Sunday, July 20, 2008

TFC Notebook: No, you suck

"We have to come out and establish ourselves and show them we're playing in a higher league and their league blows. So we need to come and establish our authority."

TFC continues to struggle, but that didn't stop defender Tyrone Marshall from engaging inn a little trash talk in the lead up to Tuesday's deciding game of the Canadian championship aginst Montreal.

It's not everyday you hear an athlete use the word "blows" when talking about an opponent. It's almost like the professional pride of TFC's players has been wounded in this so far disastrous tournament.

Sadly for Toronto fans, strong words don't put the ball in the back of the net, which the Reds are struggling to do.

With Danny Dichio out for another three weeks, and manger Mo Johnston unable to bring in the promised striker, the solution to the current funk is likely going to have to come from within.

Tuesday will offer the perfect opportunity to get back on a roll. Or, conversely, it could be the lowest point of all. So, yeah, it's a big game.

Montreal wins the championship with a win or a draw. Toronto must win. And, it should. But, nothing is coming easy for TFC in this tournament and it's unlikely that will change on Tuesday.

6 comments:

Tyler King said...

A TFC player saying another league blows? If that's not the definition of the pot calling the kettle black...

sager said...

Yeah, Tyler, the MLS is not the EPL, and you feel compelled to point that out. We get it.

Andrew Bucholtz said...

I'm shocked to have to agree with Tyler, but he makes a bit of a point (except for the whole bashing the MLS thing). It's a bad idea in my mind for MLS players (and fans) to disparage other competition, because there are plenty of people lined up to return the favour at the drop of a hat. We all know MLS isn't the Premiership and the USL isn't MLS: that doesn't mean that the lower-leagues are poor quality or not worth watching. Is it really necessary for Tyrone Marshall to bash the USL? After all, his vaunted MLS side did go 0-1-1 against the Whitecaps. It's significant in my mind that in a tournament structure that favours the higher-league team (as Duane pointed out at the start), the lower-league sides have done so well for themselves: in fact, if Vancouver had managed just one win against Montreal, they'd be going through regardless of Tuesday's result. TFC is still probably the favourite to advance, but I think the USL sides have earned some respect with their play, regardless of what Marshall says.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

i don't think marshall said anything out of line. the USL does blow and if those guys were good enough, any and all of them would jump at the chance to play MLS soccer. TFC absolutely needs to establish their authority, and i'm glad Marshall said it. now hopefully he and the boys can back it up, for christ's sake.

sager said...

All together now ...

You better / fuck up / the Impact!

Ask Duane what that means!

Duane Rollins said...

Tic tac tabernac...who the *cough* the L'Impact....

;)