TORONTO — The word “massive” is in heavy rotation with Toronto FC head coach Chris Cummins. If anything is of the slightest importance, to Cummins, it is massive.
So as he looked into a filled-to-the-brim media room as three members of Real Madrid, along with Toronto captain Jim Brennan, took questions from the media, there was no doubting what was to come next.
“It’s a massive occasion,” Cummins said.
Well, he should expect a few rolling eyes the next time he uses the word to describe the Major League Soccer playoff race. That, after all, is not this.
Everything Real Madrid does is a spectacle, and their two-day trip to Toronto was no exception. Arguably the most famous club in the world, one which has gone on a US$350-million-plus spending spree this summer, Madrid will play at BMO Field Friday night.
Before manager Manuel Pellegrini, midfielder Jose Maria Gutierrez – his friends call him Guti – and goalkeeper Iker Casillas answered some questions from the media, hundreds of fans waited on the West side of the stadium waiting for the team to arrive.
“There’s the bus,” one younger fan yelled minutes before the 6:30 p.m. press conference started. An open practice (open, as long as you forked over $15) followed.
Indeed, a white coach bus was coming around the corner. Alas, it was not Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka or any other Madrid star walking out of the door; it was the 30-plus Spanish media members traveling with the team.
“The responsibility for managing Real Madrid is big enough,” Pellegrini said through a translator when asked about the hype that surrounds the club, especially this year. “We have to go after the championship with each and every competition that we play. But the better the players, the better the squad, the happier that everyone can be, coaches and fans for Real Madrid.”
And while Madrid is the biggest team in the world, the attention does not appear to faze the players. Guti, the 32-year-old vice-captain, whose boyish bangs belie his relative advancing age, had his chin firmly planted on his hand, propped up by his elbow, for much of the press conference.
The reported 18,000 fans who did pay the $15 price looked anything but bored, however. To start things off, a fan, clad in Madrid’s famous all-white jerseys ran on to the field. Security guards quickly swallowed him up. From then on, it was all the trappings of a practice – some stretching, a half-field game on the freshly laid grass, lots of water breaks – with the odd addition of chanting.
At one point, the fans stomped on the metal stands in unison. When Ronaldo – by far the marquee attraction, with fans in his new No. 9 Madrid jersey, his old No. 9 Manchester United jersey, and his current No. 17 Portuguese jersey in attendance – was hauled down during the scrimmage, fans booed and whistled for a penalty.
To paraphrase Allen Iverson, they were talking about practice.
The game will surely be a study in contrast. There will be phenomenally wealthy Madrid, and there will be Toronto FC, whose highest-paid player, Dwayne De Rosario, does not even bring in US$1-million annually.
It is as if, in the height of the Michael Jordan era, the Chicago Bulls traveled to Germany to play a middle-of-the-pack team. Except, of course, Madrid has not experienced much in the way of championship-level success recently.
“I know who they are of course,” Toronto defender Marvell Wynne said after his club went through a practice in the morning. “I’ve got to respect the way they play. I’m not going to be in awe or anything, on the pitch at least. I’ll wait until we get off the pitch, and then I’ll be giggling like a schoolgirl trying to get an autograph or a jersey.”
In that sense, he would have been in good company last evening. As the Madrid heroes left the stadium after their hour on the field, the first song that played was the Shop Boyz’ 2007 hit “Party Like A Rockstar.”
For this group, the tune was perfectly apt.
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