEN thing for me - I feel whole – weird, really weird I know.


    I have zero history family-wise – no brothers, sisters, friends, relatives etc. interested in the slightest.


    Why it inhabited me I have no idea


    But I LOVE it


    And am thankful


    TFC is me…

  3. #63
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    I got into soccer when Canada won the Gold Cup in 2000, but didn't start following club football until I began supporting Spurs in 2005 (because of Paul Stalteri :P).

    Then TFC was announced in 2006, and, while I still support Spurs and follow everything they do, my heart is certainly more with TFC. I've gotten up very early, or stayed up very late, countless times to watch matches, and for a while there when they were truly terrible I had to step away simply because it was just too painful. Seeing the losses and constant mediocrity was having an effect on my moods, and I had to get away for a while.

    Now that we're actually good it's just an incredible feeling, and I can't wait for each match. My son has just started to watch with me as well, and I can't wait to further indoctrinate him into the TFC fold.

    Good times ahead!

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    My love for Soccer is partially came from my dad and the CBC for showing the FA cup finals back in the day and the 1982 world cup . That is when I first saw how big the game was. To me it was unbelievable how a game 4000km away had so much importance in Guelph.. God bless my Sister at the time taking me to thw e Worlds biggest bookstore where I was able to by magazines like Shoot Match and World Soccer. Right now TFC is my team . I still follow other clubs like Fiorentina and LYON BUT TFC remains number one for me. The day after the MLS Final I was having coffee with a young lady friend and she asked me what do you want for Christmas and my reply was Chreistmas came early thanks to Jozy Altidore

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    The best part about TFC games is meeting some good people whether on the Go Train, at the games , Or in the many pubs surrounding the BMO on Liberty village.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike_S View Post
    I love hearing and reading about how things used to be with soccer in this city back in the 70s and 80s. IIRC, the FA Cup Final was carried by CFMT every year, right? It is the earliest memory I have of watching soccer on Canadian TV; that and the famous Canada-Honduras qualifier in St. John's on CBC.
    The FA Cup final was on CBC at first and then CFMT got some rights that included a league game every week - our minds were blown away.

    1982 changed all that.

    https://torontoist.com/2014/06/histo...o-the-streets/

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    Ooooh, soccer on TV in Toronto in the 1970s and early 80s..... I love this tangent....

    That article above makes it sound like there was no soccer on TV here. That is true for the World Cup pre 82, but there was actually a lot of soccer available to watch.

    There were weekly English games, but usually tape delay, and also a half hour English highlight program called the Big Match that ran late nights on weekdays (can’t remember which channel, some on CBC for sure, some on Channel 47, but I think City or someone else had some of these). FA Cup games (even early qualifiers) were a bigger deal than league fixtures in my memory, and the FA Cup Final was the biggest game of the year on TV, but it was tape delayed in the beginning (it went live around 1980 I think). Google “and Smith must score” if you want to see the single FA Cup moment I remember best. Every single game on the Big Match featured Liverpool or Spurs. (Arsenal and Chelsea were not big clubs then, and Manchester United weren’t really either -or so it seemed in my memory.) It’s why I still like Spurs.

    There were weekly Italian games on Channel 47 (again, started out tale delay, then went live) and a weekly Calcio highlight show on Sunday nights, also on Channel 47. That highlight show was amazing, I watched that more than anything else. Italy had these overexcited game callers who would go nuts. Plus in the early 80s tons of non-Italians (Platini, Zico, Maradona, off the top of my head) started going to Italy - that was an amazing change, until then, that was pretty rare, and England had almost none of that. I remember Zico’s debut game. If you really cared about the world game, this was the show you had to watch. It was all in Italian, which made it even better (even if you didn’t speak a word). Seeing a Milan derby is on my bucket list, thanks to this show. They played up those games, and Lazio-Roma, like they were WW3.

    There were also weekly Bundesliga games in English on Channel 11. Broadcast quality was crap, it was often B&W. Then as now you got a steady diet of Bayern (the dominant team in Europe in the 70s - Beckenbauer, Muller etc, they played a 1-3-3-3!) HSV were almost as big then. I can still remember being shocked at the names.... Kaiserslautern vs Moenchengladbach!

    CFTO had the Blizzard but it was only a smattering of games. NASL game of the week ran for a couple of years in the late 70s on ABC. Channel 29 in Buffalo had Cosmos games for at least 2 or 3 years when they had Pele. Channel 29 also had, weirdly, some Liga MX games (I paid no attention to that).

