Top Stories

Red Bulls at Toronto FC: Running Commentary

Toronto_fc_logoRed_bulls_logo

Good evening folks. The New York Red Bulls take on Toronto FC tonight in a game with plenty of sub-plots and the promise of some serious excitement.

From the Red Bulls likely having Juan Pablo Angel and Jozy Altidore together for the first time this season, to Amado Guevara facing the Red Bulls for the first time since being traded by them after the 2006 season, tonight’s match should have great drama along with the unmatched atmosphere at BMO Field, where a sold-out crowd is expected.

I will be spending time before and during the match with Toronto FC fans for a story on the game-day experience here so I won’t be doing a running commentary until the second half. Since I know many of you will be watching the match on ESPN2 please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and play-by-play on the match in the comments section below.

Enjoy the match and be sure to check in on SBI throughout the evening and check out the pre-game coverage as well.

——————————-

POST-GAME– I highly recommend a Toronto road trip to all MLS fans. If your team is playing here you should find a way here. Sure, you’ll be outnumbered 20,000 to 20, but the atmosphere is great. The fans are knowledgeable and energetic throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and definitely see why BMO Field is a tough place to play for opposing teams.

That’s all for tonight folks. Thanks for following along and stay tuned for more stories on my trip to Toronto on Friday.

——————————-

FINAL- Red Bulls 1, Toronto FC 1. A fair result. The Red Bulls were organized and had a good amount of possession while Toronto FC’s defense was solid again, though its offense is starting to leave us with some questions about its effectiveness. I will say that the fans at BMO Field are amazing.

Marvell Wynne was just named man of the match and given a trophy. Apparently someone forgot about Marco Velez. He gets my vote for Man of the Match.

——————————-

91st minute– Wolyniec in for Altidore. Three minutes of stoppage.

——————————-

90th minute– Kudos to the Toronto defendse for getting two defenders on Altidore every time he touches the ball. The kid has no room to operate.

——————————-

87th minute– The long balls to Cunningham aren’t going to work tonight. Toronto needs to feed Edu and Guevara, who can slip Cunningham passes on the run. Cunningham’s speed will be a problem for Parke and Goldthwaite, but only if he gets the ball in a good position.

——————————-

84th minute– Cunningham coming in for Dichio, probably about 10 minutes too late.

——————————-

80th minute– Freeman has looked good today, no complaints about him. I wonder how Angel plays, it looks like he’s ready to go 90.

——————————-

79th minute– This is the time in the game when Altidore usually makes something happen. He almost did with that cross.

——————————-

78th minute– Ubi with a nice play on Edu, drawing applause for Osorio.

——————————-

76th minute– Edu streaks in unmarked and nearly gets to a nice pass in the box. Stammler came in late but I’m pretty sure that was Ubi’s mark. I wonder if Osorio uses his last sub to get him off the field.

——————————-

75th minute– Jarrod Smith in for Rohan Ricketts. I can’t say I was overly impressed with Ricketts today. Some decent tricks but nothing too special.

——————————-

70th minute– There’s Ubiparipovic, getting in late and drawing a yellow for a foul on Edu. Osorio is definitely regretting putting Ubi in this match.

——————————-

68th minute– Looks like Sinisa’s job is to keep tabs on Maurice Edu, which he’s not doing a good job of lately. Edu is definitely pushing forward more in the attack.

——————————-

66th minute– Sinisa Ubiparipovic is being read the riot act by Juan Carlos Osorio. Not sure what Upiparipovic did but he looks a bit lost out there.

——————————-

64th minute– Still waiting for Dane Richards to make his presence felt in his debut. A tough game to be thrown into, but his speed can make things happen. The real question is who will get him the ball.

——————————-

62nd minute– Amado Guevara has been active tonight but I don’t know if his teammates are making themselves available for him. Robert and Ricketts need to run a little more to get into position to receive service. I would put Jeff Cunningham in this match ASAP if I were John Carver.

——————————-

61st minute– Angel has seemed off tonight. Other than his great header that missed by inches high, he looks a tad rusty. Toronto is also doing a good job on him.

