Had a sobering walk to BMO Field in the light rain of Wednesday night following the European glory that was earned by United and watched by myself and millions of others. I reminded myself that while the resultswere perfect thus far, Toronto was about to face a team that made them look like little boys playing in a Men’s league. It wasn’t that I didn’t expect a win, but rather that the day whad thus far gone so well that karma could play some catch-up.
Not the case. And adding to my delirium was a recently-infrequent goal by Danny “The Bald-Headed-Beauty” Dichio. He showed exactly why he’s still a threat when placed in the proper situation – he’ll created a goal through sheer will and force. In a lot of ways it was as pretty as goals come.
The rest of the game was a bit of a struggle against the weather, the opposition, and the limitations of our current squad. The weather made playing a game that could create face-paced chances for our midfield difficult. The exchange of play between the two teams was often sloppy. But most glaring was the limitations of our forwards and wings. Ricketts looked ineffective, to be kind. I’m hoping the warning stories aren’t true about the kid, ‘cause he should be showing a lot more class given his previously touted potential. Robert was playing well, as far as I could tell, and I think he should have seen a lot more of the ball.
Sutton was as solid as ever and is certainly making a case for Canada’s starting job. Marshall made more than a few key stops and blocks, Wynne was his tenacious self, and Brennan was dependable as always.
And, now, somewhat reluctantly, and admittedly embarrassingly, we come to a subject that I’ve been thinking of writing about for the past three games. It’s hard to admit, but Marco Velez has very suddenly turned from the worst defender I’d ever seen to a dependable, if not very-good, defender. I have no idea what happened either. He was absolutely lost until we came to Toronto, but since…Wow.
He’s been tough, accountable, and at times awesome. He’s shut down some very good players to the point that I no longer cringe when he’s neither the ball – I sometimes even get happy seeing that he’s the once back to make a play.
One of the tempting things about having your own blogs is the ability to revise the history that you wrote – deleting posts such as the one where I wrote a script for Mo to use when letting Velez go, would be one example of something I now wish I hadn’t written. But, I’ll stand by what I wrote as it’s a good testament to how I saw things back then (i.e. a month ago…)
Marco didn’t deserve to start then, but he does now and hopefully he continues to play at this level.