    Channel 47 also carried the odd big Portuguese game.

    European Cup was invisible unless an English team was in it, I remember we got the 1980 Final on TV with Nottingham Forest and HSV. Spain was invisible, I never once saw Real Madrid or Barcelona play until the 90s. Which seems hard to believe. Or that great Ajax team.

    Overall, in the 1970s, there was more regular continental football then English football on TV. Seems weird given how much British culture dominated the city in general back then (smile if you remember Calling All Britain, and Down Memory Lane, both hosted by Ray Sonin, on CFRB). It was a sign of the change to come.
    Last edited by ensco; 02-24-2018 at 01:08 PM.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    Great thread! I find many people look at me strange when I say I do not support a team from outside North America. It is fun to cheer on any Dutch club fighting through the Europa or Champions League, but passion is only felt for TFC. Even on a national scale, the Netherlands National teams are fun to watch, but only Canada's teams bring out the strong emotions.

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    Been a supporter of Arsenal since I was a teenager (they were pretty much responsible for putting soccer on my sports radar), and shortly thereafter Barcelona too (mostly because I love the city). However, TFC have definitely supplanted both as my main soccer obsession.

    Hard to say exactly when it happened - several years ago at this point. You just feel an additional level of "ownership" over a sports team, when it's actually your home club, and not a team you follow from a thousand miles away.
    “Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.” ~Christopher Hitchens

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    I remember there was a show on CFMT channel 47 on Saturdays called World Soccer Report hosted by Dale Barnes in the 80s

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    Quote Originally Posted by GuelphStorm2007 View Post
    I remember there was a show on CFMT channel 47 on Saturdays called World Soccer Report hosted by Dale Barnes in the 80s
    Funny. The guy with the scarf.

    Cable changed everything. TSN started something around that time with Graham Leggat too (I can't remember the name) and started showing multiple English first division games on weekends. TSN also started showing European Cup, and Euro championship games then.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    Quote Originally Posted by ensco View Post
    Funny. The guy with the scarf. TSN started something around that time with Graham Leggat too (I can't remember the name) and started showing multiple English first division games on weekends.
    Soccer Saturday
    “Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.” ~Christopher Hitchens

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    Great post above, Ensco, thanks for that. And thanks to OgtheDim for that article.

    The 70s were just before my time so I love hearing how it all was back then!!

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    Did you guys ever get Match of the Day? Was shown Saturday evening in England and Wales and just the theme tune was enough to get the blood pumping.

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    Quote Originally Posted by StokeciTFC View Post
    I don't recall that
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    I don't think we ever we got Match of the Day here but another poster might know more; the closest thing we had for English soccer was Soccer Saturday with Graham Leggat produced by TSN, as mentioned above, which showed condensed matches and highlights from the previous week. Then Sportsnet came along in the late 90's and finally televised live Premier League matches, which ended the run of Soccer Saturday.

    Edit: One English program I wish would get exported here: Soccer AM
    Last edited by Mike_S; 02-24-2018 at 01:53 PM.

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    The music I remember is when TSN or BBC used Nessun Dorma as the theme music for Italia 90.

    My mother is a big opera fan, she loved that.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    I am a North West Londoner growing up within sight of Wembley Stadium, and have always been a Tottenham fan and always will be.
    But Toronto is home now and I love TFC. I actually became a SSH the day just after I saw my very first match at BMO Field.
    I don't care if it rains or snows, at TFC we have an atmosphere that rivals any UK stadium.
    I watched a game with Borussia Dortmund supporters in Germany once.... Their incredible fans-to-players relationship is called "Echte Liebe" or "True Love" and thats the feeling I see right here at home in Toronto.
    But don't ever make me choose between Spurs and TFC.

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    Quote Originally Posted by KingLedley View Post
    ...
    But don't ever make me choose between Spurs and TFC.
    You missed that friendly a few years ago - payback for Defoe.

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    I will have to admit the first club i watched wasnt TFC, however since the announcement of Toronto getting an MLS team; i was able to throw complete allegiance behind TFC and was happy that Toronto had a team, so i may not be completely pure but i bleed TFC red

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    this was posted on another board by a friend but it sums up a lot of what I've been thinking about and encapsulates a lot of what and why we feel the way we do right now. Forgive me for this rant but, ya know, I like to talk.

