What does toronto fc stand for

Work the ball around the TFC defense, make them chase, create numerical advantages and finish chances. The Rapids have two more games in this home stand before departing for what will be the toughest road trip of the year. Neither Toronto FC nor Austin FC are above the red line; in fact, both teams are at the bottom of their respective conferences.

Imagine home field advantage and never having to leave Colorado. Trending - news. Get Back in the Win Column. Public transit is your best bet. By car : The stadium is located off Lakeshore Drive. Tip: save money by parking at the Green P located in Liberty Village. By streetcar : The streetcar, which boards at Union Station, will also take you to the exhibition grounds.

Destination Toronto. Experience the exhilarating atmosphere of a Toronto FC game. Toronto FC games are one of the best sports experiences in Toronto.

Toronto Raptors. Toronto Argonauts. Toronto Rock. Toronto was in second place in the tournament behind Vancouver going into the final game. On the road in Montreal, the team needed to win by four goals to beat out the Whitecaps and lift the Voyageurs Cup. There was a certain amount of confidence that we could get a result. They had a big game against Vancouver [in the USL] a few days after.

They wanted to rest their key guys for that, so they made a lot of changes, and we had our full squad. Tony Donatelli converted the ensuing penalty to give the Impact the lead. Toronto now had to score five times without conceding. I had a shot and a header that I should have buried. We knew that the tactics of the day were to get the ball, get it into the box, get the ball into me and then feed off of me.

We were really putting them on the back foot after they scored that first goal. They looked very wobbly at the back. It was just a sense of we could do something.

De Rosario got things started for Toronto, burying a fantastic bicycle kick past former TFC goalkeeper Srdjan Djekanovic in the 29th minute and scoring again in the 39th to put the Reds up at halftime.

We have to bully him a little bit. He was great guy, a lovely fellow, who was with us that first season. It was more a sense of belief that the game was there for the taking. Amado Guevara made it in 69th, curling a gorgeous free kick from 25 yards out just inside the near post. After that the flood gates opened. He carried that squad on his back. Chad Barret scored in the 82nd minute, heading home from in close off of a Guevara corner kick.

It was the first time in club history they had ever scored five times in a game. Guevara scored in the final minute of regulation to seal the win and the players rushed onto the field at the final whistle. It was more bubbles than champagne.

I remember Jimmy [Brennan] going crazy because it was so special for him, this being a derby game against Montreal and him being a local guy. To show we are on the map, we can do stuff. For that team and the staff we had, that was a huge moment. There were probably 50 to fans at the same time when they emerged with the trophy from the plane.

It was a great moment for the club. Even sweeter for Toronto was that the Whitecaps were in attendance at Stade Saputo that evening.

Cheeky bastards. But it was my hometown — a team that I was following since their introduction — and it was a very big contract, probably the biggest of my career. Entering the final stretch of the regular season with just two wins in their previous eight games, TFC wasted no time in rushing De Guzman into duty. It was towards the end of the season.

But [the team] insisted. We lost That was the first culture shock I experienced right after I signed. Toronto drew its next two matches before beating Real Salt Lake on October 17 in its home finale. It was a crucial win, as it pushed the Reds above RSL in the race for a wild-card berth. TFC entered the final game of the season needing a win to earn their first playoff berth.

I spoke to Chris Cummins the day before the game and all I remember is they changed system. They used to play in a or [formation] and they changed to a , for whatever reason, and I think Juan Pablo [Angel] and [Macoumba] Kandji for New York Red Bulls killed them.

It was a horrible day. The game was delayed, there was lightning, it was biblical rain. It was a like a slow-motion train wreck. It was lashing down rain. It was a miserable night. It felt like a training match. Pull your finger out and get it done. Angel made it in the 62nd minute with a side-footed shot that Edwards should have saved. In injury time, defender Adrian Serioux hacked down Kandji from behind, and Matthew Mbuta converted from the penalty spot.

Game over. Season over. The fans from Toronto came down, everyone had high expectations that we were going to make it through because, to be honest, on paper, this was probably the best TFC team I played with. What next? That was a new low. They had a player named Sam Cronin, who was a young American [rookie], decent guy. DE VOS: That game and that performance just summed up the club in so many ways at that point in time. That was the point where a lot of fans started to wonder whether this cared.

I remember coming away thinking there was something wrong at the core of that. That was the one thing I was looking forward to immediately, hoping that we could bounce back. It was argued that his stern attitude, demanding training routine and focus on defensive soccer were exactly what the team needed coming off the capitulation to New York.

He blew up the team. We were on a positive trajectory, even with the loss in New York, and we took a backwards step. He approached the game differently than everybody before him. That [] season was real set back. We had too many roster changes and coaches and general managers. But going into the second half, I knew that we were going to run into trouble because players were already burnt out. Preki was very demanding — physically, psychologically — and you could slowly see the team deteriorate toward the end of the season.

With TFC in a tailspin — tied for the second-worst offence in MLS and looking like they would miss the playoffs for a fourth straight year — both he and general manager Mo Johnston were fired on Sept.

Assistant Nick Dasovic took over with seven games left in the campaign. He became my third coach going into my second year at TFC.

A lot of changeover. He was hard working. He was a hard guy to get to really know. But I think he was smarter than people give him credit for. His ability to do certain things, to get onto the side of other GMs, to befriend them, was a real good skill to have. He was engaging. He had a great relationship with everyone internally the first few years. Mo Johnston was everything.

