There has already been much comment in Toronto about how the 2013 season of TFC seems to be an attempt to reset to 2007. With a return to 2007 prices, at least for season ticket packages, the argument goes that fans should reset their expectations. 2013 is essentially a second attempt at starting an MLS club in Toronto and TFC might best be thought of as a brand new expansion team.
Now, ahead of the first Montreal versus Toronto meeting of the new season, the story, as in 2007, is once again all about the fans.
Back in the early days of Toronto FC it was the fans that gave the team its identity: sold out season tickets, packed stands for every game, a bustling secondary market with frankly ridiculous mark-ups from face value, and an entire end of standing fans. All of this was new and exciting and had never been seen together before in Major League Soccer.
Yes, Danny Dichio scored that goal and etched his name in Toronto soccer folklore but it wasn’t the goal itself that was memorable; it was the fans and their reaction that made the moment. Not just the seat cushion frisbees but the emotion, the pure unbridled passion for the team, that made it obvious that something special had happened in Toronto.
Somewhere along the line it all went a bit off the rails.
Not all of this was simply down to the failures, the anger, and the inevitable loss of shiny newness at Toronto FC. By 2012 MLS had become a very different league than the one that the original TFC side began play in back in 2007.
Expansion in the Pacific Northwest, even Philadelphia, added clubs with vibrant fan cultures – in some cases much older than Toronto FC’s – that in many ways far outstripped what had happened in Toronto. Rebranding (and a new state of the art stadium) in Kansas City resurrected a mostly moribund franchise and showed that MLS could work even in the league’s oldest markets. More stadiums opened and clubs like Real Salt Lake were able to use success on the pitch to consolidate their place in their community.
While some of the old leaders of North American fan culture like DC United and Chicago, that Toronto FC fans had followed in the footsteps of, may have seemed to flag the truth was obvious: Toronto fans, even if they had maybe overestimated their own significance in the beginning, were no longer special.
So we come to the first 401/20 Derby of 2013.
The front offices of both the Montreal Impact and Toronto FC deserve credit for helping to facilitate what is expected to be the largest group of travelling support (for a league game at minimum) in league history. As part of MLS’ “Rivalry Week” promotion this was a game that could have been lost in the shuffle but has now been turned into something special. Once again, as in the beginning, the fans have made that possible.
Of course, there’s still a game to be played and, fortunately, there are more than enough interesting sub-plots to explore in that regard as well.
The central question that fans of both clubs and observers from around the league will be hoping to find more evidence of an answer to is, for each club in their own way, “are these teams for real?”
It’s early, early days but, at the moment, Montreal are a revelation. Two road victories in two of the most hostile stadiums in MLS have not only equalled the Impact’s total number of road wins in 2012 but vaulted them to the top of the league table.
Yes, part of that is simply down to MLS’ unbalanced schedule but a third win in their home opener would consolidate a position of strength from which to base the rest of their season. It’s not possible to make the playoffs on points earned in March and April alone but you can certainly make your job over the rest of the season much easier.
Marco Schallibaum has the Impact playing highly organized counterattacking football capable of slick and incisive breaks from positions in their own end. Whether or not that was a specific adaptation to the necessities of playing on the road or evidence of their general philosophy of play remains to be seen. Toronto, strangely, might provide an interesting test as, away from home, it’s not likely that they’ll be as adventurous as both Seattle and Portland were prone to be.
Regardless, so far Schallibaum seems like the sort of foreign coach who could succeed in MLS: his hiring fits with the culture that the club wants to create and he’s not trying to revolutionize MLS. Instead, he so far seems to be using the parts he’s been given to optimize a strategy that will give them the greatest chance of success.
On the Toronto side, “for real” is a much lower bar to reach for. Simply put: after two games under Ryan Nelsen fans of the club are excited by the possibility that the team might not be terrible in 2013.
Both Vancouver and Sporting Kansas City are expected to be sides either in the mix or serious contenders in 2013. To have come away from their opening two fixtures with three points and to not have been embarrassed in either game is already a victory for the TFC’s new regime.
What is unclear however is how much of that was down to Toronto FC and how much of that was down to their opponents. Did TFC successfully use good organization and appropriate tactics to make two pretty good teams have two pretty mediocre games or did both the Whitecaps and Sporting manage to have off days?
A result in Montreal would go a long way towards suggesting the former over the latter and that, while they might be unlikely to be playing much pretty soccer in 2013, that TFC might just be able to stay competitive over the course of the season. For a lot of fans that would be pretty good for an “expansion season”.