Whitecaps 4-2 TFC. Not a good start.

One game into the season is way too early to be jumping to any conclusions, but what the hell, I'm going to do it anyway, and there were two main things I'll confidently predict going from today's game.

1- The Vancouver Whitecaps won't look that good again all season.
2- Toronto FC won't look that bad again all season.

Expansion teams are supposed to be poor, naive, learning harsh lessons while waiting for the deficiencies in their roster to be upgraded over their first season or two.  Think TFC, back when they were an expansion team in name as well as in spirit.  Think Portland Timbers, 3-0 down within 30 minutes against Colorado in their season opener on Saturday.

But no, in their first ever MLS game, Vancouver looked comfortable at the back despite letting in two goals, and positively lethal going forward, scoring 4 and creating many other chances.  Some of that is due to the good decisions they've made in building a team, for example Jay De Merit is a better defender than TFC have ever had in their 4 and a bit years so far, and on the evidence of this game, striker Eric Hassli certainly looks a better striker than TFC has ever had as well as a better designated player than TFC has ever had.

Mainly though it was due to how poorly TFC played, and the sorry state of their roster going in to the first game of the season.  Most of the kids were left on the bench to start the game as Aron Winter went with the most experienced lineup available to him right now.  Unfortunately that still meant a lot of weak options, and the problem was compounded by some strange positional decisions.

First of all, was playing Adrian Cann at left Back and Ty Harden at Centre back.  I think three things that even the most casual TFC observer would agree on is that Adrian Cann isn't a left back, that Cann is better than Harden at centre back, and that Cann and Nana Attakora as our centre back partnership was one of the few things that was a success last season.  In the last pre-season game it seemed that Winter was making a point, that Cann couldn't expect to just walk back into the side at his preferred position.  Fair enough, if a bit on the petty side, messages need to be sent every now and then, but he's going to keep that going in the regular season? When it actually counts?  Cann looked very out of place at Left Back, as shown in Vancouver's first goal and Harden was just plain terrible, so hopefully that's the end of that particular lesson.  Dan Gargan and Attakora didn't look great in defence either, and neither did Nathan Sturgis who was thoroughly outclassed by David Chiumiento, and allowed Terry Dunfield to run by him easily for the Whitecaps second goal.  Jacob Peterson was ineffective in midfield, as was Nick Soolsma further up the field on the wing in Peterson's more natural position. 

On the positive side of things, as there was in pre-season, there were occasional moments when things came together well and you could see the promise of what we're trying to do.  In the first ten minutes or so before Vancouver scored, TFC looked good, very positively taking the game to the Whitecaps.  Maicon Santos played a good ball through to set up Dwayne De Rosario's goal, and then scored a great goal out of nothing to bring it back to 4-2.  Javier Martina had an ok game as well, causing quite a few problems on the left wing, and Gianluca Zavarise looked useful after coming on in the second half. 

As for De Ro?  Well it was a typical De Ro day really, even though it wasn't a great all round game from him, he scored TFC's first with a clinical finish, and until TFC's squad improves and the team becomes more comfortable and effective playing Winter's system, we're going to be relying on him a lot to create and score chances.  Unfortunately his propensity to shoot himself in the foot on the pr side of things also surfaced with this tweet

@dwaynederosario 8,000th goal in MLS HISTORY! Thanks to all the players/staff and fans for helping me achieve that goal...

    Yep, that's right De Ro, captain, never mind that we lost, it's all about you.

Anyway, as I said at the start of this, it's way too soon to be jumping to conclusions, and the team is very much still a work in progress.  Of course it would be nice if we weren't once again going into the season putting the squad together as we go, but unfortunately that's the reality right now due to the amount of time that was taken before bringing Winter on board.   Hopefully the patience and time taken in the job search will prove worth it and this is the start of a long streak of stability and continuity meaning this is the last time we have to go into a season this unprepared. 

While everyone at TFC has been preaching patience and stressing the long term, for the long sufffering supporters, it'd also be nice if we could at least be competitive this year.  On Saturday, we really weren't, but I'm confident that things will improve.  New signings are surely on the way, and even if that doesn't happen any time soon, the current players we have will get better with further exposure to Winter's new style of play, Winter will learn which players he can rely on and where their best positions are, and hopefully some of the draft picks and academy graduates can stake a claim for a place in the starting eleven.  It would be great if, just for once we could have those issues sorted out during pre-season, but alas that didn't happen again this year.  Oh well, long term, 2012 and beyond, I'm confident we'll look good.  This season? Well things can only get better from here.