Match Thoughts: Toronto FC vs. FC Dallas

So last night Toronto FC debuted most of their new signings and trades from the last few weeks, including two designated players: Danny Koevermans and Torsten Frings. Also debuting were Ryan Johnson and Andy Iro, acquired from San Jose and Columbus, respectively. Would the result against FC Dallas be different from the usual Toronto FC result?

Well, it looked for awhile like things were going in a pretty positive direction for the Reds. They stood toe to toe with the Hoops through the whole first half, even forcing Kevin Hartman into a couple of saves, though nothing that really worried the Dallas keeper too much.

While Frings looked solid on set pieces for TFC, soon another problem area emerged. That problem being delivery in the run of play. Koevermans and Johnson were both trying to make runs into the 18 from time to time, but TFC could not get an effective delivery into the area to save their lives. It was really poor. One got the sense that FC Dallas was just biding their time, and the half ended at 0-0.

As the second half got under way, Dallas got tired of waiting. More specifically, Brek Shea got tired of waiting. I'm not an FC Dallas fan at all but Shea has been a beast the first half of the season. To deny how well he's been playing would just be dumb. Are you listening Bob Bradley? In the 48th minute, Shea picked a ball off near midfield and brought it up all by himself just to the edge of the 18, where he fired an absolute BLAST by Stefan Frei. Dallas had the 0-1 lead and Shea has a goal of the week candidate.

Just 4 minutes later, Toronto thought they had equalized when Plata put the ball into the back of the net, but it was rightly ruled offside. Santos had another chance late from point blank range, but skied it. The match ended 0-1 to FC Dallas.

So in the end for TFC, new look, same result. One wonders what positives Aron Winter will take from this match. Sure they stayed in it to the end, but that doesn't get you points. You can have the best forwards in the world, but they're gonna have trouble if they can't get good service. Hopefully for TFC fans, this group will get better the more play together.