TFC!

Day -585. WorldCup2018

The hottest ticket in town, Toronto town, on November 30th will be the second leg of the MLS Eastern Conference final: Toronto Fc v Montreal Impact. They were both outstanding today in New York. Montreal beat the Red Bulls and TFC humiliated City 5-0.

A team with Andea Pirlo, David Villa and Frank Lampard in their line-up would have been a daunting prospect for many a team a few years ago. But today they looked like they had moved here at the very end of their careers. They had absolutely no influence on the pitch as Sebastian Giovinco ran rings around the City defence, Jozy Altidore out muscled all his opponents and Michael Bradley bossed the match as he has been so fantastic at doing recently. The three TFC marquee players were very good, but the biggest difference was that they were part of a very strong team unit. On the other hand the big three for New York looked like they were hoping for some support from their team mates but they accepted it was not going to happen and they blended into the mediocrity of the rest of the team.

Giovinco's hat trick was a highlight. The other talking point, for anybody watching a New York City home match for the first time, was the oddity of the football pitch. They play at the famed Yankee Stadium, famous for baseball not football. To protect the pitching mound, the football pitch is strangely pushed to one side of the stadium. There is a huge empty space between the one touchline and the stands, while the opposite touchline is at a normal distance from the spectators. Also, because of the peculiarities of a baseball stadium there is a section where there are no stands, or seats, no spectators at all. It's where the pitchers warm up, the bullpen (and as a new baseball fan, I now know what that is). Due to the challenge in fitting the pitch inside a baseball diamond, it has the smallest dimensions allowable by Fifa, 110 yards by 70. The gap between the penalty area looks strangely narrow on TV.

Last season the manager of Sporting Kansas City maintained that the actual dimensions were 106 by 68, but not surprisingly New York City officials did not let any media measure the pitch. Kansas won that match 1-0. The goal came from a long throw-in, which wasn't that long because as the player admitted he didn't feel he had to throw the ball that far to get it into the penalty area.

Pitch sizes are immaterial now. On what may be a cold, cold night on November 30th TFC will host Montreal in the 2ng leg of their conference final. It may not quite be Real Madrid v Barcelona but for Canadian football it is going to a massively passionate occasion. Toronto FC fans had watched a pretty awful team for nine seasons. So to have the opportunity to reach the MLS final by beating the best rivals they have from up the road, just 5 hours up the road, will make for quite the emotional night in Toronto.