This thread is a catch-all for general banter not specifically related to transfer rumours.
2023-2024 General TFC/MLS Banter (no transfer/roster discussion)
This thread is a catch-all for general banter not specifically related to transfer rumours.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
In alumni related news, former TFC draftee bro turned Cowboys Kicker Brandon Aubrey is absolutely crushing it down there.
He’s gone perfect to start the season - 30 straight successful kicks, with 4 against eagles last game - including a 60 yarder that was basically still halfway up the uprights as it was zipping through and a 59 yarder- all while looking pretty unbothered by any of it. He’s shattered the record for rookie kickers with longest streak to start careers (used to be 18)
Good for him finding another path and being able to kill it so far.
Timed subs & injuries coming to MLS
Article (pay wall) on how that works in MLS next Pro
https://theathletic.com/5017681/2023...wasting-rules/
Last edited by OgtheDim; 12-14-2023 at 12:44 PM.
Oof! Seems that, according to PTenorio/TheAthletic, there is to be no to little quick/shortcut relief remedy for TFC to get back to competitiveness.
Check out this tweet at [URL]https://twitter.com/MLS_Box2Box/status/1735308278333329503[/URL]
New rule changes in MLS this season, some I really like.
https://wakingthered.com/2023/12/15/13973/13973
I really like the idea that if a player is on the ground for more than 15 seconds he has to go off for two minutes for "evaluation and treatment." That eliminates time wasting and also ensures players get properly evaluated for real injuries.
The 10 seconds maximum for substitutions is also really good.
I'm glad they didn't have this during Armando Coopers day or we'd have played with 10 men for like 60 minutes a matchOriginally Posted by Oldtimer
Yuasowski (sp?) would have struggled too.
Looks like the treble is now unlikely to be repeated ever - MLS teams opting out of the US Open Cup. (NASL teams did that and not all MLS teams came in at first)
MLS: "We're opting out because the prestige of the tournament has diminished. This is a tournament that everyone from all leagues is involved in, we won't re-join until its prestige is restored and celebrates that openness"
Also MLS: puts expansion teams in cities that have another league's team, creates a bunch of extra tournaments like Leagues Cup and Campeones Cup and also creates its own minor league to intentionally try to diminish the appeal of lower level soccer and other leagues
Also MLS: "We are putting our minor league teams into this tournament in order to give them some higher level prestige competition."
I like Leagues cup but if TFC gave up the Voyageurs for that, I'd be pissed - which is basically what MLS US based teams are doing.
If they weren’t in bed together this is something US soccer should come down on MLS hard for. They’re basically trying to capture the whole ecosystem.
We still have to see if the USSF plays ball with this idea, as reserve teams technically right now not allowed in the US Open Cup, could they turn around and tell MLS no thank you to the Next Pro team replacements , drawing a line in the sands.
Technically MLS did not even have tom make this announcement , the teams simply could have loaded up their rosters with MLS Next Pro/Academy players on short terms deals come game time but guess they have to a point to make in their eyes. It would have required a change to the rules on short term contracts, but that would have been easy.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/tfcacademy/status/1735857381546889504
That’s right, our academy has challenges but youth football is increasingly competitive. We’re not the only professional team in North American and it’s pretty obvious that you win some and you lose some.
So given Manning’s current rebuilding plans and focus on rebuilding it’s completely understandable that our teams couldn’t keep up with *squints at logo* Woodbridge FC.
It wasn't our real academy team that lost. That's London TFC, which is just a London club that has an affiliation with TFC and will send players over for tryouts. The real TFC Academy won both games, the London TFC team lost both games.
TFC Academy has affiliations with six clubs across Ontario who use the TFC branding, but are not the TFC Academy. They have their own coaches,etc who are not from TFC (London TFC, Ottawa TFC, Windsor TFC, Kitchener TFC, Hamilton TFC, and DeRo TFC)
I wouldn’t personally care if TFCs academy lost every single game if developmentally there was a mission/roadmap with their methods that ensured that kids were taught the proper Motor/cognitive skills on/off the ball that are the basics prioritized at that U14 level as early fundamentals - but seems like we don’t really do that either lol so who knows lol
I hope that if Herdman is around long enough he can help with this. Whatever else he is (more than one thing certainly) he has an educational bent. Whether this was at Sunderland or in New Zealand or Canada, in more ways than one, there was an educational element to what he did, and to his personality as well.
Pretty much this - I'd rather an academy that teaches & loses.
As los son said, hope Herdman can bring that teaching bit down there.
Per article (https://theathletic.com/5141003/2023...s-us-open-cup/), something like this was considered, but was "dismissed as an alternative"
It's disgraceful
The Guardian has a well-thought-out column on this today.
https://www.theguardian.com/football...ng-messi-mania
Terrible decision.
