“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
Still, you can't blame him being the reason for their bad D.
Also, read some of the NY articles. They've pretty much got their DPs on the same page now, with Henry playing like he's interested and Rafa enthusiastic about being there. I agree he's had a bad time of it, but to deny his ability as a player is not realistic. If he is committed and playing hard, he is a beast. Hopefully, for our sake, that doesn't happen.
Toronto FC baby...best team everrrrrrrrrr -Jozy
This match actually showed that Santos Laguna has a consistent home strategy, (that they also used against Montreal):
1. Make the other team run hard
2. By the second half, when they are good and tired and the altitude (it's not Mexico City but it's still high) and the temperature has worn them out, step up the pace and apply more pressure.
3. Punish the invariable defensive mistakes.
SL wins their home and away matches in the last 45 minutes of their home play. This happened to Montreal, Seattle, and now TFC.
lol. I think I could... if I base it on Marquez's time at NY so far. there is a reason why most NY supporters prefer Teemu Tainio at DM, which is apparently best of Marquez's position right now
good thing Marquez got injured last game vs Montreal? (for groin. dunno how long he's out for)Also, read some of the NY articles. They've pretty much got their DPs on the same page now, with Henry playing like he's interested and Rafa enthusiastic about being there. I agree he's had a bad time of it, but to deny his ability as a player is not realistic. If he is committed and playing hard, he is a beast. Hopefully, for our sake, that doesn't happen.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
another bit of trivia. Plata is tied for Golden Boot at 6 goals, along with Peralta and Gomez from Santos Laguna. likely won't last, but at least it's something for little Plata
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
That's a nice little bit of trivia. Congrats to him. RJ is up there too, if I'm not mistaken?
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
A DP central Defender wouldn't make the rookie mistakes we are seeing from our current CB's.
We have no general back there, that is why Frings is being used as a CB. He is controlling not only his position, but dictating every other defensive position on the pitch.
if we had a real DP CB, I would be surprised to see the types of breakdowns we had yesterday.
IMO if you are going to get 3 DPs they should line the line the middle of the pitch - CB - MF - ST
That way the spine of the team is solid. They control every aspect of the game - offense, Ball movement and Defense.
"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
Those penalties killed us, such an unfortunate set of mistakes.
proud of the boys, proud of them for making it this far.
win or lose, we've played some of the best football i've ever seen us play in this champions league.
let's port that over to the league, and get focused on qualifying for next year!!
Just want to point out Harden and Aceval had very little support from Morgan or Ecks. I know ppl love those two, but leaving our CBs alone with no support is disasterous and has been disasterous since day one. Why it works with Frings is because it becomes a 3-5 man backline depending on the situation.
Yet we leave Harden and Aceval out to dry because 1v1 against quality players they will make mistakes when its inevitable at some point over 90 they will err versus good quality. All players do, worldwide.
From MoJo to Winter, six years later, this clubs obsession to profess ourselves an attacking club and throwing our backs bombing forward, leaving the back line exposed or putting our D 1v1 against quality strikers kills us. Moreover, when we dont put pressure on the ball carrier in the middle 3rd teams carve that space open to the weak side of that defender putting players in on breakaways.
Until we get a manager like Kinnear or Schmid who preaches a balanced approach starting from the backline, we will be entertained but we will continue to lose. Unless Winter preaches shape and positioning or our league worst goal differential is going to get worse and will look alot like last year.
Also, it is JDGs fault we lost. We were through at HT. The team was defending well. Worst tackle ever. That penalty killed the team. Im not over it and he should quit. He has done that enough over the years its time. The only salvation is if he bucks the trend since he arrived, but he wont so its time to go.
Santos didnt deserve the win other than their players had the character to not give up when their mental fortitude was questioned. Ours did. So i guess SL deserved to win in the end.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
So are we that bad or was Santos that good? What I saw was, Santos is a one trick pony. Lob the ball high overhead, their forwards (Hercules) then try for the breakaway. They must had did this 15 times in the first 65 minutes, result 2 goals.They did it most of the first game as well.
Anyway could we get them to go offside even once? I think we didn't, I think they completed 15 for 15. I understand they were able to score on their two penalty shots, not that difficult really. Anything that happened after can't be assessed accurately. Afterall when we were faced with having to score twice in the last 20 minutes, we had to play a little differently.
So is that all Santos could do is the one breakaway play, or is that all they had to do so they didn't bother with other tactics?
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
Gutted. But looking back through this CCL adventure, I can smile.
My cat could have figured out that strategy....
Santos is fine to play on the deck and beat you through quick interplay too. Actually thought TFC did a very good job negating that part of their game. Which should be a route to a win, as defending lobbed long balls should be much easier to do.
Pretty great 1st half... less the (overlong) extra time. I think they could have righted themselves in the 2nd half if it hadn't been for the penalty. We need two better starting central defenders... maybe much better. Even 11-1 odds were optimistic so I guess I'll take a half of really respectable football over the crap we mostly played in the Mo era. Soolsma was excellent once he settled in... and that the guy was playing only amateur football on Sundays not long ago - Winter is responsible for his career.
Proud of Toronto for getting as far as they did.
Now I just want to focus on getting the season on track.
And hopefully Cann will actually help improve things.
And hopefully Frings has a speedy recovery.
Although the scoreline was similar to Santos' thumping of Seattle, our boys put up a much better fight. Great run through the whole tourney.
Aceval had a stinker, but at least he was trying. Can't say the same for De Guzman though. His second half was horrifying, and he completely surrendered in the last 10-15 minutes.
Soolsma had a good game - that pass on the second goal was amazing. Dunfield played very well, too. Henry made a good impression in his short time on the field, forcing Santos to make a couple goal-line clearances.
Onwards and upwards!
"Worst tackle ever"? Not even the worst tackle our team has done this season. It was barely mistimed but it was early. Why was JDG covering in the first place? Wasn't that the complaint? That our CB's weren't being babied enough?
Mental fortitude? Are you saying they just didn't want it enough? I think it had to do with how much pace was lost trying to chase the ball back so we could play the possesion game. The one that that was working the first half.
There was plenty of points in that match to change the outcome. Like that offside goal at the end of the first half.
Santos did deserve the win. Mostly because they won.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
It wasn't offside from the videos I've seen. Ecks kept Gomez on.
Toronto FC baby...best team everrrrrrrrrr -Jozy
Man, I can't believe this thread has followed the path of blaming our players and the ref (in a game we lost by a mile? lol).
Good attacking will force mistakes. On the one goal, Harden is making that guy close enough by "MLS" standards, but when you're going up against quality opposition, he is more than a step too late. Seattle lost by the same aggregate score in their two leg series ... I really don't see anything crazy going on here. A team that can pay players at multiple positions more money is going to usually beat one that has to fit in a few plumbers who earn 60k.