Columbus Invasion

By Ben Knight, Globe & Mail On Soccer

Knight: Ten more days!

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!

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