The  2011 U-Sector X-Mas X-Travaganza is upon us. This year’s party will take place on Saturday, December 17, at the Duke of Gloucester. Festivites begin around 8:00pm

The 19-year-old joined Toronto FC in the MLS SuperDraft back in January, after having impressed at the annual Combine a few days prior. Plata scored three times in MLS play this season, once in the Nutrilite Canadian Championship, and also added four goals in the CONCACAF Champions League.

His stellar play in the Canadian Championship was recognized by the tournament organizers, who awarded Plata with the George Gross Memorial Trophy as the competition’s most valuable player.

With his 2011 U-Sector Player of the Year Award, Plata joins previous winners Jim Brennan, Greg Sutton, Dwayne De Rosario and Stefan Frei as recepients of the coveted U-Sector beer mug. There’s no word yet on whether the mug will be scaled down in honour of Plata’s physical stature.

Tickets are $17 each, and we have a very limited amount of time to sell these, so buy your tickets now.

Use the link below to purchase tickets. PayPal account is not required for purchase, only a credit card

Group sales are over. For tickets, contact Ticketmaster.

The annual holiday party is the highlight of the off-season calendar, and this year’s edition is shaping up to be no different. All of your favourite elements of an X-Travaganza will be making their return this year – boozing, turkey and karaoke will be in full force.

Also, there will be raffles and 50/50 draws, so bring your spare change and your festive spirit. It’s party time!

RSVP to the U-Sector X-Mas X-Travaganza on Facebook.

For all attending USIL this week (December 11), please bring some non-perishable food items, gift cards, or even cash to donate to the cause. Even if you are not playing in USIL, please consider dropping by and giving whatever you can.

Every little bit helps.

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December 11th’s USIL games will take place at Danforth Tech (800 Greenwood Ave.). For more information on what we are collecting, please see this thread.

In fact, my family is from one of the few countries on Earth in which football is not king, which is probably why I took such a liking to Canadian soccer at an early age.

My father-son soccer stories are dominated by trips to Varsity Stadium in Toronto, Centennial Park in Etobicoke, Brian Timmis Stadium in Hamilton, and so on. I was raised on the Canadian game in the 80′s, a time when a truly Canadian league was thriving (at least from the player development standpoint).

As diehard Toronto Blizzard supporters, my dad and I almost always sat in from of the Blizzard’s humble supporters section. Not too different from its direct descendant U-Sector, the Blizzard supporters group stood at the back of Varsity, then Centennial, merrily chanting and having a good time supporting their side.

As a young father, my dad wasn’t too worried about the salty language coming from the “rowdies” behind us, in fact he would join in a lot of the time. As a young kid, I was hooked for life.

The Blizzard’s chief rival in the CSL days was the Hamilton Steelers, a dominant team led by a brash young striker from Montreal. For four seasons, the extremely gifted goal-scorer would toy with Toronto, scoring seemingly at will.

The Blizzard supporters would zero in on their antagonist, both at Centennial and on road trips to the Steelers’ home “stadium” in Ivor Wynne’s shadow.

That Hamilton player was, of course, Alex Bunbury.

In pre-game warm-ups and throughout the Hamilton-Toronto games, the Blizzard supporters would sing for the Steelers’ young talisman.

Bunbury’s a wanker! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap), Bunbury’s a wanker! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap).

Alex would revel in his hecklers’ attention, hamming it up, scoring goals, and inviting more scorn.

Those Hamilton-Toronto derbies quickly became my favourite part of the season, and Alex always did his part.

In the 1990 season, after growing into the role of chief antagonist for the Blizzard supporters, Alex switched sides.

Toronto traded for the striker, presumably in the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” frame of mind.

All that was left was to see how the rowdies would accept their most hated opponent into their ranks. The answer came immediately before the Blizzard’s first home game, when they started singing for their side’s newest star in the pre-game warmups.

Bunbury’s not a wanker, Bunbury’s not a wanker… na, na, na, na, hey! Na, na, na, na, hey!

Alex laughed and acknowledged his new admirers, a smile on his face from ear to ear.

Of course, his tenure in Toronto was short-lived, lasting only a year before he moved on to hometown Montreal. From there he headed to Europe, where after an initial stumble with West Ham he went on to shine at Maritimo in Portugal, where he is still beloved to this day.

And he became a Canadian national team legend, one of the greatest strikers to have ever donned our humble red and white.

When Alex’s son Teal starting breaking into the Canadian set up as a teenager, some Canadian fans were understandably excited. Tall, powerful, quick, and gifted with both his head and his feet, Teal possessed the same raw tools that his father displayed a decade previous.

Born to an American mother and having been raised mostly in the U.S., he started drawing interest from the American program while still playing for Canada’s U-17 side. Teal would have nothing of it though, stating on numerous occasions that he was proud to wear Canada’s colours and that he felt Canadian.

Upon reading the news of his defection, I was immediately taken back to that song the Blizzard rowdies used to sing for his dad before Alex joined Toronto.

Bunbury’s a… Yank.

Posted by Rudi Schuller

Swiss goalkeeper Stefan Frei, the second-year standout who is asked to perform miracles game in and game out, was the top vote getter for 2010.

The 24-year-old continued his rise as arguably the best young keeper in MLS with a season full of impressive performances. Frei has posted 11 clean sheets so far in 2010, with eight of those coming in league play. Frei is among the league leaders in both shots faced and saves made, so the increased workload hasn’t deterred has progression as a premier shot stopper in the league. Despite a sometimes very leaky defence in front of him, the former UC Berkeley man always stood out as a giant in the defensive end, coming up with many world class saves to keep his side in the game.

While he was also a great shot stopper in his rookie year, Frei’s confidence grew in 2010, which could be seen by his new-found aggressiveness and superior positional play. This all-round growth contributed to a landslide victory for Frei in this year’s Player of the Year voting, with the keeper amassing 50 per cent of the votes, more than double that of the second-highest vote-getter, last year’s winner Dwayne De Rosario.

Congrats to Stefan Frei for his standout season. He will receive his award — along with De Rosario for 2009 — in a ceremony at a later date.

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