1996

I get it however , I’m still betting this Peñarol team if entered in the upcoming U17 CONCACAF World Cup qualifying tournament would most likely be better than most of these U17 CONCACAF national teams. But yet these same TFC Academy players will struggle playing a minnow CONCACAF country in qualifying like they have in the past.

What I find strange about these kind of results and I’ve seen this in the past too, so an under 17 TFC Academy beats an U17 team like a Penerol. However, then a good portion of these same players go play on the U17 Canadian national team and have trouble beating Caribbean minnow Island teams or even an El Salvador or a Guatemala and crash out of the U17 World Cup Qualifying. You would think a Peñarol U17 team from Uruguay a country that produces players like Canada produces hockey players is much much better than most of these CONCACAF countries that Canada faces in these youth World Cup qualifying tournaments.

Choiniere has impressed me every time I’ve seen him play so far . This kid has loads of potential, Bayiha looks promising but this Choiniere kid might just be the real deal.

Henry for the amount of times I’ve seen him with TFC and the national team was always a player who seemed to make critical mistakes that usually led to goals. However, I must say from what I’ve seen so far with the Whitecaps he seems to be improving and looks a lot more confident in his play. Unfortunately last night is just one of those unfortunate incidents a penalty that should never have been called but I’ve seen penalties given for those type of handballs. In no way do I think Henry is at fault there, just an unfortunate incident .

Start Laryea he played well , Ciman has been a disaster every time he has played for TFC so far. TFC screwed up with the Ciman signing would rather go with Vanney’s nephew at this point than Ciman.

Yup totally agree in terms of a visible clock and the refs stopping the time during certain times of the game especially after a goal is scored and also when a player goes down injured, when a player goes down injured the visible clock should be stopped this would stop players trying to kill time while going down faking an injury. Also during substitutions stop the clock and you will not get guys taking their time getting off the field, I would truly love it if a league like the CPL was able to try these kind of changes.

So I guess a good portion of the GTA are living in shitty houses lol!

So rumour has it that Chicago might be heading back to actually Chicago . Looks like they might be leaving Bridgeview Illinois which is about 35 km from downtown Chicago. Leaving their soccer specific stadium that was built for the Fire less than 15 years ago to go back to Soldier Field. I guess in the end being out in the boonies was just not working for the Fire. Looks like they will be paying over 100 million just to get out of the contract they had with city of Bridgeview and head back to downtown Chicago. I guess in the end with no decent public transit connected to that stadium and really nothing else to do in Bridgeview other than the stadium took its toll. In the end even with some of the successes with other teams in the MLS pro soccer in the US and Canada is still a very niche sport that you just can’t put a stadium anywhere and expect people to show up. You might be able to do that in the NFL, MLB or NBA but with soccer it’s still very niche and the right location still matters in the end.

Pro soccer leagues around the world unless you are the EPL, La Liga, Serie A, League 1 and the Bundesliga the big four more or Less can all be considered development leagues . You think a fan in even Mexico watching Liga MX doesn’t realize that that young star player he maybe watching playing for his club if that player continues to play well will one day move on to one of the big four leagues in Europe? Therefore, knowing your league is more or less a development league should not stop anyone from still going out and supporting your team and league.

I hear you in terms of the younger you start the easier it is to carve out a successful career in the real world. However, I still kind of admire guys who try to keep the dream alive going to one day play in a higher league and make some decent money. A guy like Mark Anthony Kaye comes to mind. He could have easily called it a day once TFC cut him, however, he went to the USL which I’m sure he was propably making no more than 35000 or so and kept at it and now look at him today. I’m different I guess I look at things differently sometimes, you have the rest of your life to work a normal job from 9 to 5 but only so many years to enjoy shooting to play a sport at the highest level possible. So to give that dream up even at say 25 is a bit sad for some of these players who actually have some potential. Starting to work in the real world at even 30 there is nothing wrong with that. At 30 you still have what 35 years of real work to do and still enough time to build a real real working career. But I realize everyone thinks differently so I can see why I guy will give up that dream a lot earlier even at 25.

So Mark Anthony Gonzalez born in 1994 which makes him 25 in 2019, played with Real Salt Lake’s MLS USL side in the 2016 and 2017 Real Monarchs, won a USL championship with the Monarchs and was one of their better players throughout. Was with the Reno Nevada USL team last season. He also played with the Canadaian U23 team in their exhibition games in Quatar a few years back. He is now back in the Toronto area but has retired from soccer. I have it on good authority he was offered a contract in the CPL and basically said the money was not worth it to continue and would rather retire. It’s too bad because these are the sort of players that are perfect for the CPL . A few other’s that come to mind who it looks like have recently retired on the eve of the CPL are guys like Daniel Haber and the goalie Tomer Chencinski . You would think with the start of a national pro soccer league in Canada guys like this who are still pretty young and have played pro at decent levels around the world would want to continue now that a Canadian league is now here, strange .

Unfortunately Shome not having a great game very invisible out there, although Montreal not playing well at all. But like I’ve said many times when given the chance to play you have to take it and run with it, right now Shome unfortunately not seizing the moment. Sometimes some players just ain’t good enough for this level , hopefully Shome will eventually start to shine.

It was worth it last night in the TFC NYCFC game, VAR got every call right .

Again I’m surprised people don’t talk about this much, however, I think that any Canadian player going to Europe has to overcome this bias I think these soccer countries have against Canadian players and even American players. You have to be a lot better than their domestic players or even their foreign players that come from more known and more successful soccer playing countries . So I don’t think it always has to do with how talented a Canadian player is in my opinion unfortunately.

They have improved but just think of how much better things could have been if they had got their act together years ago. The CSA next to hockey has had the most registered players playing this game since the early 80’s and still do. Yes things have improved immensely with the CSA but it should have never taken this long so many waisted years with all those players playing the game in this country . Let’s hope things keep improving.