Hey guys,
One of the biggest changes this year in the MLS is who makes the playoffs. Usually it was the top 4 from each conference, now it's the top 8 point getters in the Supporter's Shield standings. I think it's a big improvement. It makes the league way more competitive. So this being the end of Round 3 of 30, these are the standings right now.

yea! Go NY and CHI!

uh, what?

After Round 4, the top & bottom 2 haven't changed and Kansas City had the biggest gain and my beloved Houston Dynamo had the biggest drop.
The matchup between NY & Chicago isn't until May 24th at Giants Stadium.

Houston Dynamo had the best week ever moving up 5 spots.
The Wizards & Revolution moved from 3-4 to 1-2, respectively and NY & Chicago moved down two spots.
DC United's win over Chivas and tie against Real Salt Lake put them up one spot over RSL.
Toronto is looking for their first goal but has announced matches against Benfica and Aston Villa.

More Toronto FC news in addition to the Benfica and Aston Villa games SimonTexas noted.

The team has set an MLS record with their season ticket sales cut off at 14,500. They have set a dubious league record by not scoring a goal now in their first 4 games. The other news that gives another indication of just how popular they are is that the team - in addition to being an obvious hit at the box office - are a hit in the sports stores too. Adidas - which supplies the MLS expansion team - reports that sales of Toronto FC products are 3 times greater than what they ever experienced for any other MLS team launch.

Now if they can just score a goal! Will it come this Saturday at BMO Field against Chicago? Lets hope so.

Toronto FC gets its first-ever goal and first-ever win today vs. Chicago Fire (drat, but I missed watching the game!).

Best Week Ever: Toronto FC
After trouncing Chicago Fire with goals and seat cushions TFC beat my beloved Dynamo 1-0 last night.
Welsh got his first goal of the season and with the 2-game winning streak, Toronto has moved up 3 spots while Houston has gone down 3.

Best Week Ever: FC Dallas
Similar to Toronto, Dallas beat Chicago Fire 2-1 on Thursday then went home to beat Real Salt Lake also 2-1. Dallas grabbed 6 points to lead the west and is only 1 point behind red-hot New England who beat my beloved Dynamo 1-0 on Saturday. 1-0 is becoming a familiar score to Houston. All 4 of our losses this season ended with that score. Five teams stayed in the same place this week. The two games to watch this week are Chicago Fire v. New York Red Bulls on Thursday and Kansas City Wizards v. New England Revolution on Saturday.

Best Week Ever: New York
The Red Bulls have returned to the top of the standings. Juan Pablo Angel has been voted MLS player of the month and with this kind of exposure he's sure to get a nomination for 2008 King of the Hardwood! Looks like this acquisition was worth the loot. RBNY crushed the slagging Fire 3-nil. Chicago has been on a very slow decline after a hot start and DC United is slowing climbing the standings looking for last year's success. Kansas City nearly got BWE but Johnson had to score a hat trick to beat the hot Revolution who suffered their first loss since the beginning of the season.
So this brings up our match of the week: Kansas City Wizards v. Red Bull New York (Look for it on the Dish Network)

After a big 2 - 1 win over Colorado on a hot Saturday at sold-out BMO Field with a decimated roster - this Wednesday Toronto FC host the New York Red Bull. After their struggling 0- 4 start - since then Toronto FC are 3 wins, 1 loss and 1 tie. Not bad for a first year team.

The win against colorado was especially impressive considering a number of their players were not available.
Three of them (goalkeeper Greg Sutton and defenders Adam Braz and Marco Reda) were in Maracaibo, Venezuela. The TFC trio and the rest of the Canadian national team will play an exhibition with Venezuela on Friday before heading to Miami for the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Four members of the reserve squad (midfielder Cristian Nunez, defenders Gabe Gala, Nana Attakora-Gyan and Stephen Lumley) were in northern Ontario with the Canadian under-20 national team training for the upcoming U-20 World Cup. These four and Toronto forward Andrea Lombardo were all named to the U-20 team's roster for two exhibition matches against the United States on Sunday and Wednesday and midfielder Carl Robinson was with the Welsh national team in Cardiff, preparing for a Euro 2008 qualifying game against the Czech Republic on Saturday.

Now comes the tough part for Toronto FC. After a stretch of 6 of 7 games at home - including a 4 - 0 romp over Dallas yesterday - they must leave the friendly and wild confines of their always sold out BMO Field home nest and hit the road for 6 games. The wild raucous crowds in Toronto - another sellout of over 20,000 yesterday - continue to impress. These quotes from today's Star. "They've been magnificent," said (coach) Johnston of the fans (he was impressed by Djekanovic, too). Midfielder Ronnie O'Brien, who used to play for Dallas, said he encountered some fans visiting from there and told them: "Look at this!" as in this is the way a soccer atmosphere is supposed to be. "It's a credit to the city," he said.

Unfortunately they don't play another home game until July 25 when they host a friendly against Aston Villa - before their next home league game July 29 against Chicago. Then the August 5th insanity of David Beckham's MLS league debut with the visit of the Galaxy. Some ticket brokers are asking over $500.00 a ticket for that game!

