The new MLS season is so close now!
In just ten days, I'll be joining over 2,000 of my fellow Toronto FC fans for a light-hearted but passionate opening-day invasion of Columbus, Ohio.
It used to be the only thing 2,000 soccer fans in this town would ever do together is not show up for a Toronto Lynx game.
Now, bus after bus is booked, and an armada of private cars is being prepared. One entire end of Columbus's Crew Stadium – the prototype for the soccer-specific facilities being built all over MLS - BMO Field among them – is sold out entirely to Toronto fans ready to paint the joint red.
Granted, Toronto FC, the soccer team, didn't accomplish much on the field last year, in the first season of top-flight pro soccer Canada's biggest city has seen since way back in the early eighties. But the fans – They got something done!
BMO Field was rocking on opening day, and the thunder rolled on from spring, to summer, to fall. And even though their beloved Redcoats fell into last place overall on the last afternoon of the season, that didn't keep thousands of TFC true believers from staging one of the safest, nicest and happiest pitch invasions the sport has ever seen, whooping it up in the abandoned centre circle long after the final whistle had sounded – and died – in the swirling late-afternoon air.
TFC fans were well-known on the road, too. Not much of a turnout at the first road game, but that was in Carson City, California. As soon as the team got close to home – Foxboro, Massachusetts – the packed buses started rolling south. TFC got drilled 4-0 that night, but supporters groups across the continent were put on notice: TFC fans were going all-out to be the loudest, most loyal, longest-travelling fans in the league.
But never, throughout that entire wild ride, did the number of travelling fans break into the thousands. Now, it has.
Columbus, in central Ohio, a good drive south of Cleveland, just happens to be the closest other MLS city to BMO Field. It also just happens to be opening day. With all winter to plan – and miss the team – the fans have been very, very busy.
U-Sector, Red Patch Boys, North End Elite, Tribal Rhythm Nation and the rest are mobilizing, and when these folks get focused, a lot of great stuff happens pretty fast. The number of sign-ups hit the hundreds almost instantly, then one thousand, then two – and we likely won't know the final number till we all get back.
The buses will leave long before dawn, cross the border in twilight and roll south in excited expectation, arriving comfortably before the scheduled late-afternoon kickoff. Two hours of stomping, singing and ecstatic, boisterous exuberance later, we'll all be ready – in triumph, we all hope – to hit the town.
This prospect isn't sitting well with some of the Columbus fans. There's always going to be strong words, back and forth on the Internet,
when an “invasion” like this one is in the works. But we're not going down there looking for trouble. This is going to be a blast, and I look forward to laughing and celebrating with amused, friendly Columbus fans after the match.
The fans want to send two key messages to the team. We want you to do better on the field this year – and – we're with you all the way, regardless.
Yeah, yeah – what's a “journalist” doing saying “we?” Being a fan, of course. I love being able to cover this wonderful game, but I was a soccer fan long before I was ever a soccer writer. When I write about Toronto FC journalistically – coaching moves, player signings – I'll obey all currently established protocols for journalistic professionalism.
But I do cheer for them – including in the pressbox. Or, rather, from my perch on the roof beside the pressbox.
There are plenty of scribes out there who can cover this team dispassionately, with no personal commitment at all, other than doing a good job and filing the story on time. But that's not why I'm here, and it's not what I came here to do.
I'm a fan first, and I can't wait to roll down through Ohio and see the looks on everyone's faces when literally thousands of red-clad nutbars from Trawna descend on Crew Stadium at the same time.
It's not that long ago – two years, tops – when this entire Toronto FC thing was just a far-fetched fantasy. Then it came true, and with the new season it's coming true all over again. I'm going to write a ton of stuff about this trip, the fans, the passion – the dream!
If you're not coming, I am going to take … you … there!
This is the new day, and it's dawning TFC red.
Onward!
