Matches are as follows:

2:45pm -  Semi One: Winter Blazers vs. BBB FK
3:45pm -  Semi Two: Arse & All vs. MadFerIt

5:45pm – Final

Good luck to all four participating teams.

BMO Field faithful will be heading to a vastly different stadium than they’ve become used to. The new $3.5 million natural grass surface is installed and cheerfully green, replacing the worn out artificial turf that was the bane of many a Toronto player’s existence. A new 1200- seat north stand now sits menacingly atop the old beer garden, forcing opposing goalkeepers to take verbal abuse for the full 90 minutes.

Of course, the most important thing on display will be the actual football. TFC is still very much a work in progress, and it hosts a Philly side that  will surely be on a high after a smashing home debut that saw the Union dispatch local rival DC United on the back of Sebastien Le Toux’s hat-trick.

Toronto officially welcomed two more players into the fold this week, with Russain defender Maxim Usanov and Canadian centre back Adrian Cann joining the side. Hometown boy Cann looks to become just the second player in history to play for all three Canadian professional clubs, as he has seen time with both the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps in previous years. TFC fans hope that Cann will usurp Nick Garcia’s spot in the lineup, as at this point any option is better than the beleaguered American.

Philadelphia looks more like a typical MLS expansion side than last year’s debutante Seattle Sounders did, although like the Sounders Philly has shown that it knows how to win its opening home match.

Built around a relatively strong defensive corps and a very young attacking nucleus, look for the Union to be inconsistent this year, as teenaged rookies Danny Mwanga, Jack McInerney and Roger Torres – along with older freshman Tony Stahl – try to grow into the league.

Torres has so far shown the most promise in these early days, displaying an attacking flair from the midfield reminiscent of his countryman Fredy Montero.

Union coach Piotr Nowak hopes MLS veterans Alejandro Moreno and Fred can provide leadership to the young guns, and both should start against the Reds on the grass at BMO tomorrow night.

The game will likely be won or lost for the Reds based on the intensity they can bring over the entire 90 minutes. Against New England, Toronto looked fabulous in the first half and dreadful in the second, and such a swing in consistency will prove to be a killer should it happen again for TFC. Philly came out flying in the opening 10-15 minutes of both of their matches thus far, which is to be expected given the large youth movement in that side. If Toronto can withstand the initial onslaught, and maybe even tally an early goal themselves, then tomorrow’s match will be TFC’s for the taking.

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Please feel free to join U-Sector at its new preseason home Maro, which is located at 135 Liberty Street (just south of Lamport Stadium). Doors open at 3:30pm.

Amsterdam is the featured beer, and will be selling at $4 per cup and $15 per jug. All other drinks will be sold at regular Maro prices.

Though the future of food is not yet certain, please be mindful that there will be no food service on this occasion.

Maro will be open to U-Sector throughout the season for pre-game ONLY (there are a couple of exceptions), and thus will not be available for post-game. Those who wish to join U-Sector post game are invited to The Done Right Inn (861 Queen Street West).

Also, U-Sector will be marching to the stadium with the Red Patch Boys, starting at 6:30pm at the corner of Fraser and Liberty.

Posted by Rudi Schuller

Those three words can be used to describe a couple of things about TFC’s latest visit to the barren, inhospitable land known as Gillette Stadium. The second half, for example, was most definitely a complete shambles. As was allowing the fastest hat-trick in MLS history (13 minutes) to be scored by a player who had previously notched a grand total of zero goals.

That Nick Garcia’s night was not a complete shambles may surprise even the staunchest of his defenders (assuming they existed, of course. Which they don’t, not any more.)

No, Garcia’s night was not a complete shambles. It was, however, encapsulated by a split second so boneheaded that it completely nullified everything else the man did on the fake turf in Foxborough.

Truth be told, Garcia had a good first half. So did the rest of the team, actually. While TFC’s first half of play Saturday night will never be compared to Brazil circa 1970, they were doing exactly what they needed to do on the road. They were grinding out a result, and on the way to stealing a point (or three).

Then came halftime.

What followed was reminiscent of the worst of the inaugural season. A complete breakdown ensued, embodied by utterly shambolic, amateur-hour defending and a total loss of whatever cohesion the Reds (in white) puit on display in the opening stanza. The 2010 Toronto FC squad entered the locker room at halftime, only to be replaced by the 2007 version.

