The problem with rooting for a 4th rate team

Right now in Vancouver everyone is going nuts about the Canucks. It’s been awesome getting caught up in it. To be honest it was pretty easy to drop the Leafs, I think like other Hamiltonians I’ve always had a nagging suspicion they were part of the reason why Hamilton can’t seem to get an NHL team. On top of that I’ve never actually seen the Leafs live. I’ve seen the sabers a bunch of times and even made it to a Chicago game, but no Leafs game.

You can definitely feel a vibe around the city, everyone is psyched and basically in a better mood. But that’s not what this post is really about.

This weekend the Blue Jays won a series against the A’s and are looking pretty awesome, especially considering they were supposed to suck this year. Arsenal, the team I follow in the premiership lost a crushing semi final game in the FA cup to Chelsea (thanks for that Fabianski). And finally AZ won the Dutch Eredivisie with 5 weeks left in the season. Despite all these sporting events taking place this weekend, none of these are the one that I’m thinking about the most right now.

To my extreme dismay I’ve realized this weekend that I am an out and out Toronto FC fanatic. I’ve known this was basically the case for a long time but this weekend I realized just how far gone I am.

I use Google reader to check the blogs I frequent, of the 9 sports blogs I follow, 8 of them are about Toronto FC (the other is about the Vikings). These aren’t even always just about TFC either, there’s one called MLS Rumors I follow that reports on, you guessed it, rumors about the league. This isn’t the premiereship so most of the rumors are about some strange kid from Ecuador I’ve never heard of, but I’m so dillusional I think these guys can turn my team around. People laughed at Man City supporters who thought Robinho could turn their team around. They’d have a field day with me when I was getting excited about Toronto possibly getting this guy. Seriously look at his hair cut! I even follow one called MLS Draft. I bet most people don’t even know (or care) that the MLS holds a draft.

After another crushing loss to FC Dallas, who hadn’t had a win until today against Toronto I’m at a serious cross roads. Given that Vancouver is going to be in the league in 2011 do I shift all my devotion to a team that I can almost guarantee will be better* ? I know it’s still 2 years away and god knows where I’ll be living, but how often are you allowed to do a team audit in your life? On top of that look at the teams I already root for:

Tiger Cats – nuff said. This team stabs me in the heart 9 years in a row, wins a grey cup every 10 then goes back to stabbing me in the heart.

Vikings – 4 time superbowl losers.

Blue Jays – man I love Cito but the AL East is no easy task.

Arsenal – ok this is a good team, but seriously can anyone watch the premiership without being a fan of the big 4? Picking Man U or Chelsea is like rooting for the Yankees and when I lived in London for a summer I was near Highbury.

I’m giving TFC an ultimatum. I will give them 2 more years of unyielding fandom but they better pull up their performance. Otherwise I’m going to make a move to a team that I’m sure will cause me less stress. There’s very few times in my life I feel I’m allowed to do this without looking like a jerk so I’m seriously considering it.


* How do I know the Whitecaps will be better than Toronto FC you ask? Well on top of Toronto being owned by MLSE here’s a few other reasons:

- The Whitecaps run hands down the best soccer academy in all of North America, it’s also one of the few residency programs in North America. In a recent tournament they beat out Manchester City, AC Milan, Eintracht Frankfurt and whole bunch of other big academy squads to make the finals which they lost to an Argentinian team.

- During the qualifications for the U-20 world cup almost half the team was made up of Vancouver Academy players. On top of that they had a player (Randy Edwini-Bonsu) who scored EVERY goal for them during qualifications.

- They have another player right now (Dever Orgill) in their academy system who’s already having rumors linking him to a premiership team. The dude hasn’t even played for them this season yet.

- They won the USL last year, yeah it’s a lesser league but the coach needs to know what he’s doing to win it.

- This isn’t why they’d be better, more just an opinion. I’d prefer to root for a team that was developing their own talent and on the forefront of developing the top Canadian talent. Though this isn’t entirely TFC’s fault, MLS has some weird rules about academies, the CBA is about to be negotiated again and Academy rules are about to change, even still TFC won’t be able to catch up to where Vancouver’s at anytime soon.