The Inaugural, One-Time-Only, Super-MegaFun Vocal Minority, First Kick, Live-ish, Vancouver vs. Toronto Match Report
It’s here! The moment we have all been waiting for. The turning point of the young 2015 season. No, not Toronto FC’s opening match but the inaugural gathering of The Vocal Minority for a group match report. We’re sure that the TFC match will be something too. Sure, why not.
In our first “live match” gathering since our Voltronesque coming together, we decided to bring you, the sounds (but thankfully not sights) from Vocal Minority Towers. Enjoy as we transcribe our sorta live, increasingly drunken thoughts (and undoubtedly belligerent and insufferable thanks to Tony and Duncan) while throwing in your most TFC-ish tweets for a larf as well.
Let the red online thread that connects us all begin!
Pre-game notes: Roz and crowd fashion police – those guys should not be wearing those onesies.
Kristin 6:03 – Hurry!! Hurry hard!!! Please let curling end….
They finally put the game on remembering the five channels #tfc #VMPLive
— Mike Whaley (@WhaleyStatic)
Laba wins ball. Morales long ball to Manneh in acres of space. Manneh wastes chance. Most predictable few seconds ever. Sigh.
— Duncan Fletcher (@DuncanDFletcher)
Duncan 5 mins, Creavalle injured after being taken out by……the flailing arms of Steven Caldwell! Perfect.
Duncan :7:40 OK, so whitecaps strikers still suck. Wide open chance about 5 yards out and the new guy Rivero hits it right at Bendik, harder to miss etc etc.
Tony: 12″: I prefer it when Whitecaps’ Pa Modou Kah’s name is pronounced properly. Like a Star Wars character.
Duncan 19: Another ball into space behind the defence, Rivero this time makes no mistake. 1-0 Whitecaps. Maybe you stop with the whole aggressive high pressing thing Unky Greg.
*after Rivero’s goal*
@kzknowles You couldn’t see me dancing…! #VMPLive #VWFC
— Ian Young (@scowlyguy)
Kristin: 28: Ooh a corner – cause we’re so good at defending those. This high line isn’t completely throwing this game off the rails for TFC at all.
Tony 30′: High press or highly depressing? Discuss.
Duncan: 32 Altidore put through by Giovinco and very very nicely rounds Ousted and slots it home, and he didn’t have a lot of room to do it. Lovely. Not so much about the result today, but for the sake of his season. That’ll go a long way to taking pressure off him. whoooo.
Tony: 35′: Warren Creavalle has gone with the later-career Big Daddy Kane haircut for 2015. Still too much half steppin’.
Duncan:37 Manneh set free behind the defence where Creavalle should be again. Comes to nothing as Perquis keeps up with Rivero for the cross. Quote of the match – “As long as we don’t face any fast teams we’ll be fine”.
Duncan 39 Manneh again with no Creavalle, one on one with Caldwell, makes him look silly, then good save from Bendik.
Caldwell’s stock is falling rapidly here at VMP Towers. #VMPLive
— Kristin Knowles (@kzknowles)
Duncan 41: Bendik comes very close to fucking up by not coming for a ball across the box. just gets it.
Duncan :44 Cheyrou loses the ball, Vancouver eventually cross to some random very wide open whitecap, hits it straight at Bendik. We need half time to come.
Tony 45’+1: Benoit Cheyrou voted “Most Likely to Smoke Two Packs a Day” by Vocal Minority team. #Analysis
Half time 1:1 Chequebook looks good, Giovinco tasty, Altidore quiet but with a great finish, Cheyrou looking good. Tactics don’t look good. Anyway, still in it.
Kristin (half-time) Head to the VMP kitchen for another beer – after that half I need a drink. That press is killing me – Atomic Ant looking good, Cheyrou continues to be the player that I watch a lot, Caldwell….hopefully just having an off game, lovely control from Altidore on his goal.
Duncan 59 After an uneventful but fairly controlled second half, Cheyrou releases Morrow down the left, cross into the box hammered home by Robbie Findley. Well then. 2-1 TFC.
Fuck yes. Cheyrou, Morrow to Findley. Gorgeous. — Kristin Knowles (@kzknowles)
Kristin 65 – surprisingly Findley scores – unsurprisingly the Vanney is genius tweets are flooding twitter. Tasty pass from Cheyrou with the vision and lovely cross from Morrow for the set-up – Cheyrou quickly becoming my favourite.
Kristin 66 – Roz begins to speculate about Dunfield’s tassel placement – swing those tassels Terry.
Kristin 68 – Mark arrives as a late second half sub, kit analysis quotient goes up by 50%.
Tony 72 – Cheyrou just passed Laurent Robert as best French TFC player ever.
