Toronto FC II News Release – www.torontofc.ca

Friday, April 17, 2015

TORONTO – With a week off to regroup and prepare, Toronto FC II continues its travels with a trip out west against a fellow Canadian rival. Coach Jason Bent and his side seek to spoil another home opener, like they did against FC Montreal, when they take on Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2 on Sunday at UBC Thunderbird Stadium.

Having this rare time off early in the season looks to have been helpful for the young squad, with the coaching staff able to take stock of the season thus far and reinforce what has been going well and what hasn’t.

“We’ve been looking at tape to see the areas where we’ve been letting ourselves down,” Bent said. “Particularly defensively, where we’ve been adjusting our speed of play and working on things both individually and collectively.”

With a derby, some added buzz is going into this match.

“I view this as a rivalry game 1000 percent,” Bent said. “We approached the Montreal game the exact same way. We want to be known as the best Canadian franchise in developing the best Canadian players, so this is a good opportunity for us to put a stamp on that.”

The Opposition
The Whitecaps have been seen for quite a while as the top Canadian development system in the professional ranks, having helped produce quite a few national team players through its residency program. With TFC Academy coming on in recent years, a natural competition has developed between the two clubs.

Forward Caleb Clarke, Kianz Froese and fellow midfielder Ben McKendry are WFC 2 players to keep an eye on. The play of McKendry could decide who wins the midfield battle. His skills as a playmaker, being able to set up the forwards with through balls or crosses might come into play. He’s also a player that Bent is very familiar with.

“McKendry is a central midfielder with a good range of passing,” Bent said. “I remember scouting him when he was playing for University of New Mexico. He’s got a lot of potential.”

Individual Battle to Watch
One of the interesting 1v1 battles will be WFC 2 defender Jackson Farmer against TFC II forward Mark-Anthony Kaye, both when Kaye has the ball at his feet and even more so when he’s pressing the action from a defensive position. Vancouver, under head coach Alan Koch, are a team that thrives on playing the ball out of the back, with their central defenders looking to switch the point of attack rather than punt the ball up field.

Farmer and his central defensive partner Tim Parker have big frames, however neither are your typical punishing defenders. This plays into the advantage of a player like Kaye, who can use his speed and relentless attacking playing style to pin Vancouver deep. This is an underrated part of his game, and something Kaye recognizes is vital to his development.

“In order to be a good soccer player you have to be strong on both sides of the ball,” said Kaye. “A lot of us are good attacking players, but we need to learn to defend. JB [Jason Bent] is helping us with this, he’s very high on defense winning games."

Even in games where they’ve given up goals, like the 3-2 loss to Charleston Battery or the 4-1 loss to New York Red Bulls II, the good moments in those games were predicated on applying pressure to the backline, getting in their faces and keeping the ball in the attacking third.

“That’s modern day football,” said Bent. “Strikers can’t be relied upon just to score goals anymore, they have to set the tone defensively as the first line of defense.”

“We want that sort of mentality from all our strikers because it also gives confident to the rest of the players behind them, letting the midfielders, defenders and goalkeeper know that this is the mentality we’re playing with and that we all need to be on the same page.”