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When 55,571 loud and passionate Montreal-ers crammed into the Olympic Stadium for a soccer game on February 25th, 2009, something happened in Canadian soccer that has yet to be duplicated in Canadian. It wasn’t an international friendly featuring some of the biggest names in the game—the fans were there to cheer on their own, local team in the CONCACAF Champions League.
Toronto FC Director of Team and Player Operations Earl Cochrane was in Montreal when that was going on and clearly remembers that 2-0 victory for the Impact.
“It was spectacular,” Cochrane said to local media who gathered at BMO Field Wednesday to talk about Toronto’s participation in the quarterfinals of the 2011-2012 edition of the competition. “I remember it really, really well because we had meetings around the Nutrilite competition at that time so we went to watch the game.”
“It was an enormous day for Canadian soccer. If we could duplicate something like that it would be spectacular.”
Toronto will know who they face when the competition resumes in March after next week’s draw but there are still matters that need to be worked out before it takes place.
In addition to building the squad for the competition and next year’s MLS calendar, the club is still figuring out whether to play at BMO or at Rogers Centre. If it were to take place in that massive circular tub at the base of the CN Tower, yet another decision must take place as to whether to use the Field Turf already there or to get grass. On top of that, where do you get grass from in March in Toronto?
“You’ve got to go somewhere where there’s no frost so you’re probably talking Carolinas, maybe Florida,” Cochrane said, adding that club members checked out the turf prior to last weekend’s NFL game at Roger’s Centre and that it’s an option but not an ideal one.
Cochrane says, at the very latest, that he hopes a decision will be made on where the game will take place by the end of this month, at the very latest.
Toronto will host the LA Galaxy, Santos Laguna or defending champions Monterrey on any of March 6-8 with the return leg coming the following week.
“It doesn’t matter for me,” head coach Aron Winter said about his potential opponents. “I think for the crowd it should be nice to play LA with their big names. They are also starting in the same period of the pre-season as we are doing and the Mexican teams have a break like in Europe when they don’t play and then they get the second half of the season but it doesn’t matter but to go further on, you have to beat everybody.”
As Winter pointed out, LA will be a team just wrapping up their pre-season, the same as Toronto while the Mexican clubs will be already be a few games into the Clausura portion of their league season so will likely have much more match fitness.
Winter noted what he wants to do between now and the time the Champions League resumes, with the new MLS season likely starting in between the two legs.
“I think from July until now, getting the right players on the right places on the pitch, they’ve done it well. I think if you watch the targets with the rebuilding, we are on the right track,” Winter said before adding that he wants to add to Toronto’s roster since there are so many games in the varying competitions.
Winter and Cochrane also discussed potential fixture congestion should the team advance in the competition, next season’s schedule with the addition of the MLS’ 20th team in Toronto and how the club is trying to petition the league to schedule the season so as to reduce the upwards of 60-thousand kilometres the team travelled over the course of last season. Winter also mentioned higher expectations in his second year, saying getting to the playoffs is one of his goals.
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