    Forgive the following self-centred ramble. It has taken me two months to process winning the championship. It was weird for me because no local team I cheer for has ever won anything. But I think I have pieced together really why the whole thing felt so good. And the reasons really is the very, very specific back story.

    So lots of people can point to the fact that the Championship was a re-match. That it was revenge (Bradley prefers "redemption" (see about 1:36)) for that fucking horrible fucking game when those fuckers from Seattle parked the bus for 120 minutes and then won on penalties. And yeah, there was a bit of that, for sure. Though to the extent it was about that, I would say what was more meaningful was the revelation in September or so that the team had targeted the Supporters Shield at the start of the season (something not a lot of MLS clubs do) because to make sure that no matter what happened, they ended the season in Toronto. In front of us. And the reason they did that - so they said, and there's obviously some mythologizing here - was because of the way the fans supported the team at the end of '16. Yeah, we should have beat Seattle, but there was absolutely no finger pointing or recriminations. none.

    And to understand *that*, you need to go back in time another two weeks.

    The 2-0 win against Seattle on December 9th may have been the best game TFC ever played (seriously, they were incredible). But it was not the *greatest* game we ever played. That game was November 30, 2016, at home against Montreal in the eastern final. That was the night the fans went from loving the team to wanting to marry the team.

    Remember, just 2 years before we were fucking hopeless (and 4 years before, famously, we were the "worst team in the world"). Even 12 months earlier, with Bradley and Giovinco in the team, we got our ass handed to us by the Impact in the first round of the playoffs. Sure, we all supported the team, but below the surface there was always that feeling of "oh christ how are they going to fuck it up this time"? And believe me, when we went down 3-0 after 55 minutes in Montreal in the first leg, we all had that thought again. Yes, we'd played superbly dispatching NYFC 7-0 in hte previous round, but all that giddiness disappeared pretty quickly in the Big O. Somehow, somehow, the team clawed back two goals, and so the return match was a real nail-biter.

    In Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby talks about things that make a perfect game: rain, atrocious refereeing decisions, lots of goals, coming from behind to win. The Eastern final had all of that. And when Nick Hagglund jumped about eight feet in the air to head home the goal that made it 5-5 on aggregate, the stadium absolutely exploded. It was utter pandemonium. The two goals in extra time (Cheyrou, Ricketts), the ones that actually put us in the final, were pretty good too. But that was the goal that made everyone believe. The moment when we went from loving them to wanting to marry them.

    And so, sure, we didn't actually care about that loss in the final in '16 because just ten days earlier they'd given us a perfect night, and won the greatest tie in the history of MLS. Against *them*. And because of that, the team played the greatest season in MLS history, just to play the final in front of us again. And they won. And it was the sweetest thing ever.

    But it took a specific series of events to make it that sweet. That run, that wait, that specific series of wins and losses, were necessary. if we'd won the eastern final against Energy drink or the Crew or someone else, it wouldn't have meant nearly as much and we might have been bitchier after the final and things might have turned out quite differently. Hell, if we'd won in 2016, it wouldn't have been as sweet because it came too easy. if we'd won this year against a different opponent it wouldn't have been as sweet because we really needed to see that son of a bitch Ramon Torres lose. Change any part of the sequence and the story become less compelling.

    Life doesn't give you many perfect stories. This was one. I loved it, but I'm a bit sad too, because we'll never have one like it again.


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    Quote Originally Posted by molenshtain View Post


    Life doesn't give you many perfect stories. This was one. I loved it, but I'm a bit sad too, because we'll never have one like it again.


    That's a great post.

    I hope your friend is wrong about that, but knowing how rare that sequence of events was, I think he could be right.

    You and your friend, I suspect are younger than I. I've lived through three fairy-tale team seasons in my life with Toronto... Bluejays '92, Bluejays '93, and TFC '17

    I really do believe though that this TFC team has a lot more history to write. We're just getting better.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alonso View Post
    That's a great post.

    I hope your friend is wrong about that, but knowing how rare that sequence of events was, I think he could be right.

    You and your friend, I suspect are younger than I. I've lived through three fairy-tale team seasons in my life with Toronto... Bluejays '92, Bluejays '93, and TFC '17

    I really do believe though that this TFC team has a lot more history to write. We're just getting better.
    He's from Winnipeg and was an Expo's fan. He's had a tough road.