I dunno boys... I've been a fan since before day one, like many RPBs, but the reality is this league is really going in the wrong direction.
It's bleeding any sense of tradition or culture out of fandom.
I'm starting to identify with the fringe that wouldn't mind us in USL or the CPL instead. I know the football would be shit, but it would feel like football, not a marketing plan.
This post has made me miserable. Urgh full on football as content thinking.
He's not wrong. They're behaving like they're doing their customers a favour.
IMO, in stern response, if the USSF wants to cut through all the static immediately and go straight to the mattresses, they should let it be known that, then any AMNT player playing within the MLS/US region will unfortunately simply be ineligible for selection for internationals. Pivot the MLS against their PA and see what happens.
I suspect this is going to get reversed, after some bluster and MLS getting USSF to agree to a statement about "improving investment" in the Cup and its presentation.
The league wants out, mostly for self-serving reasons.
But the supporter's groups are already planning mass boycotts across the league of the Leagues Cup. The embarrassment from that would be substantial.
The league is generally underestimating the importance of football tradition.
The CPL is ALL a marketing plan - a bad one propped up by the CWNT.
There is no "good" league in NA.
BTW, where were all these people in the 70's when NASL didn't play in that cup either?
"tradition?" - most of the people complaining about this started following soccer in the 00's - 20 odd years ago
******
is this move bad for the US game? Yes, because it lessens a competition that most teams & communities play in. The reasons given by MLS are poor & self serving.
But a lot of the talk smells of Euro snobbery and pro/rel nonsense.
Last edited by OgtheDim; 12-17-2023 at 06:20 PM.
A simplistic reduction of a century of football tradition because you can't get over a handful of clubs folding, pretty much all due to owner fraud, not pro/relegation.
See, I can boil an argument down to something insulting too.
Nah....that's not insulting to me nor did I think I was to you (I edited out the dude bit...that was a bit much)
As a student of NA soccer history, everything has changed numerous times so much that the idea that the game requires x has become tough to prove.
A LOT of the stuff coming out about this change is about tradition etc.....except there is little to these traditions beyond the last 30 years. Are those traditions important? Yes But a lot of the talk is "well they would never in..." It reminds me of the "but flares are good for the game" discussion from a week ago.
North American soccer has to make sense for the North American situation. I think there is an argument against this move based on it being bad for the North American game - that argument does not have to include "because they do it in..." though because.....the owners ain't listening to that.
I think another potential angle to this that can't just be dropped to the waist side is that Garber/consultants for MLS, Apple, Adidas, etc. think the US Open is small minnow stuff. They've already started forging that relationship with LigaMX and its pretty obvious they are trying forge that stronger relationship with south american clubs and the Copa Libertadores.
Hate to be the tin foil hat guy - but its no different then Flo Perez looking to break off from Europa/Champions League in favour of his own Super league where all the teams are the best of the region and ticket, marketing and TV deals can be maximized and served in the best interest of those big clubs who want to spend even more money, and invest even more if they know they can take bigger pieces of the pie.
Open Cup is tradition, but it isn't lucrative. Freeing up the calender for a campeones cup is one thing, but you know if they could -> get the top 10 clubs in argentina, brazil, colombia, mexico, MLS, etc. all in a 1-2 month long WC style/Euros tournament or throughout the season CL style -> they would start plowing the ground and sowing the earth with seeds to make that happen. Americas Cup (insert another name cuz sailing) - where a 4 team Pool of LAFC, Cruz Azul, Cruzeiro, Boca Juniors. or TFC, America, Atletico Nacional, Newells. a Libertadores 2.0
Its pretty apparent Garber, Apple, MLS, already have the ability to defy FIFA with how our roster rules are setup vs everyone else lol, so why not build a product eventually going where you can get the best teams in the Americas playing for a single month - all on Apple TV lol. I don't think its as far fetched as one would think (even if that is a newly structured Libertadores). Personally I think this is just one of the maneuvers into making all that shit a reality
Last edited by FiveThreeTwo; 12-17-2023 at 07:02 PM.
^ The roster rules are pretty compliant, maybe not with European or South American practice, but with FIFA and many smaller leagues around the world, IF you take into account that due to the single entity all of MLS is legally considered one club from FIFA'S point of view with many teams.
What isn't compliant (not with written rules but in spirit) is having 30 teams at the top flight, while FIFA doesn't want more than 20.
This…
IMO, The US Open Cup / Lamar Hunt are among the most symbolic icons of American football tradition; and tradition facilitates a sport’s foundation.
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