I recently made the move to the beautiful city of Toronto, Ontario to start a short loan with MLS club Toronto FC.
My former New Zealand teammate Ryan Nelsen, once of QPR, has given a great opportunity to test myself in a quality competition and on the weekend, I made my MLS debut, playing just under half an hour in the 1-0 loss to Columbus Crew at our home ground, BMO Field.
Toronto have a great stadium. It's a typical rectangle shape with the crowd close to the action. We got over 18,000 fans there the other night which I'm told is normally higher. They provided a great atmosphere. The fans love to get involved and make plenty of noise.
In regards to the standard of MLS, it's tough to say after only one stint of the bench but it's a physical league like the A-League and you have to be fit to be able to run all day. I'll get more of a gauge after more games but there are a lot of similarities between the two competitions.
Ryan and the whole group were obviously gutted we didn't take the points because from the game overall we were the better team and if we had have taken our chances, we could of killed off the game. We are not far off and I think it will only need that one win to get us back on track.
They are a great bunch of boys at this club and they welcomed us (new players Steven Caldwell, who was at Newcastle United and is on-loan from Birmingham City, former Reading winger Bobby Convey and myself) as soon as we walked in the door, making us feel comfortable. We all know there's a big task at hand and need the whole squad to turn it around.
There are some top pros at this club. I've got along very well with Danny Koevermans since arriving, he loves his football.
He knows a lot about the A-League. He keeps an eye on players like Youssouf Hersi from Western Sydney Wanderers and Central Coast Mariners' Patrick Zwaanswijk who is set to retire. He also played with my Wellington team mate Stein Huysegems at AZ Alkmaar.
Danny is a deadly finisher in and around the box and the club are looking forward to bringing him back into the squad after recovering from injury. I think he would love to play in the A-League!
From what I can gather, talking to the boys and coaching staff, we have been the better team in a majority of games but we just need to be better at both ends of the park. I don't think that elusive win is too far away and it would be great to start this weekend and go on a nice run of good results.
Toronto currently sits eighth on the Eastern Conference table with just one win from 11 outings ahead of this weekend's trip to New England Revolution
