You’ve got to hand it to US soccer’s scheduling gods: their ability to bewilder knows no bounds sometimes. With ten teams and no inter-conference games to fit in, you’d maybe think a balanced schedule would be a plausible reality.

And yet, going into Saturday’s game, TFC II had already played two of nine opposing teams twice, and had yet to meet three of them. The draw with Chattanooga Red Wolves (not the guys with the Chattahooligans) brought that second figure down to two.

The game won’t live long in the memory – not the first 63 minutes especially – but it could’ve been a lot worse.

Heavy Rotation

With this being their third game in nine days, changes were always coming. In all, four of eleven who ended North Texas’s run were switched out, including a return for Caleb Patterson-Sewell in goal.

With Perruzza still out, there was no rest for Jacob Shaffelburg or Matt Srbely, but Jordan Faria found himself replaced by Trev Swartz on the left wing. Does this mean his days as TFC II’s second-string left-back are done? We can only hope.



Return of the Brampton Tiger

Heartening as it was to see Trev overlapping with left-back Terique Mohammed as he once did with Andrew Gutman, the big surprise on the teamsheet was the presence of one Shaan Hundal. The termination of his loan at Ottawa seemed to have been done so quietly, our learned commentator didn’t seem to be aware he’d been there at all.

Then again, you could say the same about Nikola Popovic.

Anyway, he couldn’t have been more welcome as he almost single-handedly dragged Toronto into the game. All you really need to know about the first 63 minutes is that the kids didn’t register a single shot on target.

When Shaan subbed in for Trev, it wouldn’t have been inappropriate for him to have rappelled onto the pitch out of a helicopter that’d flown him straight from Bank Street. His impact was that dramatic.

Within six minutes, Shaan pulled the Reds level, stabbing home a corner kick at close range. Within ten minutes, he’d helped put them ahead, hitting the pass to Luca Petrasso that led to Shaff’s far-post tap-in.

He nearly set Srbely up for a third with an overhead volley that Matty ultimately mishit. Finally, in the 94th minute, he came within inches of winning the game, but Shaff’s cross came too late for him to get enough power behind the shot. Still, not a bad run-out for a guy who’d only played five minutes of soccer since October.

Ayala He Ain’t

Despite giving up a late(ish) equalizer, there’s not much fault to found with Toronto’s backline. Both goals came off corners, and I’m not totally above pinning the first one on Caleb for not grabbing a hovering teammate and parking them by the near post.

With Julian Dunn missing for reasons unknown (he was switched out as halftime against North Texas, so rest and injury both possible), Franco Ramos Mingo got his first start since that inauspicious debut in Florida.

Things went marginally better this time – he played out the full game for a start – though he did cop an early yellow for flattening a Red Wolf inside his own half. He also featured in a curious passage of play early in the second half wherein, for about five minutes, every time the ball found its way to him, he’d punt it long and inevitably turn it over.

So, still room for improvement from the Boca boy. Remains to be seen what’ll happen to his place on depth chart should Rocco Romeo and/or Bosko come back this summer.