Duane Rollins

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The tears didn’t come right away—not from the unbearable frustration of the first ninety minutes, nor from the surreal and profound joy of the last five.

No, the intensity of those moments didn’t allow for much more than the most basic emotions, a grunt here, a ‘Come On City’ there, with the occasional meek and stressful rendition of Blue Moon. It was only after, among the stunned and delirious crowd at Opera Bob’s Public House in Toronto, that I started to well up. It was the sight of the older woman, retro City scarf in hand and wearing an 80s era replica strip, that did it.

With Oasis’ Don’t Look Back in Anger blasting over the speakers, the woman, about 65, rocked back and forth proudly holding the scarf aloft. She paused only to wipe a tear out of her eyes. She was old enough to have seen City as champions. Wise enough to have been aware that for the majority of the time that she had held that scarf, the idea she’d live long enough to see it again was absurd.
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It was likely a long bus ride back to Quebec for the 100 or so Montreal Impact fans that made the trip Wednesday to watch their club take on TFC in second leg of the Voyageurs Cup semi-final.

It was a listless effort against a club with just one previous win on the year and another failed attempt by the Impact to get a result against their biggest rival. Although it’s mostly forgotten right now, Montreal has just one win all-time against TFC in nine games.

Actually, the Impact have shown themselves to be nearly allergic to the Voyageurs Cup in recent years. Yes, they did famously win the first tournament version of the event (and were the only winners of the Cup during its early, fan-controlled history), but 2008 must seem like a long time ago now for the frustrated Impact fan.

Not only has Montreal failed to win the Cup since, it’s failed to win a single game in the competition since 2008. The loss to TFC Wednesday runs its record winless streak to an amazing 13 games, nine of which were losses. That’s TFC 2012 bad.
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It was all sadly predictable.

You hardly needed to watch Toronto FC’s game Saturday to know how it was going to turn out. Reds’ fans had seen the movie before—shambolic defending and confused tactics leading to a sixth straight loss to open the season. It was predictable the moment the line-up was released on various social media platforms about an hour before kickoff.

In the lead-up to the game there was some hope that head coach Aron Winter would take a more pragmatic approach in an effort to stop what was fast becoming an historically bad start to the MLS season.

As it turns out, such thoughts were misguided. Even the most tactically-unaware fan could see that Winter had yet to give up on his idealistic dream of a fluid TFC winning games with style. It was right there in the eleven names staring at you from your smart phone screen.
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It’s probably too soon to call Toronto FC’s 2012 season a failure.

There are 30 games left in the MLS regular season plus a Voyageurs Cup to defend. An oh-for-four start to the league—and just one win in eight overall—is bleak, but not impossible to overcome.

A rational fan should understand that. However, TFC fans ceased being rational sometime around 2008. The Reds do that to people. After all, Saturday’s loss to Montreal was the 79th all-time defeat to Toronto in less than six full seasons. Considering TFC plays in a league designed to promote parity that’s abysmal.

So Toronto fans can be forgiven for lacking hope that the bad start is a mirage and that good times are still to come. At the conclusion of the Montreal game, the travelling support couldn’t even be bothered to boo. The prevailing mood in the Toronto section was numbness. Of course the Reds gave the Impact its first win. Did anyone think any other outcome was possible? If they did, they must not have been paying attention.

In the early days of the club most of the attention was focused on the fans. They were a rowdy bunch that defied the stereotype of the suit wearing, passive Toronto sports fan. The club wasn’t very good, but that was to be expected from an expansion team. People would go to BMO Field just to see the nuts sing and dance in the southeast corner of the stadium.
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If Canadians are honest with themselves they will realize that our soccer rivalry with the United States is more than a little bit one-sided.

Whereas we Canucks can work ourselves up into a fury of indignation over Atiba Hutchinson being robbed of a good goal in the 2007 Gold Cup or Americans overstating the importance of scraping by Algeria at the last possible second in South Africa, Americans are pretty much indifferent about us.

It’s classic little brother stuff: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, but why won’t you pay attention to me? The truth is Canada has given the US very little reason to pay attention. While they have gained a foothold in the sport in the 18 years since USA 94, Canada has spun its wheels. Once a proud soccer nation that punched above its weight class, Canada is now a punch line.

Actually, if it wasn’t for America opening its league up to Canadian expansion in 2006, we’d probably be in worse shape than we are already. If anything the Canadian soccer fan should be thanking their American cousins, not cursing them.
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The show is over. With memories of a packed and rowdy Rogers Centre still fresh in the memory, Toronto FC must now focus on the reality of having to beat the defending MLS Cup and Supporter’s Shield champions, David, Landon and Robbie’s LA Galaxy, at home to advance in the CONCACAF Champions League.

It’s a daunting task. Based on TFC’s flawed history it’s just about impossible. When you factor in LA’s talent and apparent drive to win the CCL, and then take away the beer-throwing 12th man last Wednesday provided, you would be foolish to think that the Reds can advance to the next stage.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Although there were 47,500 watching in person last week with the entire downtown core painted red, there will undoubtedly be far less paying attention tonight. Just 7,500—if the Galaxy are lucky—will be in attendance tonight, with maybe 50 Toronto fans. Outside of a couple dedicated pubs, you won’t see TFC red in downtown T.O. and the 10 p.m. kickoff means many more casual observers will be in bed by the time the result is known.
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It’s a busy few weeks coming up for Canadian national teams. The senior men just lost 3-1 to Armenia, while the senior women are looking to defend their Cyprus Cup. Meanwhile the under-20 women are in Mexico looking to book a trip to the World Cup and we are three weeks away from the men’s Olympic team’s attempt to get to London.

With an annual budget of around $10 million it is an understatement to say that the CSA is stretched thin. As it’s an expectation of Canadians that we participate equally in both genders and across all age groups, it’s up the federation to figure out how to make it work.

The truth is it’s a struggle. The money gets spread too thin, and as a result some teams get far less attention than they need. One only needs to look at the “preparation” of the men’s under-23 side. Last week, while the United States—who share Canada’s group at the qualifying event—were playing friendlies, the Canadian team remained a mere concept.
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