FC Toronto is quickly becoming quite a story in MLS and they have yet to play a game.
The club stop selling season tickets at 14,000 and the squad coached by former Scottish International Mo Johnston will have a true Euro-feel to it.
Welsh midfielder Carl Robinson comes from Norwich, Andy Welsh from Sunderland while they have acquired Irishman Ronnie O’Brien from FC Dallas. That has been followed by the recent signing of Richard Mulrooney also from FC Dallas.
Robinson is in the Welsh squad to face the Republic of Ireland this Saturday and thinks more English players will make the jump across the pond.
“Iv’e had six or seven players asking if I will put in a word,” said Robinson to BBC Sport. “I know there are lots of players keen on going over. It is whether they can sort something out.”
Don’t bank on it. Many agents are thinking that Beckham type money is available and it is just not the case as we all know.
The DP rule really has not panned out to much excitement but could be a useful tool come the summer when the transfer window
opens and teams are looking for a spike heading into the stretch run towards the MLS Cup Final.
Toronto will definetly have a UK feel to their team which should make things interesting in MLS.
FC Toronto making noise
March 21, 2007 4 Comments
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14,000 season ticket holders is great for an MLS team, specially for a new team, (well it depends, some will say the fact is a new team is helping them sell those season tickets, some will say the fact they have not play a single game makes selling season tickets very hard).
I donīt care about the UK feel or the Euro feel, I hope they get a Toronto feel, I hope they get fans similar to the Dynamo fans, (personally I donīt like jumping around and chanting all day long, buty I have join a few chants in my life in different countries, and I respect commited fans that just go to support {no violence} ), the fact 14,000 already have season tickets makes me think they will.
Anyone knows how many season ticket holders Dynamo has?
In other countries you usually buy season tickets because you get to pay a lot less, and because it guarantees you will attend the sold out games. But you don\’t get a huge saving with Dynamo season tickets and the only game sold out will probably be the Beckam game.
If they get the fan support for the long run, if they get media support, and hopefully a great rivalry, it will help the league.
By the way, do we really have a great rivalry?, Is Dallas vs Houston a real regional derby?
Does anybody in here thinks of Dallas as our nemesis?
Does MLS has a real national derby?, Chivas Usa vs Galaxy?
Chivas-LA is the derby and the best rivalry. DC-NY is the oldest and most historical rivalry in the league. Houston doesn\’t have a true rival as of yet…
A Quick thought on UK-Toronto FC: it will be very interesting to see how this experiment plays out. I personally think that Toronto FC will finish last in the league this year, and that Mo & Company should have spent their time and resources bringing in Brazilians and Argentineans to build a competitive roster that will create buzz, but Toronto is a different animal and maybe the Europhiles there will enjoy having so many UK natives…I think this litle UK experiment will fail, though…
Houston/Dallas derby is young and growing. During the first game, here in Houston, I believe El Capitan ended up bloodied towards the end thanks to a certain diving *ahem*…The fans are certainly more into it right now than the players, but it\’s growing.
If I had to guess, I\’d say that the Dynamo/Chivas USA will be our big derby. After how the playoffs ended (with Davis being shoved at the whistle and the fight afterwords) things will get interesting….Expect our 2nd home game to get ugly fast.
LA/Chivas is probably the best, and while NY/DC is the oldest, many DCU fans don\’t take it seriouxly anymore because \
Galaxy/Chivas is definitely a heated local derby. Great atmosphere at those matches! DC/NY was fairly intense back in the 90s however has lost most of it because NY has been so bad over the years and DC holds a 29-16-6 edge all time including playoffs.