Earlier today Toronto FC made a bunch of fancy updates to their site. They are certainly nice to see and on the whole they have made a number of different cosmetic improvements including a sleek new background. The biggest change though comes to the academy section of things.

Along with all the sleek and shiny cosmetic changes to that section there is now room for a lot more content surrounding the academy team. The first step to that was updating the rosters so that the site now lists all of the teams for 2012. This year Toronto FC's academy will have U19, U17, U15, U13, and U12 teams competing in various leagues. The U19 team will continue to compete in the CSL first division and the U17 side will be in the CSL reserve division. For the other teams though there is no word yet as to where they will compete during the summer season.

The biggest thing from looking at these rosters is that Stefan Vukovic's name does not appear. He is still young enough that he could return to play for the U19 squad in the CSL next season but his name is not there. It may be reading to much into things to assume that his exclusion from the list means that he is in the first team for the coming season but it would be quite the glaring error for the team to have just missed his name.

In the end, Vukovic signing for the first team would not be a surprise to anyone. He won the CSL's golden boot last season, has been with the team for the entire training camp, and would provide much needed depth at forward. According to most people who I have spoken with about the player he would have had to be a complete letdown in camp to miss out on signing and with his goal in yesterday's friendly that does not seem to be the case. So take what you will from his absence on the roster but I would be willing to bet that his name will not be added to the list at any point. Instead, I expect he will be signed to a home grown contract at some point in the next two weeks.

Alright, all you content starved Toronto FC junkies out there. Not only will we actually have a game to watch on Saturday, there's also a bunch of new interviews up at Torontofc.ca, and let me tell you, the boys are already in mid season form when it comes to batting away Asif's gentle softballs with cliches and platitudes. They're all happy with the 5-1 result, looking forward to more games, taking it one game at a time, but excited about the march 7th game, all the stuff you'd expect really.

One useful bit of information to come out of them was that despite talk of going with a squad of European based players, Julian de Guzman will be joining Canada in Cyprus for February 29th's game against Cyprus. Given that he's suspended for the game at the Skydome, his first real game with TFC won't be until March 14th, so it's a win win really. It's a good way for him to get some minutes in a competitive game as well as helping Canada get a bit more of the first team together for valuable practice time.

Richard Eckersley doesn't really know anything about baseball, though he did watch Moneyball on the plane. Also with all the new defenders, he doesn't think language barriers will be an issue at all. Football's a universal game, so no worries with people understanding his accent.

Anyway, aside from that, it was Caveat Emptor really as I feel like watching them took away 10 minutes of my life I won't get back. So that you don't have to watch them, I've summarised it all below the jump, so get your cliche-o-meter's ready and click on read more for all the exciting details from Stefan Frei, Julian de Guzman, Danny Koevermans, Richard Eckersley, Milos Kocic, and finally Ashtone Morgan and Matt Stinson who got to do their interviews together for some reason.

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Earlier today Toronto FC took part in what can only be described as a very informal friendly. The members of the first team were not involved in the game at all so the match against the University of Central Florida was a chance for academy players, reserve players, and trialists to impress.

In the end Toronto took the lead on three separate occasions thanks to goals from Sergio Camargo, Stefan Vukovic, and Oscar Cordon but each time they were pegged back by their college opposition. In the end a very late marker from UCF meant that both teams took home a share of the spoils in a 3-3 draw.

For both Camargo and Vukovic their goals today will help to cement their resumes as both players will be looking to land home grown contracts this year. Vukovic is far more likely to get a professional deal at this stage but both are certainly players who are capable of one day being first team players for the club. Cordon on the other hand will be looking for a good preseason to earn a few more minutes in this coming season. He was with the senior team last year but spent the majority of his time involved in reserve league action.

In the end this is a game that we will likely never know much about as the only source of information has been from random folks down in Orlando who attending the match at Disney. The club will likely have a small report on the match at some point tonight but with it being such an informal match there will not be many details made available.

Today we got the long awaited MLS Reserve League Schedule. Toronto FC will again be in the Eastern Conference but this year that comes with the added bonus of an unbalanced schedule. The central and western conferences will be balanced and contain 6 teams each with all teams playing a total of 10 matches (home and away with every other team in the division). In the east though the addition of Montreal means that they have to find a schedule that suits 7 teams. The means that teams in the east will face four of the teams in their division home and away, one team only at home, and one team only on the road. In the end, the Reserve League Champion will be crowned based on who has the most points at the end of the ten game season.

Toronto will be joined in the Eastern Conference by Columbus Crew, D.C. United, Montreal Impact, New England Revolution, New York Red Bulls, and Philadelphia Union. The team that Toronto will only be playing at home is the Columbus Crew and the team that they will only play on the road this year is New York Red Bulls.

The other conferences will be as follows:

Central: Chicago Fire, Colorado Rapids, FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo, Sporting Kansas City, Real Salt Lake

Western: Chivas USA, LA Galaxy, Portland Timbers, San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, Vancouver Whitecaps FC

For Toronto though the schedule is not quite set as two of their matches are still lacking a time, date and location. It is likely that these games will end up be played at some point during the summer when the current schedule is blank from June 9 until September 10. Either way though, with only 10 games to be played Toronto is looking at a very light schedule. The good news in that regard is that almost all of the reserve matches are able to be played at BMO Field this year with only one match slated for Downsview Park so far.

The complete schedule is available after the jump.

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After two good performances and very creditable draws against Costa Rica and South Korea, Holger Osieck's mad heads or tails calling skills meant Canada snuck into 2nd place in their group and into the quarter finals, a respectable finish but probably as far as they'd get given that their opponent would be Mexico.

The quarter finals were held as doubleheaders on conescutive days, and it was the first day's matches that had most of the excitement. First up was USA v Colombia (click here for highlights)and after an 81st minute equaliser for Colombia, it went to extra time tied at 2-2. Both teams hit the bar, and thus we went to the world's most inept penalty shoot out ever. Colombia only scored 2 out of 4, but that was all they needed as the US scored a truly atrocious 1 out of 5 penalties and thus were knocked out, current DC United coach Ben Olsen having the final penalty saved.

That was followed by Honduras v Peru. Though I disappointingly can't find highlights of it anywhere, this sounds like a great game, Peru going 4-1 up, then being pegged back to 4-3. Peru got a 5th in the 87th minute, then Carlos Pavon had a goal for Honduras ruled out, and that's when all hell broke loose. Pavon kicked the ball away in frustration and got sent off for his troubles. Milton Reyes protested that decision and also got himself a red card, and let's just say the Honduran supporters didn't really agree with all that.

The miscreants stormed field, ripped up seats and fought with police. "We had a crowd that went from a calm contingency of people which turned into chaos," Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss told Associated Press. Before storming the field, the perpetrators started heaving souvenir seat pads, plastic bottles and rocks onto the field.

That led to the game being abandoned, capping a day of drama and excitement that the next day's matchups would be unable to match. Unless you're Canadian that is.

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