South Barstool Report : New York Red Bulls v Toronto

New York Red Bulls as the Cosmos

New York Red Bulls as the Cosmos

Welcome to the annual #VMPissUp as we are #DrinkingWithKristin in an unnamed pub somewhere in hot and humid Toronto.  Joined by such luminaries as @grawsee, @bigwulliestyle and @redwineroz for this event, the drinks were cold and the football was lacklustre… unless you were pulling for the opposition, in which case, it was glorious.  Celebrating VMP host and writer Kristin’s birthday, it was educational as well as entertaining and capped off with the bar turning on Ghostbusters on the big projector.  Well done.

On to the match :

10’ – Oooh, wee bit of handbags… Miazga and Kantari making finger pointing and angry faces

23’ – YELLOW – Bradley gets booked for a late challenge on Filipe

26’ – GOAL – Grella dances around Williams and lays it off into Bradley Wright-Phillips who pops it over Bendik.  Kantari was pulled off of his mark and was punished for doing so.
ENERGY DRINKS 1, ROBINS 0

33’ – Toronto struggle to get the ball out of their own third.  Harrison is all over Toronto defenders, causing mistake after mistake.

37’ – YELLOW – Altidore gets booked for a silly challenge.  That’s two DPs in the book.

42’ – Kantari gets his head on a long cross into the box and comes so close to scoring.

Half Time Mood : Time for another drink.

45’ – Let’s start the half off with BWP getting through for an attempt on goal.

55’ – Giovinco is down grabbing his bottom.  No booking.

58’ – Kantari with a quality tackle on BWP to get the ball from him, then takes the ball up and gets hacked down by Sam.

66’ – Wallace takes a pass, has tons of open space and rips a blast from 25 yards out.
ENERGY DRINKS 2, ROBINS 0

71’ – SUB – Herculez Gomez comes in for Cheyrou

71’ – SUB – Lovitz in for Morgan

73’ – Whenever Vic Rauter says Herculez, it feels like he’s calling forth a hero to save us from Daedelus.

77’ – Giovinco free kick fools everyone in the pub (who’s watching) and goes with a short pass instead of blasting it into a wall.  Then gets fouled.

78’ – Giovinco free kick blasts it into a wall.

87’ – Williams with an excellent tackle on the edge of the box and clears it.  I guess getting a broken player was worth it.

3 mins of extra time

90+1’ – Shawn Wright-Phillips gets on the end of a half volley and fires it, but Bendik comes up with a great save.  Then the camera cuts to this…

This face.

This face.

 

90+3’ – GOAL – This starts from a blown pass from Bradley, counter attack finds BWP one-on-one with Bendik, and Bendik comes up big, but the rebound was picked up by Veron who buries it.
ENERGY DRINKS 3, ROBINS 0

Full Time : New York via Harrison 3, Toronto 0

Man of the Match : Bendik

Goat of the Game : where do you start… defence was poor, midfield was mediocre

Ref Rating : 4 out of 5.  I’m sure Toledo will get a fine for this performance.

In Case You PVR’d It… : you wasted hard drive space.  Delete it… but if you managed to record the KC v. Vancouver, you’re gonna want to watch the whole thing

I Am Not The Gaffer But… : I might question where it all went wrong

Though the company was well worth it, the game was a bit of a sham and the scoreline reflected it.  The possession stats were 70-30 for New York.  Toronto had no more than a handful of meaningful shots, and Robles had to make about two stops.  New York had the shut down in full on Giovinco, as his chances were few and far between, but there seemed to be white shirts everywhere.  Part of me wants to give high marks to Bradley Wright-Phillips, but he was made to look better in the face of a mediocre defense.  New York pretty much owned Toronto in every conceivable way, which made it tough to watch.  If they only tried to play five at the back…

Making my feelings towards Sporting Kansas City and Vancouver no secret (hatred and mostly indifference, respectively), now THAT was a game.  Outstanding outcome.  Even if you don’t know, just go read the scoreline and be whisked away to a far away land of goals and heartbreak… Kantari had two modes in this game, one where he was on point, confident and accurate in his motions, and the other being a new born foal not sure what to do… Though he probably could’ve had done a bit better on the second goal, Bendik did well again, all things considered… Drinking and urban dictionary are a delightful combination… I was pleasantly surprised with William’s debut.  Wasn’t expecting much, but he seemed competent and did well in his job for most of the night from what I saw.  Still have some gaping holes in the back, but an improvement, none the less.

