The trials and tribulations of a hectic and testing season are about to start for our brand new club. The warm fuzzy feelings of being an expansion team and playing meaningless games against college students are over. Over the last few days, Toronto FC managed to end the pre-season on a high, beating two professional clubs, the Charleston Battery and the New York Red Bulls in a mini-tournament held in Charleston, NC. A loss to defending champs Houston rounded out their tourney which ended in a winning record of 2-1. This has got to build some confidence in the team heading into their opening game against Chivas on April 7th.

On another note, Toronto FC has been actively signing local players to development contracts. This has to motivate young local players who now have a tangible goal to strive for and have reason to pursue a footballing career aside from academics. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start U-19 leagues in the Toronto area, this is a time where interest in football around the area is at an all-time high and since summer is fast approaching, many would be interested. Speaking of youth football, I stumbled on a site called Field of a Million Dreams which is a great project to raise funds for promoting football around the world. Check it out.

A wise man once said that the pre-season can only tell you how bad you are, never how good you might be. I firmly subscribe to that theory in all sports. Despite wins against some decent competition, there have also been a few let-downs against lesser types. One can’t read too much into either except that we have the potential to be competitive in the league this season. Considering we’re an expansion franchise, that is the most important thing one can ask for. As long as there is a competitive product on the pitch that despite losses, still puts out the effort and shows resolve to be better, this franchise will flourish. It has the fan support that it needs and the financial backing of enough sponsors to enable them to get off to a positive start. As all expansion franchise fans should do, I’m hoping for the best and expecting much worse. Either way, I’ll be watching.

No blog entry is complete without a Mo Johnston quote. You can tell he’s a big fan of Richard Mulrooney:

“He’s an exceptional player. When they called and asked if I was interested I jumped on the chance to add someone with his experience to the team.”

One final note, Toronto FC recently unveiled their new fine looking jersey. Thinking about buying one.

It should be on WordSoccerShop.com soon enough. MLSGear.com is also a pretty good place to find your football gear.  Jerseys will also be available in late April at Centre Sports at the ACC and BMO Field.

Toronto FC beat a local Florida club called Soccer Max 5-0. Only God knows how good the Soccer Max players really are but I would think they’re somewhat decent having earned a match with an MLS team. It was either them or Lynn University that TFC might’ve faced in this game. Either way, it sounds like it was a one-sided affair – scorers include Edson Buddle, Jose Cancela and Abbe Ibrahim who all scored for the first time in pre-season. As the report says, they’ll be at training at the University of Toronto after coming back on Friday. Maybe I’ll go check them out if the training is open to the public.

Given that the only way to actually keep in touch with what the club has been doing in Florida is their official website, they sure don’t do a very detailed job of reporting what’s been going on. How about some pictures and maybe some game description, would that be too much? Buy me the flight and hotel and I’ll do it.

One of the things I like about my brand new club is that it doesn’t have a nickname but those guys over at BigSoccer insist on finding a name. So given the desperate need for personification of the club, a few things like Red Coats and X-Men and of the sort were suggested but quickly shot down. As I said in my posting there, the nickname must have a few requirements:

1. No Animals: I always thought this a little uncreative. There’s so many animal teams out there that adding any more is a creative cop-out.
2. Thee syllables at the most: Names should be short so they can be used in chants and quick water-cooler discussions. Anything longer than three syllables makes the tongue just not want to say it.
3. Must not blatantly say “I am from Canada”: Yeah, we’re in Canada, but do we really need to highlight that fact in one of the most important marketing facets of the club? Look at the Vancouver Grizzlies; it only seemed like a good idea at the time.
4. Must not be too abstract: I mean, how does “Galaxy” even make sense? A galaxy can’t possibly play football, can it? Unless they’re playing other galaxies on a pitch the size of a few solar systems. This is too far-fetched for my taste.
5. Must sound tough: Like “The Gunners” and not like “The Addicks”. This is really important, people want to support a club that has a tough image and the media will latch on to this too. I remember years back when the Denver Nuggest really sucked and were in the middle of a 15 game losing streak, an ESPN sportscaster goes, “If you see the poor Nuggets, give them a hug”. We don’t want any room for that kind of talk.

So after considering these and other more philosophical details, I’ve come up with…..