He was literally out on the pitch kicking the ball with his players at practice, and he had a phone in his pocket, and he was taking calls from other GMs. His Achilles heel, in hindsight, was the separation of the importance of building a team versus the importance of getting better players.

He was always looking to upgrade. As a general statement, any time you can do a trade when you feel you can get the better part of that trade, you should do that. But every time you do that, you upset the apple cart, you upset the locker room.

We were also faced with being the only Canadian cub. That guy was a real asset and he was traded away for a bag of balls. We were still selling a lot of tickets, but not what we were selling before. It builds character, I guess. And outside the soccer community in Canada, they were becoming a laughing stock.

The club was seen as a joke, quite frankly, which was a real stab in the heart of the fans of that team. They held up giant signs with dollar signs on them. I remember standing on the side of the pitch and I thought someone was gonna shoot him. Just kind of edging away from Tom with my kids, right?

It was really bleak. We get the best of everything. It played into the idea that Toronto FC was cheap. Toronto FC is not cheap, they just spent it in the wrong places. Late in the season with the Reds fighting to stay alive in the playoff race, star player and captain Dwayne De Rosario scored his team-leading 12th goal of the campaign at home against San Jose. After the goal, he ran to the sidelines and repeatedly made a gesture as though he were signing a cheque.

What did the gesture mean? Simple: He wanted a pay raise. De Rosario was the third-highest paid player on the team and felt he deserved more. The rare act of public defiance put the dysfunction of the club out in the open for everyone to see. The reality is, though, there are ways to go about it. COCHRANE: Dwayne scored the goal, did the cheque-signing thing, and then a few moments later [San Jose] scored to retake the lead, which in so many ways summed up my whole feeling of that game.

To a certain extent, I understand it — the emotion. Here was a guy who was clearly the best player on the team at that time, but not making the most money on that team. I respected the guy before, I respected him after.

BLAIR: If any other player had done that the fans would have gone on the pitch and beaten the shit out of him. Because [De Rosario] was a local guy fans cut him a certain amount of slack. He was also generous with his time off the field, representing the team at countless charity and promotional appearances. It was hard to imagine where Toronto FC would be without him.

Local guy, Toronto FC captain, a national team member — he had the city in the palm of his hand if he wanted it. So, that was the lesson. But I definitely felt for him and I think a lot of people who understood what he was going through understood his frustrations. It was an unfortunate season. It does get frustrating after a while — after you continue to give your all and perform.

In June, New York traded him to D. De Rosario scored 16 goals that year, tying for first place in the MLS scoring race. He was also named league MVP. After having his contract option declined by D.

It was a difficult time for the club. It just seemed like it was one more thing that could go wrong, and it did. They were also asked to make recommendations to fix the franchise. After several weeks of review, Klinsmann proposed restructuring TFC in the mold of Ajax, the successful Amsterdam-based club famous for developing top Dutch players.

One of its most successful graduates was Aron Winter, a midfielder who also starred for the Netherlands, Lazio and Inter Milan. He was saying a lot of the same things that we said, and had a blueprint for the kind of individuals we might want to bring in. At some point, Aron, Paul and Bob were part of that process. What the f— is that? But Toronto FC is a sucker for everything that came along, every snake oil salesman.

It was a mistake. I do think, though, there was a difference of opinion between them about the best way to manage the team and that festered over time and trickled down into the locker room. Paul was targeted as the guy who was going to finalize recruitment, to bring in the guys, while Aron and Bob were going to build this strategy and structure around the club. But the growing pains in that first year were magnified by the fact that they were bringing in a new philosophy, a new style of play and a concept that was very difficult to grasp in many respects.

The Ajax credo also meant giving young players a chance, with an eye towards building for the future. They wanted to apply that, and they only had maybe a year to do that. Definitely when Aron and his staff came over, they tried to instill in us the Dutch way. Winter was more of a long-term planner and he believed in a lot of the youth. That was a positive, but again, it was tough for him to present that for the long-term because TFC and MLSE need results as soon as possible.

I just felt Aron and his staff really believed in their youth and they gave me that confidence that I needed to step up to the next level to earn my keep within Toronto FC and within MLS. They helped me grow as a player from the academy to the first team.

We were trying to build from out of the back. Even with the mid-season additions of two star players — German midfielder Torsten Frings and Dutch striker Danny Koevermans — Toronto FC stumbled to a record and missed the playoffs for a fifth consecutive campaign.

But as bad as the season was, it was about to get worse. There was a lot of anxiety. It was just a very tough time for us. You saw the ways they lost — on set pieces, late goals; stuff that most clubs practice on a pretty regular basis.

Losing breeds losing, and with each loss it started to breed this feeling in the room that it was inevitable. The changing room was surprisingly good under those circumstances. We were still per cent behind what Aron was doing.

There was no mutiny or questioning his tactics or philosophy. Following a loss away to D. We lived in the Beaches [a Toronto neighbourhood] at the time, a few blocks away from each other. No team loses nine games in a row! It made news around the soccer world. Nice one, Koovs. No extra pressure. That was just a tough time. The Reds finished the season dead last in MLS with a record. You had to peel back a few layers but once you did, you found he was someone of real substance who had a lot going on in his life beyond soccer.

Just a very interesting guy. Bringing in Bob de Klerk, who was high energy and very black-and-white — he lives and breathes football, and believes it should be played in the Ajax way — I thought the combo of Aron and Bob was going to be gold.

I would have liked to have seen TFC to be able to go further on that Ajax vision. That had a hand in it. Press conferences here are unlike anywhere else in our league. The amount of attention our team got was more than anywhere else in MLS. And I think that weighed on Aron.