Wednesday, February 7, 2007

TRAINING CAMP REPORT - WEDNESDAY

I caught the 8v8 today scrimmage today using only half of the regulation field. Injuries - Ronnie O'Brien who twisted his foot on Tuesday (yet kept playing) was on the sidelines, Marco Reda, Maurice Edu, and Greg Sutton. Joey Mello was applauded a few times by Sir Mo as he led many of the attacks, together with Richard Asante, and Paulo Nagamura who served as floaters from team to team. Nagamura is a great distributor of the ball. Toronto native and former Colorado Rapids defender Ricky Titus was in attendance but not on the field. Bob Gansler looks to be in charge of the technical coaching side of things directly on the field with Sir Mo keeping a watchful eye over proceedings. Again the young keepers looked out of their realm today.

The "Chinese" import (it has not been confirmed he is from China) played up top and more centrally, and put at least one goal in. He was less noticeable than yesterday when playing out wide. Funny thing about him is that he never wears shin guards. He didn't play with as much flair today save a couple of chances. He probably needs more conditioning though, as he too looked tired. His partner looked to be Jeff Gonsalves who had a couple of chances. Jim Brennan was again hardly noticeable. The central defender had a British sounding accent, (I thought it was Carl Robinson at first) but I'm pretty sure now it was Andrew Boyens. Boyens took out one of the younger players very hard on one play, and perhaps injured him as he limped around. Chris Pozniak made a couple of mistakes as the young players again showed little mercy. Matt Palleschi scored a great goal from a terrific build up - Sir Mo applauded loudly. Jamall Smith again looked steady. Adam Braz was never really tested. He did score a weak goal from the sideline that alluded one of the young keepers. Sir Mo was extremely frustrated by that goal yelling out - "that shouldn't happen at this level."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for what you are doing your site is the absolute best source for Toronto FC news.

Anonymous said...

About time you post I've been waiting all day.I'm going crazy waiting for news. Thanks for this btw.

Anonymous said...

Is Andy Boyens a likely starter???

Cheers for the report, important to keep abreast of things here in New Zealand

Anonymous said...

So from the reports it sounds like Edu, Asante, Gonsalves, Hemming and Boyens are all in camp. Roberts signing abroad. Jarrod Smith injured and eyeing Euro trials in a couple months.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/3955258a6429.html

That leaves Hunter West - is he in camp? Thanks for the great reports.

TORONTO FC SUPERFAN said...

Yeah thanks guys. Unfortunately I'm not sure I can stop in over the final two days - though I'm trying to arrange to be down in Florida for some R&R in March. As for Boyens I think its way too early to speculate. All the players are working hard, and its the very first week so we probably shouldn't read too much into it. The Canadian players have been off for such a long time that it should take a good while for them to get back into it to be fair. It will also depend on the system Mo & Bob use. Regards