"Oh...oh GOD NO."
That’s the Google translation of Bild’s bullshit speculation story over Michael Ballack joining former teammate Torsten Frings at Toronto FC, which if were true would mean the club would have to eliminate one Designated Player slot (Hmmm, so who would that be then?).
As one astute Tweeter pointed out regarding this breaking news:
@RWhittall Read it. It’s two paragraphs with the main argument: They’ve got Frings.
— Clarissa (@fussballgedanke) May 10, 2012
Waking the Red looks at this thing intelligently, but I don’t think it’s worth the time. Bild of course printed the Michel Platini wants to merge the Champions League and Europa League story, which has yet to be corroborated by any other source, so…
PS: Hey, TFC faithful. Good on the team for the win last night, but the team is 0-0-8, and they played an expansion team at home in a quite frankly secondary competition. Just because Ecks was sent off doesn’t make them Liverpool in Istanbul, mkay? Also, Stephen Hart forced into a corner re: Doneil Henry on the national team? Chill out. He’s 19. Let’s all take the perspective pills.
Montreal has been a team for the past 20 or so years. They were also unbeaten in their last 4 matches and in the most recent action beat KC(best team in mls) on the road in KC. Give Toronto a bit of credit. They dominated with 10 men.
Yeah, not sure why the author feels the need to downplay the win.
What does “secondary competition” have to do with it? I have no idea what that means. I’m guessing the author means they don’t play as hard in this competition but they play harder in each of 34 league games? Am I right? I’m guessing here….
IMFC is an MLS team. TFC is an MLS team. IMFC has a much better record than TFC does. TFC still wins 2-0 down 10 men to advance to the final. All the pundits were expecting an Montreal win, or at least a 1-1 tie and advancement.
Pundits love to qualify things. Every time TFC won this competition it was because some variable they don’t control was in their favour: 1) IMFC didn’t play all their starters when TFC won 6-1… 2) In previous years, IMFC and the Whitecaps were NASL teams, so TFC should have done better against them. Now it’s “IMFC is an expansion team.”
When will the excuses for TFC’s opposition end and TFC just gets credit for playing well in an important game?
If anything, one could argue the win was more important than a league game, since it meant more. It wasn’t 1 of 34 league games.
Richard doesn’t like being Canadian. He thinks he is English, hence the need to diminish everything Canadian.
Yup that’s it. Because England is so awesome.
Richard: Yeah, way to the respond to the pithy sniping but ignore the legitimate points about TFC’s win. Good show.
What legitimate points? I fail to see how the apologist argument that we should slather praise on a team that has broken the MLS record for the worst start in league history for winning 2-0 in an adjunct competition.
And that neat little straw man there about previous “pundits” saying those mean things about the club in previous CCL outings don’t apply to me because I didn’t say them.
There are plenty of TFC bloggers eager to ballwash the team. Please check the right hand column for a selection.
Also the IMFC has been a team for 20 years thing is also moot as the VAST MAJORITY of the team came aboard in 2012.
Wow, way to be a buzzkill. Not about calling the Ballack speculation BS, which it might as well be, but about downplaying a great performance by the Reds. We are well aware that the team is 0-0-8 in the league, and it’s something that we’ve been really down about recently. Having said that, you shouldn’t be trying to downplay the one thing that we’ve really had to celebrate for a while. Sure, Montreal is an expansion team, but it’s Montreal. I’d be ecstatic with a win over Montreal whether the team was 8-0-0 in the league or 0-0-8, so that doesn’t matter. Give credit where credit is due, we played well with 10 men against a rival team that we had previously lost and drawn away to this year. And Doneil Henry is an amazing prospect regardless.
Hey doc, these here are your prescription pills. If you think qualified credit equates to “slathering praise” and a ballwashing, you’ve made a leap of logic of the laziest, inflammatory kind. Very responsible online journalism there.
Quit pissing on our parade. It’s not a Cup parade, merely the only good result in two months.
I’m going to assume this was meant for me :) Anyway, I don’t know why you demand fealty when Toronto FC got lots of credit, from just about everywhere after beating Montreal. Just not from me. I’d throw some stats your way (including the fact, as Duane pointed out, Montreal have lost all their VC matches since 2008), but MLSsoccer hasn’t updated their Opta Chalkboard.
If your problem is that people think this win means TFC will go on to make the playoffs, etc. then I see what you mean. But you shit on the game and the competition.
I can understand not valuing the cup competition highly from a “competition” standpoint (i.e., we all suck — and are all expansion teams) but lets keep it in perspective. All cup competitions apart from Champions League are “secondary”. The compettion is meaningful. It is the Canadian rival competition. Getting silverware from it is pleasant and losing to your Canadian rivals would be unpleasant — so it is an important competition from that perspective and thank you TFC for putting in that great effort.
Those perspective pills really helped, thanks for the prescription doc.
This would be an interesting point Ally Mac, if it were from a poster that didn’t have a history of showing up to a post where I’m getting commenter heat to pile on after the fact.
They won a game and I lost my voice cheering them on (and screaming at the naturally shitty ref. Dave Gantar is a c$nt)
They are still pointless in the league (pun intended) so while I took great pleasure in making the twats that came from Montreal go home sad, like many others I’m still waiting for more for the turn around.
I still hate ML$E, still think there is more to be done to make this team a competitor but,
there are positives to take. They played like a team for the first time in 3 games. in many of the games they lost in the league there were many that contained much cruel bad luck where we dominated but for bad luck in front of the net and getting burned by some bone headed mistakes.
so, while elated for the games play and outcome, when taken in context of the whole year it hasn’t washed away all the grime in one quick wash.
any way fuck it, thanks all for keeping the interwebs full of piss and vinegar. (and fuck Ballack, I want Lahm to go with Lambe…..how is that for a flat out stupid day dream)
more twisted logic