Frustration is an acceptable feeling this morning. After 5-years you have every right to want more from Toronto FC than an 0-6 start.
If you want to blindly rage at the club then that's your right. If you feel you should stay home and withdraw your support, no one is going to tell you that you're wrong to do so. Screaming profanity at the players? Whatever gets you through the day.
Just don't delude yourself into thinking that, beyond making yourself briefly feel better, it's at all productive.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The club knows it needs to play better. Staying home will just make the stadium one voice quieter and the players feel the losses far, far more intently than you do.
The importance of the “12th man” is greatly overstated as a positive benefit to the home team. As a negative agent it's just counterproductive. Booing players doesn’t motivate them to play better, it discourages them and makes it more likely that they'll screw up even more by trying to force the issue beyond their skills.
Staying home doesn't motivate management to increase its support. It motivates them to cut costs or increase prices. Like it or not, it's a business and businesses are going to act in a way that protects their bottom line.
This is not to say that fans should be passive. Let's repeat that line so it's heard – THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT FANS SHOULD BE PASSIVE. Rather, it's a call for fans to focus their frustration and be thoughtful in their criticism.
If fans have legitimate grievances, fans should make themselves heard. There are lots of legitimate grievances – pricing (God help them if they try and raise season ticket prices for next year) and the Liverpool friendly the two most notable right now. There are many fans that continue to experience problems with security. There are likely more, but the key element is that management has control over the situation. They have made decisions that some fans disagree with and decisions where there is room for compromise.
Please note that “losing” is not listed as a legitimate grievance. And in and of itself it isn't. Losing is part of sport. The act of buying a ticket does not guarantee you a winning experience. You have entered into a social contract with the seller – in this case MLSE – in which they provide you with a sporting experience and you, in turn, agree to follow certain stadium rules. That's all.
Win, lose or draw – it's irrelevant. It's no different that when you buy a ticket to see a play. You may not enjoy the performance, but you know that you will see people prancing about on stage.
It's in management’s best interest to put a product on the field that the average fan wants to watch – and for most that means a winning team. However, the club isn't even obligated to do that. Buyer beware, who needs RottenTomatoes.com when you have the league standings to give you a completely objective view of where things stand.
Please do not mistake this as an argument for you to “get over yourself” and to only be positive at the games. Nor, is this a judgment for those that chose to stay home or chose to verbally attack the team while in the stadium. You are the consumer. There is no wrong way to support, or not support, the team.
Rather, it is a call for focus. Blind rage often leads to rash decisions by management that are focused on the short term. Five years of experience tells me those type of decisions never work out.
Blind rage is also easily ignored. Blind rage is Doug McSweeny – illogical and based on nothing but emotion. If you truly care about the future of this football team you will fight against the understandable urge for blind rage.
As stated, there are things fans legitimately should take issue with. Later today I will explore a few of those areas and offer up suggestions for getting them addressed.
They suck. I get it. That doesn't mean we need to suck too.