TORONTO – The ribbon is cut, the grass is green and for Toronto FC, Sunday’s home opener against the Houston Dynamo cannot come soon enough.
TFC head coach Greg Vanney and team captain Michael Bradley are hoping newly renovated BMO Field signifies the start of something big for the club. Vanney said their first training session on the new grounds was a “good, emotional day for everybody.”
Italian international Sebastian Giovinco was a bit more enthusiastic, offering a “bello, sicuramente bello (beautiful, certainly beautiful).”
No one seems to be more excited than Bradley, though.
“It’s a shame the game isn’t tomorrow,” Bradley told reporters after training on the home turf, a big smile painted on his face. “This was great, to get into the stadium today, see all the hard work that’s been done and see, for real, what we’ve seen pictures and renderings of. It’s amazing.”
When TFC take the field Sunday against the Dynamo (5 pm ET; ESPN2, ESPN Deportes in US | TSN, RDS2 in Canada) for their first home game of 2015 after a seven-game road trip to start the season, Vanney said he wants to unleash his players at last, feeding freely on the energy of the home crowd.
“We wanted to get guys who have been in big environments, been under pressure, who understand what it feels like,” Vanney said. “There are certain guys we want to go and feel like this is their day to let go and have it all out there, Sebastian being one of those guys. Being at home in front of his fans here is going to be really exciting for him, and we want him to go and do as much as he wants to do and as much as he can do."
There are a number of improvements to BMO Field: a new scoreboard, new concession offerings and clubs throughout, including a beer garden for the now-unified supporters section, among a host of other accoutrements. Sunday’s game will mark the completion of the first stage of a two-part project that cost the team’s owners and the city roughly $70 million of the overall $120 million budget. The rest will go toward a roof that is expected to be completed next season.
Aesthetically, the biggest change is the second level on the east stands, adding 8,400 more seats to the stadium, making BMO Field the largest soccer-specific stadium in MLS at a 31,000-person capacity.
That also happens to be Bradley’s favorite new addition to BMO Field.
“Pictures don’t do it justice,” Bradley said. “For months now, I’ve been on the Internet, on Instagram, looking for every picture going of the construction, to see how it was going. When you get here and you walk out of the tunnel, it’s steep. It has the feeling that it’s stacked right over you. For opposing teams, when you walk out the tunnel and you see a red wall right back at you, it’s certainly unique.”
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The red wall is unique, but is it also intimidating?
“Absolutely,” Bradley answered. “That’s the idea.”
BMO Field has often been called a “fortress” in years past, but never before has it felt quite like one as TFC have missed the MLS Cup Playoffs every season since joining MLS in 2007. Bradley says it’s up to the players to make sure that idea becomes part of the legacy of the stadium.
“If we can, over the course of the season, make this a place where every team who comes through here leave with a feeling like they never want to come back, then I think that will go a long way,” Bradley said. “For us, we have to make this a place where teams hate to come and play from the first to the last minute.
“At the end of the day, it’s the people and the players that make the stadium,” he added. “It’s going to be a special day Sunday. We can’t wait.”