    We definitely have history to write. We look set up for a lot of success in the near and far future. I think the sentiment was more that Nothing will ever feel like the last two years. The path we had to travel to get last year's treble was literally a storybook ending. The players, The fans, the matches, the momentum of it - everything was of a piece that brought me (and maybe many of you) to tears. I experienced something so inexplicable in the final (and the montreal series, and the columbus second leg) that made me feel so.. close isn't a good enough descriptor. I felt inextricably linked to each and everyone one of you and my seat mates and family and everyone who went through the last ten years. But even beyond that, I felt the same way about this city. I felt such pure joy and happiness that I didn't think existed. I embraced my father after the final whistle for quite a while and I think it's the first time we've ever showed that degree of emotion with each other.

    Anyway, this is all in purpose of saying supporting this team has been the greatest thing that has and will ever happen in my life. No Eurosnob will ever understand what it felt like, and I have absolutely no reservations or regrets towards my dropping of watching European football. It can be beautiful, sure, but there's absolutely no emotion there for me. Ever. It's like watching a Stanley Kubrick movie.

    *And that bit up there about Hornby describing a perfect game - please do go find that excerpt if you have the time. I know lot's of people have a hard time putting into words what that MTL game felt like, but it is so perfectly summed up there. Hornby is someone who I frequently turn to to put my feelings about football into words. No one says cutting or honest purely joyous things about football that he does.

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    Actually, no. I do occasionally experience emotion watching European football, but it is only ever literal disgust. Disgust at the corporatized, globalized takeover of what was a sport that was intrinsically a local game for most of its history. Every time I see City, Or PSG, Or Barcelona, or every Gazeprom adboard adoring the sides of Champions League games. It's disgusting and destroying the fabric the sport. It's why I refuse to accept the Abu Dhabi family's foreign affairs committee's attempt to put their foot in the door of this league. I will never acknowledge them or accept them as a permanent part of this league. They will, God and whoever else willing, be a footnote in the history books of this league when our grand kids read about the history of this league.

    It's late and I'm ranting and avoiding work. I know this is off topic. Just wanted to be totally clear about why I feel such a dramatic shift of allegiance and interest.

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    I only watch TFC and have zero interest in the time investment to watch a team that I can't identify on an emotional level with. TFC gives us something to be proud of.

    I admit that the Defoe, Bradley and Gilberto transfers was admittley what got me interested in TFC/MLS. I remember checking in a year or two before that; watching one game and being like MAN this is terrible... Even the Defoe season was pretty hard to watch.

    Shout out to the loyals out there. Without you there might not be a 2018 TFC

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    I grew up in the 70s like a lot of folks here so many of the stories resonate with my experience as well in terms of euro-soccer watching on crappy quality feeds --- not as much mention of the Blizzard and their 5-6 year run in the late 70s and early 80s and watching my share of indoor soccer at Maple Leaf Gardens on weekend afternoons where you basically had your run of the place and could wander the Gardens freely as it was half-empty and you could play your own version of soccer in the stairwells with your friends (we did this with mini hockey sticks and foam pucks at Marlies games too!)....it was simply a different time....

    Fast forward to 2007 and I am at the first game with my brother and we hear this noise coming out of the south end and the seats literally rattling from outside the stadium....we knew something was different here, I've been fortunate to be in attendance for most of the biggest sporting events in this city the last 40 years or so (Game 7 Kings, Carter 50+ vs the 76ers, Jays in every major moment from Carter to Bautista and beyond etc.) and this noise and passion was organic, people cared without being told to care or cheer --- and this little "crappy" makeshift stadium was a revelation on a piece of land long forgotten and long derided as a place where sports viewing should occur (I too wished for a Varsity Stadium - heart of the city kind of vibe).....I joined RPB in Year One right afterwards and started discovering the message boards and viewing parties in York region where 5-6 of us at the most would get together at Archibald's and watch a team that frankly almost no one cared about or even knew existed.....it was like our own little community team to support....

    Fast forward again to about 2008 and my now 2 year old daughter is being dragged with me to Joe's for an away season opening loss in a bar "filled" with strangers who embrace us, no questions asked....By 2011 my now 5 year old daughter and I have started a tradition of going to every home opener together no matter what - season tickets are achieved by this point in 220 after years of half packs and Marlies "ransom packs".....we have a home now, and we take a picture every year on our walk from Joes to BMO --- my how she has grown over the last 7 years.....

