Monday, February 5, 2007
TORONTO FC TRAINING CAMP REPORT MONDAY
I caught the last 40 minutes or so this afternoon. I really can't put names to all the faces but interesting watching the scrimmage nonetheless. The opposition looked to be a collection of U-20 high school players, perhaps NTC guys who wore blue. A couple young players had expressed their concerns at taking time off school to get to the training sessions on time to coach Mike Matkovich after practice. Matkovich was very interested in speaking to one of the young players (he is apparently from Richmond Hill and had played in Italy from what I made out) to make sure he came back. There were several goalies in attendance, with who I believe to be former FC Braga youngster Jon Paul Piques in net for the yellow shirt TFC team. Maurice Edu was on the sideline. Ronnie O'Brien was in the middle of the field and looked fantastic. Richard Asante played holding midfielder on the yellow with a somewhat fatigued looking Jim Brennan out wide. Adam Braz looked confident yet the defence was rarely tested. What struck me the most was how quiet it was in general, which makes it hard to make out the names. "Jose" Cancela was on he field, but no sign of Alecko Eskandarian who may still be nursing an injury. There was an Asian or Hispanic looking player on the blue team playing wide in the midfield that didn't speak English well. Although I can't confirm it one of the players looked exactly like the picture of Paulo Nagamura on MLSNET.COM. Its early, and no conclusions are to be made at this point of course. Toronto FC are obviously in need of more quality to fill out the roster and create competition for starting spots, as the depth on paper and from what was on display this afternoon (of course missing a few of the bigger names) is far from where it will be come the season. Sir Mo will make sure of that I'm sure! Perhaps more to come later on.
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4 comments:
any sign of Ibrahim?
what were the starting linueps? Di they play the entire length of the field? did they use the big nets? who are the best players?
Not sure about Ibrahim. I can't comment on the starting lineups as I wasn't there.They played 3 quarters of the field using the big nets. Mo worked the middle with coaches scattered along the lines. It was very fast, possession oriented soccer, mainly one touch. Some of the sequences were truly excellent. Looked like they've been playing together for years. A couple of posts and near misses. Some of the younger players looked totally out of their element. O'Brien stands out. There was very little room for individual runs. Jim Brennan didn't look like the old Brennan we are all accustomed to watching play for Canada. Of course being off so long his conditioning is nowhere near where it will be in a few weeks. O'Brien looks to be a character guy, joking around, even during the warm down. All the young guys looked nervous. With a couple of additons and the rest of the missing players back this team will be just fine.
ibrahim was not there according to newspaper reports today. He and Eskandarian will be at Florida camp.
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