While Toronto FC are on the road BMO Field will still be the place to be - or at least one of them - as the FIFA Under 20 World Cup takes over Centre stage at BMO Field and other stadiums across Canada. Almost 900,000 tickets have now been sold for those games and scalpers are already asking for over $500.00 for the final in Toronto on July 22. Over 500 million viewers world wide are expected to watch the final from BMO Field on July 22. It should be nuts!

At the beginning of the season I heard that the top 8 total point getters would go to the playoffs. Recently I heard it would be the top 2 from each conference and then the next top 4 total point getters. Can anyone confirm this? If the latter is the case the standings below is how it looks after round 18. It is still the top 8 but that is just by happenstance.
Best Week Ever: Real Salt Lake
RSL beat Houston 1-0 and stopped the Dynamo 11-game unbeaten streak in league play.
I'll be in Denver for the Rapids - Dynamo match on August 11th. The Rapids are in need of 3 points and the Dynamo want a good, strong showing going into the re-match with Pachuca in the Superliga semifinal.

Are any other Outsporters going to be at the match? Send me a PM.

Of course the hype surrounding Beckham will be the major story of the year for the MLS - although he hardly played due to injuries. But close on the heals of that story would be the incredible success of Toronto FC. No the team did not make the playoffs, and yes at one point they went well over a month without scoring a goal, setting new futility records for the MLS. But the way this team was embraced by the fans of Toronto - selling out every game - with a waiting list for season tickets - and already a 95% renewal rate for next year from the over 14,000 season ticket subscribers, and the exuberance of those fans - that was one of the great stories of the year for the MLS.

Plus the success of Toronto FC makes it almost certain that Montreal and Vancouver will be added to the MLS very soon. In fact Toronto FC have already struck up a partnership with the Whitecaps in Vancouver and the Impact in Montreal who play in the USL - and the Whitecaps will play an exhibition game in November against Beckham and the Galaxy.

But the incredible story here in Toronto - the fans! TFC fans quite simply are the best soccer fans in North America. The atmosphere at BMO Field (pronounced B-MO) was incredible. In yesterday's final game for TFC against New England the place was electric. And when crowd favourite Danny Dichio - who scored the franchise's first goal - came off the bench - injured - to score the game tying goal in stoppage time it sparked a celebration that would rival that when a team wins a championship. Simply wonderful!
http://toronto.fc.mlsnet.com/media/player/..._free&_mp=1

I've never been a big soccer fan and didn't really follow Toronto's first season, although I suppose if I lived there I might become more interested. I'm happy to hear about the team's success in drawing support. Something that puzzled me, however, was the very bland, un-original choice of name for the team. It seemed akin to calling the Maple Leafs the "Toronto HT". But upon reading this excerpt from Wikipedia, I guess it makes more sense now:

The name of the club was officially announced on May 11, 2006 by the team's owner, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE).[1] The "FC" in the team's name is the conventional initialism for Football Club, but in official media and documents the team has only been referred to as Toronto FC, never Toronto Football Club. Larry Tannenbaum, chairman of MLSE, stated at the team name's unveiling that "I think the way we spell it is 'futbol'."[2] In a Q&A posted on the MLSnet website, it was made clear that "FC" stood for "Football Club."[3]

The announcement followed an online consultation in which the public was invited to vote on the name during a limited period. The voting options were "Toronto Nationals," "Inter Toronto," "Toronto Reds," "Toronto FC," and "Toronto Northmen." MLSE's strategy in choosing "Toronto FC" following this process was based on two reasons. First, over 40% of the online vote supported this name in the consultation. Second, MLSE hoped that with this fairly generic name the new club would earn a more organic nickname from the Toronto fans rather than have one imposed from above. This has slowly happened over the course of the club's first season, with Toronto FC widely referred to simply by the initials "TFC," or the "Reds" (their home kit colour) including on the MLS website. The team colours are red, white and grey.

Hey Marc:
I've never really been a huge soccer fan either although I have always gotten caught up in the craziness of the World cup because this city (Toronto) just goes insane for that event. Every night somewhere there would be a party happening with thousands on the street depending on who won that day. That passion had just never been captured by any previous attempt at professional soccer in Toronto - but boy Toronto FC certainly have. The craziness of the crowd is just infectious when you go to a game at BMO Field and it starts with the tailgate party like atmosphere before every home game. I've never cheered, chanted and sung so much at a game - and my team didn't even score a goal!

They've added a few hundred seats to BMO Field since it opened - but clearly it won't be long before they have to do a more substantial addition to the facility. I believe it holds almost 21,000 now - but they have already sold out season tickets for next year at 16,000, up from 14,000 this year with a sizeable waiting list. That does not leave a lot of single game tickets to be sold. Through a friend who does have season tickets I already have my tickets for 3 games next season!

A taste of the fun crowd moments at BMO Field this past season.

Corner kicks for the opposition - good luck!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb7C_pKF8bc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW-5cek2bzQ

And Dichio's tying goal was the MLS goal of the week. Here it is - this time as called on the CBC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ycJ3IcD9z8

And what the heck - here's when he scored the first goal in franchise history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQvz01OKrsA

And because that goal came at the 24 minute mark - here is the Danny Dichio chant that rolls around B-MO Field at the 24 minute mark of every game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ri3BJcEi_I

And a nice musical tribute to the team and its fans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulXGj1V3IIQ
If you are ever in Toronto when TFC have a home game - go! You'll have a blast!