The MLS Experiment: Spring 2010

Welcome back to the latest instalment of the MLS Experiment. We left off last time with Toronto getting off to a miserable start to the season and morale well and truely in the basement. Lets see if things improved…

Before I carry on, one thing that I did notice was that there was no “Match Preparation” available which may account for Toronto’s poor start as I’m unable to blend a new squad together or select a special area to focus on like defending.

We were desperately unlucky in our first game in May as Salt Lake snatched a late goal to tie the game 2-2 but back at BMO Field the following week we finally got out first win of the season with a goal from Canadian international Dwayne De Rosario against the Chicago Fire. We got two nice victories in California against LA and San Jose but then threw away potential winning situations in our last two games of the spring semester by conceding late goals. Fatigue I’ve noticed is a big factor Toronto players.

We have improved our position a little bit in the standings but find ourselves a good seven points behind the front runners Kansas City and DC United.

Aside from the MLS there’s an additional tournament called the Canadian Championship which is a round robin affair featuring Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. The winner qualifies for the North American Champions League. In real life Vancouver have joined MLS this season and Montreal will become a member in 2012 so they are decent opposition for us. In fact they were too good for us particularly the West Coast outfit who have ran away with this competition in which we now have no hope of qualifying for the North American Champions League with one game remaining.

Mid June saw the American transfer window open but this was to only buy foreign players. I had a Brazilian striker, Maicon Santos on loan from a lower league side but sent him back to South America which allowed me room in my international player allowance to pick up fellow Brazilian Gil who has played for Corinthians and Flamengo. Hopefully he will add something to my struggling “left flank” tactic.

A few days before the end of the month this message arrived in my inbox which pretty much said get rid of players before July 1^st otherwise they still count towards the salary cap even if I’ve sold or waived a player after that date.

What the heck!!!! This led me to placing a couple of players on the waivers list who I’d picked up on free transfers at the start of the season but had really not performed at all.

Here are my top 5 rated players over the last couple of months with ML Moreno from Brazil the best of the bunch. He really has flourished over the last 60 days and has been instrumental in setting up the few goals that we have scored.

The morale although still not good has improved since last time and I hope that continues to go on the rise but only good results will maintain that progress.

We start the summer session with back to back home games commencing with the Western Conference leaders Houston and then taking on current Eastern league leaders Kansas City at the end of July. There’s also an interesting double header against New York to round out this set of fixtures.

So, that completes this update which will be the last for a while as I’m going to concentrate on my Cambridge story to get that one through the winter months. You will be all happy to know that I completed my tax returns for this year so all that’s left is to pop them in the post. Hurray!!!!

See you soon and thanks for reading.