Carolina Challeng Cup - Toronto FC 0 - 1 San Jose Earthquakes

A terrible match. Not only by Toronto FC, but by the Quakes as well. The second half was long ball back and forth and was absolutely dreadful to watch.

TFC began the match with Sutton, Velez, Marshall, James, Brennan, Brittain, Robinson, Pacheco, Dunnivant, Dichio, and Cunningham. At half time Samuel came in for Dichio and Harmse was in for Pacheco.

No Pozniak today for San Jose. Ronnie O'Brien did play on the right wing and played provider off of a corner kick for the goal. Aside from that, he wasn't noticeably great.

I'm not entirely sure John Carver took this game too seriously judging by the half time substitutions. Down 1-0 at the half from a terrible goal, subbing off our best forward as well as putting on a defensive midfielder for an attacking midfielder aren't exactly "attacking" tactics.

Cunningham looked unmotivated and slow. This may have been because of his lack of service though. Julius James looked solid on defense, more so than Tyrone Marshall. Velez is no Marvell Wynne at right back, however he did a good job and would be an excellent addition to the team for some depth. This was the worst I've seen Robbo play with us - and he was my favourite player from last season - so I'm not too impressed with what he showed. Dunnivant and Brennan looked okay on the left side. I was wondering why Dunnivant was at LM instead of LB and vice versa with Jimmy. Martin Brittain (Reed pronounced his name Brit-ayne) didn't see enough of the ball for me. When he did get the ball, he seemed to move towards making a run at a defender and turn back. He didn't impress me. Collin Samuel looked energetic when he came on at half time and was far more impressive than Cunningham. Kevin Harmse rarely saw the ball however made no real noticeable mistakes when it came his way. Sutton looked comfortable and made a pretty nice save off of a breakaway. There was nothing he could do on the goal - it was caused by lackluster defending.

What about Pacheco? For me, he was the best player on the field for us. From what I can remember, he didn't lose possession for us once, and he won 2 or 3 free kicks. In my opinion, he should have claimed some of those kicks from Robbo, especially one from about 25 yards from goal. I have a feeling Mo and Carver have made up their minds on this guy, as he was taken off at half time along with Dichio - someone who will certainly be here on the 29th.

Any positives? Last year we beat the Red Bulls in this tournament and they made the playoffs. This shows how bad this result seems. However, I think we need to get Pacheco's signature from pen to paper. We can use this guy - he looked very positive tonight.

A fellow RPB on the forum said that it is so good to see our guys playing again, yet it hurt at the same time. I couldn't agree more. It was great to see them play, but the game was so bad it hurt.

The game of course is not yet over, it is at 76:16 and there is a cancellation due to lightning. If it does continue and we can conjure up an equalizer, it will make this game a little bit better. Just a little bit.

Hopefully we can play something that looks like "football" on Wednesday.