WHO:

Toronto FC II, 4-4-23, 16 points, 16th place Eastern Conference, already eliminated from the playoffs

WHAT:

REVENGE.

WHEN:

Friday, October 5, 2018, 8:00 p.m.

WHERE:

Lamport Stadium, 1155 King Street West, Toronto, ON M6K 1E9, Canada

WATCH:

I’m sure there’s a watch party for this match but I have no idea where it is. My advice is to drive around town looking for a lot of people wearing purple, but not in a Prince-y way, and go wherever they’re going. Or follow the Prince-y people, you might actually have more fun doing that. Maybe. Our usual spots are at Against the Grain, Saints, Butchertown Pizza Hall, Falls City Brewing, and either Molly Malone’s. If you decide to stay in because you’re recovering from mistakenly believing that backflips are easy, then you can watch the game on WBKI 58, listen on 1080 WKJK, or stream it like most people on ESPN+.

WHO, AGAIN?

I almost want to cut-and-paste the preview I wrote when we last played these jerks a few weeks ago. They’re bad, they were bad then, and they’re bad now. They’re bad on the road. They’re bad at home, though slightly less bad. They can’t defend, and they can’t score. EXCEPT when they play the top of the table. Which is very weird.

2FC only has sixteen points in thirty one matches played. However, of those sixteen points, three came off of Louisville City in a very embarrassing home loss, one came from Cincinnati, three came from Nashville, they scored three goals at Nippert in a narrow loss early in September, and picked up another three points at Charleston last weekend. They drew Red Bulls II twice.

I don’t get it.

Yes, Torontwo has some talented players, as do most MLS2 teams. Yes, like most MLS2 teams, the goal is to make those players better so they can start playing for the first team, not winning games. Exhibit A: TFCII’s record ever since joining USL. These guys lost to Atlanta TWICE, FFS. They lost to Richmond. There is zero reason for Louisville City to ever drop any points to these guys, and yet we seem to do with with alarming consistency.

This really is a game where, so long as Morados don’t beat themselves with dumb mistakes, they should win comfortably. Given the fact that they got pasted at Slugger in these two teams’ last meeting, I should expect the squad to have some added motivation to prove that they can beat the worst USL team since Antigua Barracuda. City got roasted on the counter in that game, and I expect that they’ll take some extra pains to keep that from happening even once tonight.

Whether John Hackworth feels that he needs to make some personnel changes or some tactical adjustments to prevent that remains to be seen. My guess is the “play one central midfielder” plan won’t be resurrected, and the “let Paolo and Speedy do what they do” plus “Niall plays a little deeper behind the other two AMs” plan gets refined, all in service of not getting caught too high up the field and also getting the other three attackers better service from Zone 14. Or not, I don’t know, I’m just an idiot with a WordPress password. Let’s rip some holes in those Canadian nets, pick up the three points those Ontarians took from us last time, and roll right along.

¡VAMOS MORADOS, TE AMAMOS!