But did they actually? We fielded a second team in the tournament and showed very little ambition. Why would the club ask for a schedule slanted towards CCL when they aren’t even taking it seriously?
Apart from Dorsey, that lineup in Panama was not a second team (for the team we had at the time)
25 Alex Bono
96 Auro Junior
26 Laurent Ciman
23 Chrys Mavinga
5 Ashtone Morgan
2 Justin Morrow
8 Marco Delgado
4 Michael Bradley C
21 Jonathan Osorio
19 Griffin Dorsey
91 Terrence Boyd
That's our starting defence, midfield baring Dorsey (without Poz remember) & striker at the time.
The formation though was overly ambitious.
I've always understood it to be that teams have the option to not play during international windows when the schedule is being drawn up. They simply end up playing more midweek games. But since the gates are generally weaker during the week, lots of teams forgo doing so and rather play the weekend during an international window. We had a couple seasons like that in that past where we specifically avoided those weekends because we knew Bradley, Altidore etc would be called up.
Heck this league is so opaque, us playing Cinci this weekend could have been part of the price for Haglund.
It's not unlimited. They can request a certain number of games to be rescheduled. Plus both teams have to agree and the MLS FO ultimately calls the shots.
TFC has had their schedule requests turned down before. They wanted to reschedule a league game in 2018 during their CCL run and the other team declined. More notoriously, the league turned down a reschedule in 2007 when both teams agreed but the MLS FO didn't, and TFC (this was before they had an academy) had to play one of their coaches and an amateur player to fill out the squad.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 09-06-2019 at 12:30 PM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
Jozy on the flight to Cinci
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/TorontoFC/status/1170029795163422722
Yeah pre-season reschedule requests are different from in-season reschedule requests.
Oldtimer, when you say the league decides, when does the opinion of the broadcaster come into play? I'm sure that TSN has significant sway (anyway since they're owned by TFC's part owner). Different broadcasters for different teams, might be more or less flexible.
CCL / Gold Cup / VC surely played a role for TFC's scheduling; as did TSN. Add the Argos schedule: i.e. TFC can't play on the same day or shortly before the Argos, to leave time for the switchover. Plus they want the grass longer for the Argos. And TFC can't play until a week after the Argos, to leave time for pitch recovery / cutting grass & repainting / switchover. (Not sure if the latter break can be shortened since the hybrid pitch was installed?)
All that adds lots of inflexibility.
Last edited by Auzzy; 09-06-2019 at 03:13 PM.
Yeah, that’s not a winning side (as we painfully found out). Maybe we took the opposition lightly or over estimated our own players, but there was nothing in particular about our preparedness at the start of the season or our urgency in getting signings ready for this game that suggested to me we were all that serious about that matchup.
I don’t think a front four of Boyd, Dorsey, Osorio, and Morrow terrifies anyone.
Some good Nick Hagglund content here. Always a class act.
https://twitter.com/torontofc/status...739897857?s=21
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
I understand from putting together interviews over the years that the schedule gets initially set by the league, taking into account shared stadium usage, broadcaster needs, holidays, and they honour some FIFA dates. Then the initial schedule gets sent to the teams. They then are allowed to request a certain number of changes (nobody has publicly said how many). The league then works these out between the teams, taking into account again broadcasters, shared stadiums, etc. I'm not sure if at that point the other team needs to agree, or only if it's a request for a change AFTER the schedule has been finalized, but whether or not, the whole thing is an extremely complicated exercise when you count in everything.
TFC has tended to use their exemptions for USMNT games that aren't friendlies, because of who plays for TFC.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
Good lineup tonight outside of mullens starting.
Jozy on the bench - Ciman starting - weird that Mavinga isn't mentionned as he was in the pregame video.
Actually Akinola is in that video too. Team might be going to NYC straight from here?
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/TorontoFC/status/1170460048432271366
Cinci lineup is makeshift - they have Garza, a RB, as LCB paired with Hagglund.
So to the 11 other people on this thread right now....happy to have KJ as against Caldwell on the mic tonight?
Ciman?
Kill me now.
And Hagglund as captain! Based on our history, the odds of him scoring are high, i imagine.
Is it just me or does the pitch looks like shit?
Nice finish!
Get in
Mullins really has some “fox in the box” to his game
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
Great goal.
Why has everyone been dumping on Mullins? He's been scoring at a decent pace.
We can't put a pass together but apparently Cinci can for us