——————————-

60th minute– I’ve been impressed with Marvell Wynne tonight. He has pretty much locked down Danleigh Borman.

——————————-

59th minute– A pretty even match so far although I feel as if the Red Bulls have had slightly better possession and chances.

——————————-

PRE-GAME– It’s a late-arriving crowd here at BMO Field, which is to be expected for a 7pm game on a Thursday night, but the crowd is definitely filing in. I will be heading down to sit with the Red Patch Boys and U Sector in the first half to take in the gameday fan experience. It should be interesting.

——————————-

PRE-GAME– Looking at that Red Bulls lineup, I think we are more likely to see a formation like this one:

Borman————Angel————-Altidore

——————–Magee———————

————Reyna——-Stammler————

Van Den Bergh———————-Freeman

———Goldthwaite——-Parke———–

——————-Conway——————–

I recall the Red Bulls rolling out a similar look earlier in the year and the trio of Borman, Angel and Altidore would force Toronto to keep numbers back, specifically Marvell Wynne, who has been a great threat on the right flank for Toronto.

——————————-

PRE-GAME- Here is Toronto FC’s lineup:

—————-Dichio———————-

Robert———Guevara———-Ricketts

———-Edu————Robinson———

Brennan—-Velez——Marshall—-Wynne

——————Sutton——————–

BENCH– Edwards, James, Harmse, Dunivant, Smith, Tebily, Cunningham

——————————-

PRE-GAME– Here is the Red Bulls lineup:

———–Angel——–Altidore————

Borman——————————-Magee

———–Reyna——-Stammler———-

Van Den Bergh———————-Freeman

———–Goldthwaite—Parke————–

——————-Conway———————

BENCH– Thornton, Brunner, Wolyniec, Richards, Sassano, Megaloudis, Ubiparipovic

Chris Leitch is out with a left knee injury he suffered during the San Jose game. Carlos Mendes is also out with a left quad injury suffered in training earlier this week.

Comments

  1. ahahahah. reyna injured AGAIN!!! ahahahahaha. ahahahah. ahahah. god, you guys need to dump that dude. once more….ahahahahaha

    Reply
  2. Big error playing Altidore as a wing. He is a big strong holding forward. Does not have the ball control or crossing style like Rogers or a Holden type player. He should be played to his atttributes where he shines. That was a waste! When a coach start experimenting you know a team is in trouble.

    Reply
  3. oh, and robert is a turd. plain and simple. a frog turd. will i be able to bring a sign that says “ROBERT IS A FROG TURD” to giants stadium when tfc comes to town?

    Reply
  4. marvell wynne could be the fastest and strongest man in the mls. it seems like he catches up to everything, even if he was just beat, and he can muscle anyone off the ball, even jozy.

    amado guevara could be the dirtiest player in the mls, if not for guys like ruiz.

    i was one of the biggest goldwaithe (sp? golthdwiatde?) haters last year, but i have to admit, he’s been very solid this year.

    giving up wynne was one of the red bulls biggest mistakes. someone remind me what we got in return?

    Reply
  5. inkedAG,

    you are not crazy, this game had a litle bit of anger in it. RSL and Kansas came in here looking to steal a point, but RBNY actually came in and played.

    Reply
  6. Call me crazy, but I thought this was a good game. A bit chippy and sloppy, but I felt the man-marking was solid by both teams and RBNY defended well. I’ve been a Goldthwaite hater, but he’s slowly growing on me.

    Perhaps since both teams could not service their attacking mids and forwards, they canceled each other out. 🙂 Having said that, seemed to me like both teams competed and that was good.

    Reply
  7. If you read what I said, I never commented on the call that went for TFC – in my view, neither of them should have been free kicks. Brennan was moving away from the goal as much as he was toward (your comment about how far away he was is pretty ridiculous though). On the hand ball side, it is pretty clear that not every time a ball touches a player’s arm it is an infraction – for example when it is at his side and he is struck by a free kick. In my view, a play where his arm is at, or nearly at his side, the ball bounces off his thigh and brushes a finger – where there was clearly no intent to handle the ball – is one of those ones where it is not a free kick.

