Well after a couple of entertaining and sloppy league draws and the clinching of a place in the CCL group stages, the latest version of Toronto FC returns home to take on Real Salt Lake. After a week off, with time to train together and no new signings coming in, this should be a much more fluent and organised looking team, especially defensively. Will Andy Iro be given another chance to prove he can be a reliable part of our defence next year, or will others such as Eddy Viator or Dasan Robinson be given their chance to audition as part of pre-season 2012.
Another important question is will Stefan Frei be playing, after he picked up an injury after getting a kick in the leg in training. If not Milos Kocic will replace him and become the 37th player used in MLS games this year, breaking the all time MLS record with 8 games remaining and at least 2 new signings still to play.
Whoever plays, can they continue the trend of Real never scoring a league goal at BMO Field, while also continuing their welcome recent trend of scoring at least 2 goals in 5 straight games? I think it's unlikely we'll do both, but given RSL's struggles away from the multi-wifed comforts of home, doing either one of those should be good enough for a win, I'm feeling pretty confident for some reason.
Some pre game reading for you. Here's my more thorough preview, the Real viewpoint from RSLSoapbox, MLSSoccer.com's preview as well as previews and all the usual interviews (as well as some alarmingly bad acting from Terry Dunfield as he and Andy Iro do a brief CCL explanation) over at Torontofc.ca
Finally if you haven't done so yet, go buy tickets for Canada's WCQ games in the next few months, either here from the Voyageurs to be in the Canadian supporters sections, or here through the CSA for the rest of the stadium.
I'll be at the game with my blackberry so will have lineups and thoughts pre game as well as half time and full time thoughts as well.
Come On You Reds!