The South Stand Report : Toronto v Dallas

FC Dallas as the Dallas Tornado

FC Dallas as the Dallas Tornado

I’m not gonna lie to you all, I didn’t really feel like doing a match report. I wanted to take it in. The atmosphere, the new canopies, a crowd that actually looked like a sell-out.

Also, I wanted to take in MY FC Dallas. To both of our faithful podcast listeners (speculative, but likely accurate), this team has been dubbed mine as I kinda didn’t like them. I very much hated them. Dario Sala had a smirk on his face for a keeper that you wanted to see a midfielder collide into him, just to knock it off. I despised them more than Sporting KC Wiz. Then, as jokes wear on, they became “Mark Hinkley’s FC Dallas” as a rib. Realizing I wasn’t going to be removed of this cruelty, I’ve embraced them. And they’re not half-bad (well, last year they weren’t). But this year, they’re meh, and right now, they’re abysmal. Zero goals scored, seven conceded in the last two. Hopefully that would change. Just a little.

On to the Match :

14’ – YELLOW – Delgado for stuff

captain_tsubasa-tfc

Tsubasa Endoh photo

28’ – GOAL Endoh gets on the end of a Giovinco cross and at a tough angle, controls it, pulls it back to lose a defender and beat the keeper far post. First goal for the “captain”.
ROBINS 1, MH’sFCD 0

43’ – YELLOW – Bradley for something

66’ – Castillo gets threaded a ball through, leaving him one on one with Irwin, but Irwin closes him down well and the shot is close range and Irwin makes the kick save

74’ – YELLOW – Beitashour probably for barking at the ref and whatever foul he committed.

87’ – YELLOW – Johnson for a very clumsy tackle on the Dallas keeper Jesse Gonazles. There wasn’t much time wasting as he was looked at by a trainer, then the stretcher came out.

6 minutes of extra time

90+1’ – Dallas are out of substitutes, so Hollingshead puts on the blank jersey and the gloves and adjusts to life being able to pick up the ball

90+6’ – YELLOW – Altidore, who should know better than that, is booked for being too close to the keeper preventing him to kick the ball away.

FULL TIME : TORONTO 1, DALLAS 0

Man of the Match : Tsubasa Endoh. He was having a bit of a killer instinct out there. He probably should’ve had a second or third goal.

Goat of the Game : Jozy Altidore.

Ref Rating : 4 out of 5. Didn’t really blow any calls that I can recall.

I Am Not The Gaffer, But… : Jozy could’ve come off with 10 minutes to go.

In-Case You PVR’d It : Watch the goal in the first half, skip the rest and the entire second half.

Kit Spotting : saw a maroon Corinthians away kit

Quote of the Match : Why do they keep passing it to #17? He’s never where he should be. He’s either too far ahead of the ball or way behind.

That expert analysis is from my wife, who does not know that he’s a designated player, or an internationally capped striker, or that we traded him for Jermain Defoe. She saw it for what the performance was, with next to no footballing knowledge or even a strong opinion about it. And that’s the surface of it.

Altidore had about a handful of half-chances and looked like he was losing control of his motor functions right when he was about to pull the trigger. If someone would create a supercut of all of his attempts at goal, you will see what I mean. Hitting the floor a few times was odd, but there was one of the latter attempts that he appeared to just huck his body towards the ball in the hopes it would go in (it didn’t).

*sigh*

Jozy should have at least 2 goals by now (based on chances) but there are none. I want to find the misses comical and say things like “hah, well, however he gets it done” or “it doesn’t have to be pretty” or “if he’s willing to sacrifice himself like that for every goal, then he’s worth it”. But instead I look to the guys warming up and asking aloud which one of them is going to be his substitute.

Whoever’s bright idea it was to unfurl the corporate Toronto FC banner to pass over the crowd in the west stand during the last 5 minutes of the game needs to be slapped. You pay to watch a soccer game not to be obstructed by something the team organized… Dallas looked largely toothless. Most of their forward attacks looked to get snuffed out fairly quickly and the second half, they were dominated… Canopies look great, but the back two rows were rained on in our seats. They also do not cover the south stand concourse at all… Beitashour has one big hiccup a game and then settles down into a very good defender. His hiccup was late in a blown back pass. Nothing came of it, but I’ve noticed this trend as of late… As of writing this up, no word on whether the Dallas keeper is OK. There was an ambulance with the lights going trying to cut through the crowd after the match. If he was in there, I hope he’s fine… Unlike previous “sell outs”, this game actually looked sold out…

Player Ratings : Irwin 6.5, Moor 6.5, Beitashour 6, Perquis 6, Morrow 6.5, Bradley 6.5, Johnson 6.5, Delgado 6 [Osorio N/A], Endoh 7 [Williams N/A], Giovinco 6.5, Alditore 5

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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3 Comments

  1. The air foil over the south stands is an interesting decoration.

    Always felt that when a team have used all it’s substitutions and loses a player to a foul (especially on a carded offense), the team should be able to make a substitution, not go down a man.

    Although the stats do not explicitly illustrate it, it looked at times that the Reds had a power play going on in Dallas defensive third.

    The Reds did push the game, but could find a second goal.

    I thought Referee Jorge Gonzalez and his crew were excellent, a really well officiated game. More of this please.

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    • interesting decoration indeed. i get why it has to be that high, for the winter classic temporary seats, but it’s pretty pretty pointless as it is. it’s going to look even more ridiculous when the temporary extra seats are there and half the stand is kind of covered and the other half is not at all, that’ll be awesome.
      giant gaps at the ends of the west stand look terrible as well, all in a ll a missed opportunity to do something properly good.
      having said that, it’s an improvement, can’t argue that, just an incomplete one that leaves you feeling ‘what if…?’

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      • team looked good though, that castillo chance aside the defence looked very solid. altidore very much in sunderland jozy mode, doing some good stuff but can’t finish to save his life right now.
        liked that giovinco was drifting out left more than we’ve seen recently, which occupied the defence and combined with altidore bothering them in the middle, allowed endoh to make runs and the attack looked much more balanced and dangerous and hard to contain than it did say in portland where giovinco was generally going backwards centrally rather than wide to find space and thus getting in endoh’s way a bit and allowing the defence to comfortably stay in the middle and contain everyone.

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