The best thing that could be said of the result was that Toronto is on a shortened week, and thus they have less time to dwell on the abject failure of the weekend.

Expansion Philadelphia is in town on Thursday, fresh of a morale-boosting 3-2 home opening victory over hapless DC United. The Union will be buoyed by their first ever points in MLS, but they are still a toothless expansion side that were fortunate enough to run into an Eastern Conference foe in disarray. Whether Toronto plays like they did in the first half of Saturday’s game or not will determine if Philly were fortunate enough to run into two Eastern Conference foes in disarray, back to back.

On to the pros and cons:

PROS

• Dwayne De Rosario finding his scoring touch, on a beautiful header
• The total team effort in the first half
• The travelling support, which is still unmatched in this league
• This:

CONS

• Nick Garcia continuing to start
• The ridiculous team defending of the second half
• Joseph Nane’s attempt to outdo Garcia in the failed back pass dept, and succeeding
• Making Zack Schilawski look like a Juan Pablo Angel
• Still no goal scoring threats outside of new captain DeRo

Posted by Rudi Schuller

All the best of the season to all TFC supporters, U-Sector or otherwise.

If you haven’t already, have a look at the 2009 U-Sector Christmas Reel below. It’ll have you chomping at the bit for the 2010 season to arrive.

Here’s hoping for a trophy-filled 2010 for Toronto FC, and even greater stuff coming from the stands at BMO Field!

De Rosario broke scoring records in 2009.

Dwayne De Rosario is the 2009 U-Sector Player of the Year.

De Rosario was the overwhelming choice, garnering 52 per cent of the vote. U-Sector voters did not ignore the burgeoning talent of 20-year-old Canadian sophomore defender Nana Attakora, who claimed the second place with nearly 15 per cent. Amado Guevara, with just under 13 per cent of the votes, rounded out the top three.

Scarborough native De Rosario becomes the third straight Canadian to win the Award, following inaugural recipient Jim Brennan (2007) and 2008 Award winner Greg Sutton.

De Ro’s first season for his hometown side was an extremely productive one, with the midfielder re-writing the Toronto FC goalscoring records in just a single season. He tallied 11 goals in MLS play in 2009, along with an historic hat-trick in the Nutrilite Canadian Championship – the first ever TFC hat-trick – that secured the Voyageurs Cup and brought Toronto its first ever trophy. De Rosario’s 14 goals in competitive play in 2009 stands as both the single-season and all-time career records for TFC’s brief history.

The Canadian international is, of course, no stranger to receiving accolades for his play. He is a two-time MLS Cup MVP, a two-time consecutive MLS Goal of the Year winner (’04 & ‘05), and he was named the Canadian Male Player of the Year three times running (’05-’07).

This season he added more awards to his considerable trophy case, being named the first ever Canadian recipient of the George Gross Memorial Trophy for the outstanding player in the Canadian Championship, and joining the MLS Best XI for the fourth time. In addition, De Rosario also received the TFC team MVP and Golden Boot awards.

Along with the U-Sector award, De Ro was also voted by the Red Patch Boys as that group’s Man of the Year.

The 2009 U-Sector Player of the Year Award will be presented to Dwayne De Rosario at a later date.

Posted by Rudi Schuller

Greg Sutton's 2008 Player of the Year Award.

It’s voting time.

Head to the poll on the message board and select your U-Sector 2009 Player of the Year.

Voting is open until Tuesday, November 25, at 12:00pm.

It’s been far too long since we’ve had a proper website to go along with the message board, so I’ve decided that the creation of a new website is a priority for the (all too long) off-season.

The new site will be simple and elegant, and should integrate quite nicely with what is a great, stable board.

It’ll be a few weeks or months before a permanent site will be completed, so in the meantime I’ve opened up this WordPress temp site to create a bit more content to compliment our board and give the entire usector.ca a more complete feel.

Even though this is a temp site, it is itself a work in progress as I learn the software and tweak little things like the colours and layout.

I’ll be writing some blog pieces here and conveying important info (like the USIL Draft Day), but I’d like to get a few, talented people to blog here as well. There are some excellent writers on the board whose scribblings would translate well into a more prominent front-page area, so if any of those types are interested, please contact me and I’ll set you up, both here and on the future site.

Posted by Rudi Schuller