Player Ratings : Bendik Guinness, Morgan Coke (Lovitz acai flavoured vitaminWater), Kantari diet Coke, Williams Stiegl Radler, Morrow watered down rum and coke, Cheyrou ginger ale (Gomez Irn-Bru), Warner Dr. Pepper, Delgado cranberry cocktail, Bradley cucumber water, Giovinco white wine sangria, Altidore distilled water

Author: Mark Hinkley

Mark is a full-time graphic designer, full-time smart ass and full-time logo, stadium and kit nerd. When he isn't writing ridiculous match reports or redesigning logos for his own amusement, he's salivating over the day that promotion and relegation occurs in MLS. You can follow him @kitnerdmark on the twitterz.

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9 Comments

  1. New York just better all over the pitch really, a well organised team with a plan and the discipline and skill and energy to be able to execute the plan. Much like the SKC game, a humbling exhibition of what a smartly built team and good coaching can do, as opposed to what TFC have.
    We’re good enough to be able to beat (occasionally hammer) poor teams, that’ll be enough to get us in the playoffs, but bloody hell, it’s a bit desperate at times.

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  2. Everyone in TFC-land is saying, “Don’t panic, there is plenty of time”. I have to ask, time for what? This is TFC and if there is a karma there is a very definite TFC karma and we all know what that means. First it was let the roster gel, them it was get through July and the Gold Cup schedule. Well all of that is done like dinner, so when is the good stuff going to happen?

    We got out possessed, out shot, out defended. Last week I was hoping for for secondary scoring, this week I hoping for primary, secondary…anything.

    I think we should all listen to Lennon’s Instant Karma:

    Instant Karma

    Always liked Alan White’s drumming, liked him on Tales from Topographic Oceans, if you can sit through it.

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    • yep, so far this season’s been classic TFC, slow start, strong run in May or June, summer slump. Usually it leads to a sputtering run in ending in disappointment, will the same happen again? I think there’s enough games against poor teams, and the bar is so low given chicago, philly and 2 expansion teams that we’ll make it,, but if they hadn’t changed the rules and it was still just 5 teams qualify, I’d be very very nervous right now.

      Big couple of games coming up, lose both and it’ll be full on panic time, (with only a 3 game stretch of colorado, chicago and philly at home to give any hope at all). get at least one result (ideally against orlando if we have to choose) and it’s status quo, continuin the drunken stumble, not quite bad enough to really get fired up. Win both, and ok, I’ll feel very comfortable about playoffs. no confidence of anything beyond that of course

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    • Love a good bit of Instant Karma.

      There’s so little time left. What is (and will) save them is playing in the Eastern Conference. But if this was last year…

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  3. That’s not my handle btw.

    I see no reason to panic. Everyone is on the same page, after all

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    • that’s the main thing, everyone failing in the same direction. all those successful teams out there will all tell you the main thing is to not have any of your staff thinking differently or challenging you in any way. that’s just good management.

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  4. Have to admit. Dax McCarthy pretty much owned us that game. Do we really have to play that narrow?

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  5. Dax McCarthy and the midfield for NYRB pretty much owned us this game. Can’t we play wide at all?

    Have to admit, part of this post is a test of the mother f*cking AVAST antivirus system that is f*cking me up real time and making my life Hell. I hate the internet.

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    • I have avast. seems to work alright for me. and there’s a piratey fun feel when it pops up to say ‘avast virus database is updated’ or whatever it says.
      As to the midfield being narrow, it’s always been that way with a diamond, the full backs are meant to provide the width, but they don’t really seem to have been doing that these last couple of games.
      that may be due to sporks and nyrb being very aggresive with their defending and thus we’ve never really had the chance to get them forward, if so, will hopefully be less of a problem against weaker teams.
      maybe vanney’s trying to get them to focus more on defence and not get forward as much, which isn’t a bad idea, concentrating on firming up the defence is a good thing, but if he’s going to do that, then the midfield needs to change to get more width as we’ve had nothing going on attacking wise, and it’s actually just making the defending harder.
      once again our student of the game looking outmatched in the tactical chess match out there.

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