..drum roll…

The Brigade

Seriously, what do you think? Nobody wants to mess with a freaking Brigade, do they? I can already sense the fear in the Kansas City Wizards locker-room when they’re about to play us, Hey man, tonight’s going to be a tough game, there’s a f**king Brigade in town. Even newspapers can have fun with this, imagine the newspaper headlines when we win a game: Brigade destroy Wizards or Brigade conquer Wizards. You get the idea.

But it’s really hard to just slap a nickname on a team. A lot can go wrong. Look at the Magic, Grizzlies, Bobcats, Rapids and so on. It’s much better to go nickname-less rather than have a crappy one. So I don’t mind it just being Toronto FC for the time being and if they really get a true nickname over time, we can use it to refer to the team or just use it informally. Sort of like the Rosonerri or Bianconeri as with AC Milan and Juventus respectively. Now those are nicknames that mean something.

OK, so I’ve decided to write about Toronto FC, a team that I have no attachment to and one that doesn’t even exist yet. The only question is should I get a separate domain name and host it there or just shove it under arsenalist.com. I’m opting for the latter since its not going to cost me anything. For those of you living under a rock, Toronto FC is Toronto’s new MLS (that’s Major League Soccer to you) soccer team. First of all, it’s hard for me to say soccer since it’s not really soccer, it’s football. So from now on I’m not going to use the word soccer.

Toronto FC has no nickname, so there’s no official animal or beast which will represent the team, it’s just Toronto FC. The reason behind this can best be explained by Executive VP and Chief Operating Officer Tom Anselmi:

“The absence of a conventional sports nickname is deliberate, we wanted the whole city to feel ownership and we want to provide the opportunity for a meaningful nickname to emerge over time.”

All the power to Tom for approaching this venture with fresh ideas and an open mind. The season for Toronto FC starts on April 7th, 2007 against Chivas USA. Now I’d be lying to you if I told you I knew what and where that team is. I’d also be lying to you that I’ve been following MLS at all. It’s hard to watch MLS when you can watch the Premier League. But that’s a different issue and it was probably a mistake even comparing the two leagues. Toronto FC is my home team and if you don’t support your home team, you don’t deserve to live in the city of use it’s public transportation system (ice hockey is the exception, I don’t consider it a sport).

I might even buy a Toronto FC jersey just so I can say 20 years from now when they’re beating the shit out of Manchester United that I supported them from the beginning. But that’s probably never going to happen and I shouldn’t set my hopes that high. Or should I? Tom Anselmi, can you help me out?

“Toronto provides the perfect backdrop for the world’s number one sport given our city’s diversity and affinity for soccer. We’re committed to making Toronto FC and Major League Soccer a success”

As long as he’s committed, I’m putting my complete faith in Tom Anselmi’s reign as as the Executive VP of the club. The roster for the club is pretty dynamic since training camp and other sort of tryouts are still happening so there’s no point listing them here, here’s a link to their official roster. Their coach isMo Johnton, who in this picture looks a little like Jack Bauer from 24. He’s spent 15 years with European clubs in Scotland, England and France, with the majority of his successes coming with the Rangers. I sincerely wish him the best of luck because as with any expansion franchise, there are growing pains. I don’t know if these growing pains will be on the same scale as that of the Raptors, another local sports franchise, but I’m positive there will be times where he will regret taking this job. We as fans can hope that such pains will be limited.

Judging by some of the traffic I’m getting from search engines, my posting about David Beckham in Toronto raised some interest. So August 5th, 2007 is the date when David Beckham and Posh Spice come to Toronto. Mark you Spice Girls calendars as soon as possible. I for one will boo the hell out of Beckham. No friend of Man Utd can be a friend of The Arsenalist.

I can already tell we have a joker in the camp and it’s midfielder Ronnie O’Brien. When asked what the best part about training camp was, he replied, “Bed time”. Now although this kind of humour would be fine if you’re playing junior varsity at a Catholic middle school, it obviously doesn’t jive as well in professional sports. I know he’s joking but son, let’s cut that shit out and focus on not making a fool of yourself on day one. You can ready more quotes from camp at their website, which happens to be a pretty friendly one.

They’ll be playing at BMO Field near exhibition place which is very close to where I live so I can conceivably walk to their games. Really, after the Raptors, there’s nobody to care about in Toronto and I do love football, so there is space in my heart for another sports franchise. Why not it be Toronto FC?