    Fast forward again to 2015 (no need to rehash "worst team in the world" or a NYRB 5-0 debacle, or the rare joys of the miracle in Montreal and a stadium filled with fans to see the LAG in the Dome) --- we start to resemble an actual football team at this point with the arrival of Giovinco who is a godsend (after Bradley/Defoe's much celebrated arrival had half worked and half didn't) and makes us see pretty soccer again.....we finally drag our ass into the playoffs and then get shellacked by our biggest rival in the most embarrassing way possible --- oh you thought this was going to be easy? where have you been the last 9 years.....

    Fast forward to 2016 ---- a magical year, a Johnson broken leg stunner, the first legitimate playoff run and the night of all nights on November 30th where as others have said - we watched the best "match" in terms of sheer drama we have ever seen at BMO ---- from 3-0 down in Montreal to the guts shown to pull two back in the "Big O", to going up and down and then OT magic where all the sins of the previous years were washed away by a beautiful Frenchman and a Canadian lad who puts away a clincher after a stunning Jozy run (a familiar theme by the 2017 playoffs) and then sobs on the sideline as he realizes the magnitude of the moment --- we sobbed too, Ricketts, we sobbed too.....the Final brings us all the hope in the world only to be let down by a rather boring game, save for a Frei moment or too, and losing in the worst way possible on a damn penalty shot that hits the crossbar and goes down not even out, but down, literally inches away breaking our hearts.....don't worry Morrow, the gods seem to be thinking, you will have your moment.....I explain to my daughter on the way home how precious that opportunity was to win a championship and how many things had to go "right" just to get to that moment in our stadium only to lose in this way ----I told her to believe, but years of being a sports fan tell me that these opportunities don't come often and sometimes never again.....92-93 happened, we are still waiting for 1967 to be changed to a new number in this town.....

    Rewind to 2017 --- we will either let last years loss define us as another team that almost made it and never returned - or we sign a Vasquez who unlocks the world and we totally dominate for an entire season -- wire to wire we have an energy that says - "F This" we will be the aggressors, the ones who control the narrative and we will take on the heart of our Captain and push ourselves week in and week out to be the best - people get hurt - doesn't matter, add some players from leagues we've never watched (looking at you Hasler!), sure that works too, we have decided to TAKE the championship and every other trophy by the throats and claim them --- Gio with a stunner in June to clinch Canada (and Raheem wiping out on his leap over the "boards" which still kills me every time I rewatch it) results in a stunning explosion of noise that portends of things to come. Morrow has his day in the sun (see someone was looking out for the lad), and we clinch the Shield - meaningful to a lot of us old-timers who know that winning the league is more an indicator of the best team than a "crappy random playoff system".....more on that later.....

    Playoffs 2017 --- the first game in NY is fine thanks to another Gio wonder-strike.....the home leg is a messy drag out war that literally leads to punches being thrown, and Bono, saving our asses off of BWP, and my daughter who has been with me the whole time starts to hug me in disbelief that we have somehow survived this mess in early November to move on to face our Trillium Cup rival (ok that's not really a thing but for literary purposes let's say it is - ha ha ha)......suspensions cause us to drag out a 0-0 game in Clbs and then in one of the best games of the year (for both teams) we await a magical moment --- a stunning run by Jozy after a sublime pass by Victor (and Gio earlier on in the play) leads us to victory --- somewhere nearby Ricketts is probably crying again.....we already know that Seattle likely awaits to taunt us again about last year's final......

    December 9 2017 - Redemption Day --- I am a big believer that sports is about narratives -- this game, and this day, is as many others have stated, a storybook waiting for it's final "perfect chapter" - this is a two season story (to some extent) the way it has all played out and I remind my daughter that in order for this to be the "perfect ending" we NEED to win - period. An entire season will be judged on how we play today ---- we go to Joe's early and have our usual meals, we go to the viewing party and I catch a shirt all taped up, which I later find to be an autographed Gio Jersey (a good sign) - we make our way to the stadium and I see the away support up in the corner and then OUR support everywhere else.......the first half unfolds like last year, we dominate but we can't score....we are confident but still fearful after last year.....then the moment happens, a beautiful series of one touch passes that explodes up the middle until a joyous noise arrives.....insanity in the stands ensues, hugging my daughter, hugging strangers, high fiving everyone within 30 feet of me.....we are confident and we are happy but it is not over....we continue to play stunningly beautiful football and absolutely dominate as we have done most of the year....Cooper almost has his moment and Vasquez seals the deal --- we heart you too Victor, hold that jersey high --- pandemonium and disbelief ensue, we know it is over, redemption has occurred -- I have shared this journey with all of you but most importantly to me, my child --- the way that my father had shared the Leafs and the Jays with me has now been passed on to my child, it is a beautiful moment - I stay at BMO afterwards for what seems like an hour soaking it all in --- we may never come this way again, and even though we are a great team right now, THIS version of winning will never occur again, this perfect narrative.....there won't be another first time, everything else will always be compared to this moment in our minds - that's not a bad thing, it's just a thought that passes in my mind.....