Teibert’s honey-dipped man bun is #inhumane #TFCLive — Tony Walsh (@MalarkeyFC)
Duncan: 79 Couple of subs recently, Findley and Giovinco off, Warner and Moore on. Bunker time apparently. Second half has continued in a fairly controlled manner, Whitecaps not doing much at all. neither are TFC really, but hey, we already did our things.
Tony 85 – Less Luke is Moore Duncan: 89 Altidore into the box, gets wrestled down to the ground, I wasn’t convinced by any means, but the ref was and it’s a penalty. Duncan: 90: Altidore to take and……………..Panenka’s it. 3-1. Woof.
OK Jozy – you’re allowed to be cheeky when you play for us. #VMPLive — Kristin Knowles (@kzknowles)
Duncan: 90+1: cross into the box, random cap heads it right at Bendik on the line.
Duncan 90+4: Mattocks tries to win a penalty. Ref doesn’t buy it. Now Perquis is getting into it with someone, good staredown, sadly no handbags.
Duncan full time: 3-1 Toronto. Decent second half where we looked tactically competent to go with the chequebook quality. Decent win. As annoying as a lot of people are going to be about it, I’m very happy that Altidore hit the ground running.
Tony: Full Time: Well that was different. Well the 1st Half wasn’t but changing the gameplan and slowing Vancouver down to a crawl in the 2nd was. Nice to see the new additions get off to a nice start but that high press will need better defending going forward. But eff that – PARADE!
Kristin: Full Time – End result was unexpected on the back of that horrific first half. Watching Manneh bomb down that side and get in behind everyone every single time – which is not a shock given the tactics – was maddening. However, they managed to break them down in the second and that second goal especially was lovely. Cheyrou, Morrow and Giovinco stood out the most for me. And well done on the PK (and goal) by Altidore. Much better than expected actually – well it’d have to be given the win and all.
Some observations from the twittersphere on the game:
#TFCLive Advanced Analytics: If the other team keeps getting behind your defenders, eventually they’ll score.
— Mike Crampton (@BHTC_Mike)
Comments: Giovinco is lethal. Altidore is a finisher. Vancouver is fast. Caldwell is slow. Back line 2 high. Perquis is the anchor #TFCLive
— Rob Ditta (@RobDitta)
Our big new signing from England scored twice and we won on the west coast to start the season! No way this could go awry! #TFClive
— Daniel Squizzato (@DanielSquizzato)
Post Match the VMP team settled in for an epic game of Cards Against Humanity – Fortunately there are no recordings or tweets available from that game.
March 8, 2015
Do you think Giovinco tried to do too much, in the same vein of Bradley at the start of last year? Bradley did not let up but the injury slowed him down when it inevitably came.
March 8, 2015
Personally, no. Thought he played a pretty smart game – decent movement, nice vision and some lovely ankle breaking a time or two. Actually he surprised me a bit in his ability to keep the ball and hold off defenders.
And one game is far too soon to tell for something like that. Many other things to be concerned about before that.
March 8, 2015
He is in mid-season form while much of his opposition is not. We will see in four weeks, but the Whitecaps WERE scared of him
March 8, 2015
that’s a very valid point, he’ll get the benefit now, will probably be hurting more by October when he’s been in season for 16 months.
March 8, 2015
Damn, I’d actually glossed over that in my mind – that we yet again had a player with no off season. Will definitely need Bradley & Cheyrou to be more involved in the playmaking and less in having to be defenders.
March 8, 2015
there were a couple of times I can remember thinking he needed to pass, but didn’t stand out all that much in the game as a whole. something to be wary of though, think there’s a possibility of it happening.
March 8, 2015
He has usurped Bradley on the set plays too.
March 8, 2015
Which is a good thing. Bradley’s not very consistent, Seba has a pretty nice kick from what little we’ve seen so far and well, do you really want the tiny guy being one of the receiving players in that kind of situation? 🙂
March 8, 2015
yep, I’m comfortable with that as well.
March 8, 2015
What really stood out for me during this match was my own lack of nerves as the minutes ticked away. TFC versions 1-8 always made me nervous with the lead in the waning minutes.
Last night we were in control at the end, which was a welcome change
March 8, 2015
Honestly I was still nervous right up to the third goal. Too many years of feeling like they were in control of a game to have them let up , lose control and then lose the game.
I do appreciate that they adjusted after the first half – of course the adjustment should have come before the game started but at least they did change things.
And once again it was a tale of two halves for Toronto – I’ll feel much more confident when/if they put together a full 75-90 minutes resembling the second half.
March 8, 2015
yeah, vancouver couldn’t get anything going towards the end. of course when there’s only one goal in it anything can happen, but at about 85 minutes, someone said ‘does this count as tobias time?’ which made me think, similar to you, I have not been concerned and nervously watching the clock here. refreshing.