    You need to get back on your meds.

    Reply
  8. Marvell Wynn played a pretty good game. He stopped all the RBNY attacks down his side. He clearly frustrated Josey who gave up playing near the end of the game. (May be a star at the Olympics) On the other hand, the NY defense did a hell of a job in controlling Guevara and Robert.

    Magee made way too many passing mistakes. He, along with Angel is not quite game ready. However I see a bright future for this team with a coach who seems to know what he’s doing!

    Reply
  9. I agree with the assessment of the fans in Toronto in this thread.

    W/o a doubt they have the best crowd and do the best job for their team in the league…..BUT the throwing things on the field including the streamers is not acceptable. Tell me where else in the world this is done? And don’t even try Argentina, there is a difference between after a goal or before kick-off and target practice at a player on a free kick. And they’re behavior when travelling is simply loutish.

    I think its completely fair to say they are the best and worse fans in the league and it would be very easy for them to take the worst part out of it and simply be the best.

    Reply
  10. Hats of to the Toronto fans. Created a great atmosphere in dismal conditions. In any other city, attendance would have been sparse. ESPN should schedule as many Thursday night games as possible at Toronto. And the turf, while awful, looked a lot better than Giants Stadium because there were no football lines.

    Reply
  11. bgnewf, this has nothing to do with the players on the field. It’s a matter of supporters actively interfering with play. You have great support and nobody’s denying it. I’d love to have that kind of crowd at all RBNY games.

    I’d love to invite you back to Giants Stadium again. You played so well here last year.

    Reply
  12. I find the the TFC has no sportsmanship talk from RBNY fans in this thread a little rich. I was at the game and I can tell you that on almost every goal ball, or ball that went out of play some Red Bull would kick the ball away from the TFC player instead of being a sportsman about it. Spare me your talk about sportsmanship when your team has the most arrogant asses in all of MLS playing on it. After last night I decided I definitely ned to go back to New York this summer and see if you folks like your same medicine….wait…..nobody goes to Red Bulls games…..oh well, at least TFC fans will have a little room for once.

    Reply
  13. Worst game of the year? A little rough there Hincha…I thought it was a decent game and RBNY did a decent job controlling the game. It just appears they are having a tough time feeding the forwards. MLS/US Soccer needs to invest in Ref development. I understand its tough reffing any sporting event, but it seems this year the league has become even more physical. There are more phantom calls or no call, that or I am just really watching for it more. It would be nice to get some former players in that role.

    Reply
  14. As a neutral observer, I found the game dull and rather boring. Both teams played sloppy, had little effective, good passing and possession. Probably the worst game I’ve seen this year in the MLS.

    Reply
  15. I didn’t see tonight’s match, but I was right next to BMO field when it let out — I went to see The Verve at Ricoh Coliseum –, and the fan presence in the area and at the show afterwards (Nick McCabe even wore a TFC shirt onstage) was impressive. The energy and enthusiasm of the fans was contagious and unlike anything I’ve seen from American soccer fans. I’ve never settled on a favorite MLS team, but I think the Toronto fans have won my support.

    Reply
  16. Eric, word up.

    But ask a TFC fan about throwing crap on the field and at players. Guarantee if someone did that to them in an away game they’d become suicide bombers.

    They are the best fans in the league, yet their own captain had to tell them to chill out at the game at Giants stadium last year. I don’t have a problem with them (yet), but I’m willing to bet they are hypocritical as hell.

    Reply
  17. Hey Mike, are you blind? Jim Brennan falls down with the defender a yard away, that’s a foul? Meanwhile replay clearly shows a hand ball?

    And you are seriously telling me there is some doubt? Dude, you are an effing moron. I honestly want to just smack you. A legitimate handball is B.S., but a guy diving randomly yards away from a defender is legit?

    You are pathetic.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Jamie Z. Cancel reply