    Am I "pure TFC", who knows what that really means? I love other teams in other sports too, but what I do know is that I have shared emotions and memories with a lot of you and the ultimate story-book ending in sports rarely occurs --- we got one; and there is no other reason to put ourselves through all of the emotional angst unless you enjoy the heck out of those rare times when sports doesn't break your heart, but rather opens it up to even greater love instead......

    Onward to 2018 --- where I will be with my daughter in BMO on Saturday March 3rd in our usual spot surrounded by people we know who have become our extended family - but first at Joes, then a walk with a picture, then creating new memories......
    Last edited by tfcfans; 02-25-2018 at 09:48 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by molenshtain View Post
    Actually, no. I do occasionally experience emotion watching European football, but it is only ever literal disgust. Disgust at the corporatized, globalized takeover of what was a sport that was intrinsically a local game for most of its history. Every time I see City, Or PSG, Or Barcelona, or every Gazeprom adboard adoring the sides of Champions League games. It's disgusting and destroying the fabric the sport. It's why I refuse to accept the Abu Dhabi family's foreign affairs committee's attempt to put their foot in the door of this league. I will never acknowledge them or accept them as a permanent part of this league. They will, God and whoever else willing, be a footnote in the history books of this league when our grand kids read about the history of this league.

    It's late and I'm ranting and avoiding work. I know this is off topic. Just wanted to be totally clear about why I feel such a dramatic shift of allegiance and interest.
    Well, you might say we bought the title (that is certainly the view of most supporters of every other MLS team).

    It’s hard to place our story, in truth.

    We really were an appalling joke for so many years. Yet of the 12 teams in MLS since we joined, only six have won the Cup. Some of those have very deserving fan bases (eg DCU), or have been consistently good (FC Dallas).... and haven’t even made the final.

    I do agree that our 2016-2017 narrative could be a movie plot. Nobody went into the 2016 playoffs expecting this. In 15 months we have had 8 or 10 epic, memorable moments. More than most franchises over the past 10 years.

    If I were writing that movie script, I would make summer 2016 of the fulcrum of the story, we lost several games to teams down a man, including one where we conceded the winning goal to 9 man San Jose. Nobody who watched that game thought this was coming!
    Last edited by ensco; 02-25-2018 at 08:59 AM.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    To be very clear; I have no problem with teams spending money - preferably from a local source, to win championships. That's been part of since it began and it's in every sport ever. It's inevitable. What I do have a problem with is the soft power being peddled relentlessly by the aforementioned Abu Dhabi group creating (And Qatar's to an even more cruel and vile end) to soft power in order to propagandize the their brands and distract from their horrible human rights abuses. There's a piece In deadspin about how the Saudi are rapidly catching up, through game of thrones style political maneuvering. It's by Mohamed Zidan. Highly recommended.

    If Qatar Doesn't kill the projected 6k-7k thousand slave workers they have working on stadiums there why wouldn't be pumping billions into two of the biggest brands in football. Its free press and nice brand association. It's specifically designed to masked atrocities. It's evil and should be condemned at every occurrence. The team coached by Patrick Vieria and plays in Yankee stadium is sure as shit complicit in that.

    Way off topic. I've expressed my view on this subject numerous times before and this isn't the avenue in which to re-litigate this conversation. If you can - pay way more attention to the post I put up two or three above this. That's the really stuff that matter
    (and pertains).
    Last edited by molenshtain; 02-25-2018 at 10:37 AM.

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    ^I agree with your comments on the true nature of and motives for Russian and middle eastern plutocrat involvement in Euro soccer.

    I have some thoughts on how "soft power" works in the Bell/Rogers ownership structure (it's played a bigger role behind the scenes than we think about), and their relationships with regulators and government entities, but will save that for a different time/place.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

 

 

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