So that's the Mickey Mouse cup over and done with, as well as the first two games we've been able to watch and see how things are going with the new regime, so what have we learnt so far, aside from the fact that it's still way too early in preseason to be able to draw any kind of conclusions.
Game 1, a 3-2 defeat against Houston on Thursday night was definitely a mixed bag. Defensively we looked a little unorganised at times, Houston's first goal in particular saw some bad positional play from triallist Mikael Yourassowsky, though given it was his first game after just joining the club, that's forgiveable. Dan Gargan didn't look great on Houston's 3rd either which is a bit more worrying for our chances this season. Gargan seems like a great player to have around in the dressing room, and his versatility means he'll be a valuable part of the squad, and a very useful player to have on the bench in any game, but if he's part of the starting line up when March 19th comes around, that'll be a sad indictment of our squad's depth.
The new possession based 4-3-3 system worked ok here and there, very much still a work in progress, and the defenders often had problems working the ball through to the midfielders, especially when Houston started pressuring more after the first few minutes. Obviously having three players upfront means fewer players back close to the defenders so they're really going to have to work on movement, tracking back and making themselves available for the pass if the defence is going to be able to avoid losing the ball or just hoofing it long. Julian de Guzman's return should really help with that, he's going to be crucial to TFC's chances this year.
When it worked though, it worked really well, TFC's first goal came after a long period of possession, patiently moving the ball from one side to the other before Nick Labrocca played a longer ball through to Jacob Peterson who had made a sudden incisive run and was then able to round the goalie and score.
The second goal came from a penalty after triallist Jamal Gay was pulled down inside/on the edge of the box while running onto a great through ball from Javier Martina. While the tricks that were shown in highlights from Turkey suggested Martina certainly has talent, his play to set up that penalty gives me much more hope that he can be an effective player. I'll take the composure and vision he showed to hold on to the ball, drift inside then play a simple but lethal defence splitting pass, over any number of fancy dribbles.
Jamal Gay looked alright as the main striker up front, but most of the other triallists or draft picks didn't really show much and were outshone by academy players Matt Stinson and Oscar Cordone who both looked impressive in the second half.
Losing on Thursday meant the second game was against Orlando City on Saturday night, and it was another struggle, ending in a 1-0 defeat and an ignomious 4th place finish. Orlando had definitely learnt from Houston and were very aggressive in pressuring TFC's defenders as they tried to get the ball forward. It worked very well for them, as all game TFC struggled to get anything going, and the result was well deserved, with the goal coming from some more crapppy defending, Orlando player/coach Ian Fuller managing to fight off 3 defenders and round Milos Kocic.
Oh well, TFC move on and hopefully things will get better with a bit more time to get used to the system and new players. There's signs of promise, you can tell that what they're trying to do will look good if it all comes together, so it's time to move on and wait for more evidence next week in Charleston.
What's that whistling noise? Why, it's Axl Rose.
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