By Michael Crampton
Will there ever be a league home opener for Toronto FC less anticipated than Saturday’s game against the San Jose Earthquakes? On the one hand the Reds’ improbable progress in the CONCACAF Champions League has energized their fan base but with the next “biggest game ever” – the CCL semi-final first leg versus Santos Laguna of Mexico – set to occur a mere four days later it’s hard to imagine a home opener feeling less important. There’s a certain irony in how TFC head coach Aron Winter now faces a similar question to that posed to LA Galaxy head honcho Bruce Arena a little over a week ago: is it okay to play a second string line-up in front of your home fans with a much more important game looming?
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It’s not just a question of prioritizing one competition over the other. Winter must also concern himself with getting more of the team closer to full match sharpness early in the season before facing a Mexican side in late-season form. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that in the club’s last two matches two of Toronto’s expensive DPs have failed to complete a full 90 minutes: both Danny Koevermans and Julian De Guzman were withdrawn early in LA after looking sluggish and De Guzman failed to even see the field in Seattle while Koevermans only joined the match as a half time substitute. Forward Ryan Johnson is in wonderful attacking form at the moment but last year’s spark plug Joao Plata seems off the pace and nowhere near matching his best performances of 2011.
Of course most of the talk from Seattle has centred on the injury to TFC’s third designated player Torsten Frings. The club has now confirmed that the team’s captain suffered a hamstring strain and will miss four to six weeks as a result. That not only rules him out of the match in midweek but also denies Winter the opportunity to fine tune his work-in-progress backline under the calming influence of Frings on field presence.
In all likelihood offseason signing Miguel Aceval will have to step in as leader in the central defense even though this will only be his fourth competitive game with his new teammates. It remains to be seen whether or not Winter will continue to employ a sweeper system in anticipation of the Santos Laguna match or revert to a more conventional 4-3-3 for what would otherwise be considered a winnable MLS home game.
Certainly the opposition for Saturday’s game fails to add to any sense of occasion. The second MLS iteration of the San Jose Earthquakes have rarely been among the more interesting teams in Major League Soccer. The Quakes are an expansion era MLS side that still operates like a team with a little too much of the old MLS model. Add to that the bizarre decision to persist with an all black uniform (that you could mistake for a training kit) instead of kitting the team in the blue and black they won their championships in and the current Earthquakes are a team that, sadly, fail to exhibit much of an identity capable of inspiring or galvanizing opposing supporters.
One important point of connection to the title-winning Quakes however is coach Frank Yallop. While Toronto supporters are well aware of the dangers of discontinuity in leadership it’s interesting to note that San Jose might provide an interesting case study in the dangers of too much continuity. It’s true that Yallop managed to ride Chris Wondolowski’s goal scoring form to a playoff berth in 2010 but the Quakes have been largely unexceptional in every other season since their return to the league and arguably took a step back in 2011. So far in 2012 they’ve managed a win over likely basement dwellers New England Revolution before falling to a well taken Brad Davis penalty – earned through a strange piece of goalkeeping by Matt Busch - in a 0 – 1 loss to the Houston Dynamo.
Tactically the Earthquakes are still all about getting the ball to Wondolowski in and around the box and hoping that he can deliver. Old TFC foe Steven Lenhart provides a particularly antagonizing foil at the other striker position who will make his presence felt amongst TFC’s shaky backline while captain Ramiro Corrales is the battling heart of the side and more than capable of delivering a good ball when he takes the opportunity to get forward from his usual left back position. One player to watch out for is Colombian international Tressor Moreno who joined San Jose this winter. Left on the bench in preference to the more physical Khari Stephenson against Houston’s robust midfield Moreno’s MLS debut in the 63rd minute of the game instantly added a greater degree of fluidity and creativity to San Jose’s attack. His beautiful throughball to Shea Salinas should have earned the Quakes the draw they probably deserved. Against Toronto’s suspect defence expect Yallop to go for goals and give as many minutes as possible to the Colombian veteran.