The South Stand Report : Toronto v Vancouver, Voyageurs Cup Edition, Round 1, FIGHT!

Old Vancouver logo with new colours

Old Vancouver logo with new colours

What has two thumbs and loves a cup tie? This guy.

(now picture me pointing both my thumbs at myself with a grin)

Toronto are more than likely still flying high after the heady win over Los Angeles on the weekend. Hopefully not too hung-over (or dehydrated for that matter) to deal with Vancouver. The Whitecaps are fresh off a loss to the Tea Terrorists (TM) of New England by a score of 2-1.

Bold Predictions :

  1. Toronto win the match
  2. 3 different goal scorers
  3. Giovinco will not score

On to the Match :

27’ – Octavio Rivero goes down hard, clutches his knee then rolls 3 times on the “bad” knee. Probably legit.

28’ – Octavio Rivero returns.  Now it seems suspicious.

33’ – Giovinco free kick goes around the wall forcing a low stop from Tornaghi

44’ – GOAL – Giovinco runs 15 yards and fires a shot, redirected by can 3 and sends Tornaghi the wrong way
ROBINS 1, EX-86ERS 0

Halftime Mood : well finally something happened.

53’ – Giovinco lets forth a rocket and hits the post

54’ – then something happened when I wrote this. Sounded good.

54’ – OK, the replay showed Morrow missing a wide open net from the ground. Hmmm…

57’ – Giovinco free kick into the wall ricochets out to the wing, someone puts it back in and Babouli fires it over the bar from close range

70’ – Vancouver crosses the ball and Moor crazily heads the ball behind him across the face of goal past Irwin. Vancouver collects the ball, recenters it and a chip forces Irwin to push the ball over the bar.

71’ – Giovinco has a go from 20 yards out and is diving punch save. Shortly thereafter Babouli has a pass laid off for him and drives a low shot towards the corner, but saved by Tornaghi

78’ – SUB – Delgado for Endoh

79’ – reminder, find a gif of Babouli burning the hell out of Aird. Edit : found it

83’ – SUB – Hagglund (and what looked like a sports bra he was wearing while changing) comes on for Beitashour

86’ – a popped up ball falls to Johnson and he gets a hold of, flying over the bar.

86’ – SUB – Hamilton on for Babouli

4 minutes of extra time

Full Time : Toronto 1, Vancouver 0

Man of the Match : Cheyrou was excellent, Zavaleta was an honourable mention

Goat of the Game : Morrow had a great defensive game, but offensive game was suspect

Ref Rating : 4 out of 5. All of the referees were equal and capable. But Rivero should have been booked

I Am Not The Gaffer, But… : I need a real idea or two to either get Giovinco some space or to get him to give others some space.

In Case You PVR’d It : start at the goal and let it run.  You really missed nothing before that.

Kit Spotting : Middlesborough home.

Bold Predictions Results:

  1. Nailed it. Toronto did, in fact, win the match
  2. Failed it. Barely one different goal scorer
  3. Failed it (technically). Giovinco scored, but it was a bit of an own goal there.

Well, that was a rough opening half.  There was plenty of midfield action that went nowhere with a pinch of chances here and there.  Kinda boring… As I was jotting notes, I couldn’t help but notice that plenty of Morrow’s attacks were ending up in frustration.  Good positioning, but nothing coming from any of it.  His usefulness as a two-way threat was severely diminished by the end of the match.  At no point did I feel he would somehow make the difference… Seriously Rivero, seriously.  If your knee was that hurt, you should be in surgery… After two successive 25000+ crowds midweek, this ~15,000 crowd was more like it… It felt like there were many opportunities to score, but the majority were snuffed out before they could be had… Mr. Osorio, does every ball need to be settled before you fire it?  Can we try a volley, or a half-volley?  He had two opportunities that I can remember where he chose to settle the ball and both chances were lost by that decision making.  No one will ever fault you for attempting a clear path on a one-timer, but they might fault you for letting that opportunity slip.  Go for glory son.

Player Ratings : Irwin 7; Beitashour 7 [Hagglund N/A], Zavaleta 7, Moor 6.5, Morrow 6, Cheyrou 7, Delgado 6 [Endoh N/A], Johnson 6.5, Osorio 6, Giovinco 7, Babouli 6 [Hamilton N/A]

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. Yes, Giovinco really needs more space. He appears to be increasingly frustrated when the ball doesn’t come to him, and then you see him walking around a lot. I understand he probably isn’t being told to get back and defend very much, and he is always ready to burst into action, but his body language worries me. I think he is really only happy when he scores.

    It also looks like he is playing a bit too close to the opposing central defenders a lot of the time, which makes it difficult for a TFC player to see an opportunity to pass to him. I think he is expecting through balls or lobs over the defenders, but most of the midfield (apart from Cheyrou) probably don’t have the confidence to try that, so they look for an easier option and pass it out wide instead. Hence Giovinco’s frustration that he isn’t getting the ball (at least that’s how it appears to me).

    I think if he sees someone looking to pass the ball into the middle, if he quickly dropped back a few yards then maybe more passes would come to him and he would have a bit of space to operate. I’m sure it’s not that simple however. For the goal he scored he was much more open behind the play, so he had a lot of room to receive the pass and run with the ball. If only we could see more of that!

    I’m not really complaining – I just want to see Giovinco get the ball a lot and score lots of goals so he stays happy at TFC. Not too much to ask, right?

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    • Hopefully altidore coming back will help with that as right now, babouli/hamilton aren’t really threatening enough so the defence can focus simply on giovinco which makes it harder to find him. but generally yes, we need to do a better job of geeting the ball to giovinco where he can do damage. paradoxcially that may well involve using everyone else more and forcing the defence to pay attention to everyone else a bit more. So fewer touches overlal for giovinco, but more of them in quality areas. Hopefully that would also lead to better quality vs quantity for giovicno’s shots as well, as right now he does not have that balance right at all.

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  2. TFC needs a new manager who likes to attack and play football, and that is NOT Vanney
    mr negative had TFC playing dull defensive shite for the first 30 mins when we need to
    score goals..1-0 is not enough of a lead going into the second leg.. Balbouli needs to go back to TFC II as he his not ready for this level of football, and why Vanney keeps
    playing in ie in a cup final thats important..is mind boggling.

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