There wasn't much doubt that we were in for a challenging evening when we climbed toward our upper deck seats and found one side of the stairwell draped in red and white, the other side ablaze in orange.

Dwayne De Rosario's family, friends, and social associates were in the house.

On a night when rain fell like a bad Bible story, and roads around Toronto's BMO Field clogged like bad arteries, the reward for the Toronto FC fans who arrived early was the sight and sound of Club De Rosario.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

De Rosario was back in his Toronto home and supported by several hundred of his most ardent supporters. Though some speculate the number climbed above 1,000, the truth is, he had a stadium full of admirers. It's no secret that T.O. wants De Ro.

Canadian soccer fans want this country's player of the year to come home and play where he'll be utterly adored. He's aware of that. But he's also been the complete professional and refused to demand that it happen at once.

Playing on a championship team is not something every player gets to enjoy. So many professionals spend entire careers chasing titles that never arrive. When a player finds himself in a winning situation, it's hard to give in to more basic instincts and head for home at all costs. De Rosario has one title under his belt and, perhaps more importantly, the respect of North American soccer fans for sticking with his team. It would be easy for him to leave if he wanted to.

Club De Rosario was there to remind him he's loved no matter what shirt he wears. Toronto FC fans were there to remind him he'll be loved more than ever if he makes both parties happy and moves home. The chants went up from both camps, increasing in volume and intensity as the wind and rain did likewise. Through it all, the mood stayed positive. There was laughter and good cheer everywhere.

It didn't hurt that Toronto fans were singing in the rain after a first half lead supplied by Andy Welsh's unstoppable header, the finishing touch to an inviting free kick from Ronnie O'Brien. 

Despite wearing a knee brace to offset the effects of a ligament injury, O'Brien's skill with either foot has proved to be a creative spark for a Toronto team now rebounding nicely after four straight losses to start the season.

That both players would combine to score the only goal in a 1-0 victory was appropriate. It's no coincidence that the return of O'Brien's cultured touch on the right wing has given Toronto an equally potent option to Welsh's crafty play down the left. The result is an invitingly open middle, drawing creative play from midfielder Maurice Edu, or even surging runs from the back by standout defender Marvell Wynne.

Toronto manager Mo Johnston stayed calm in the midst of an opening run of four goalless losses, preaching patience. His vision of what this team could become has slowly but surely materialized and it's beginning to look like the heightened expectations formed by a good pre-season performance were not entirely out of place.

If Toronto fans had doubts about his ability to build a team, and do it making quick, instinctive decisions about personnel, they've been well put to rest. When disgruntled midfielder Richard Mulrooney forced a trade, it was to Houston for defender Kevin Goldthwaite, the scorer of Toronto's first-ever winning goal against Chicago.

When Goldthwaite spilled Mulrooney with a harsh challenge early on, it brought a strong response from the crowd.

Whether De Rosario or his legion of supporters noticed such subtleties is unknown. But he has to be aware that this is already one of MLS' strongest franchises. The man at the helm is showing he knows what he's doing. The fans in the stands are proof of approval.

If De Rosario loved winning an MLS title in Houston, he has to know now that the only way to top that will be winning one with his hometown team. Here's betting that it will be sooner than later.

He's bald! He's bold! He's gonna score a goal! Daa-neee Dee-cheeo!

Danny Dicho. Instant Toronto FC legend.

The pre-game chants to pump up the 6''3" striker were largely unnecessary on Saturday. He packs his boots with motivation and plays like every game might be his last.

And after slotting home Edson Buddle's smart cross to score the first goal in Toronto FC's 3-1 victory Saturday over a Chicago Fire squad apparently traumatized by playing on plastic turf, it will be his last for a short while.

He matched the milestone of scoring the franchise's first-ever goal in MLS league play, with the millstone of earning the it's first-ever red card. He did both doing what he does best, banging his big body around the opposition's box.

A bump late in the first half with Chicago goalie Matt Pickens in the six-yard box set off a handbag-swinging melee that took a group of combatants into the back of the Fire goal. Diego Gutierrez was tabbed as Chicago's nastiest bag-swinger and also given a red card.

The fact Dichio left to a standing ovation says everything about how Toronto fans feel about him. In two games, the busy, bruising ballwinner has been yellow- and red-carded for heavy manners on opposing goalies. Crashing the crease is what hockey-loving Canadians would call it. Rattling a cage is what crash-causing NASCAR drivers might term it. Becoming an instant fan favorite is the net result.

Paired so far with shifty Alecko Eskandarian or the sly Buddle, Dichio's towering frame provides a highly-visible target for up-field passes. He has the strength to hold up the ball and lay off passes to on-rushing teammates or the skill to turn past a defender and go marauding for a goal.

Best of all, he displays body language that says, after leaving England's Preston North End, he's enjoying himself in Toronto's uproarious new stadium on the north shore of Lake Ontario.

The soccer-cynical element of Toronto's sports media had enjoyed themselves through the first four games the team played, playing their winless and goalless status for a few cheap laughts. But what no one touched on was the fact that four of what will be Toronto's most influential players either hadn't played or were just getting into the lineup.

Right midfielder Ronnie O'Brien, right back Marvell Wynne, top draft pick and midfielder Maurice Edu and Dichio had all faced delayed debuts with the team. Saturday's game displayed the result of having the group together to practice for two weeks since their last game, a 1-0 home-opener loss to Kansas City in April.

Wynne plays with such effortless efficiency, it's easy to overlook a player who doesn't look like he's working hard because he's read a play properly or prepared for a game properly and is well placed to shut down an opponent's play and start a counter attack.

Adding O'Brien's smart positioning and skill as a playmaker to the right midfield gives Wynne an obvious outlet coming out of defence. These two looked very comfortable in their first full game together. If it forces defences to pay closer attention to them, left winger Andy Welsh will appreciate less of the extra attention he'd been receiving earlier when he represented Toronto's best attacking option earlier in the season.

Toronto fans also enjoyed a sneak preview of what the future holds when talented local boy Andrea Lombardo, operating as a lone striker, worked the ball deep down the right and curled an inch-perfect cross to an unmarked Maurice Edu.

Edu, the first round draft choice from University of Maryland, was rewarded for an intuitive support run with a pass that left him the time and space to emphatically plant Toronto's third goal. Pressed into a more attacking role after Dichio's sending off, Edu was allowed to advance from his normally defensive midfield role and looked quite sharp in attack.

Lombardo is a member of the Canadian U-20 national team that will host FIFA's World U-20 World Cup starting in June. Tall and strong, like Dichio, he used his size and good positioning to offer a threatening outlet for his defenders in his brief second-half run. He showed no fatigue from having played 90 minutes against Argentina the night before.

As Toronto's fans were chucking promotional seat cushions onto the field in celebration, the players were throwing a number of monkeys of their back. Including Kevin Goldthwaite's fine winning goal also set up by Buddle, the team not only earned their first goals and their first win, but did it with some style.

Only the English could build something as excessive and expensive as the new Wembley Stadium and proceed to open and operate it without the slightest regard for the people who will ultimately pay for it, English soccer fans.

Costing over $1.6 billion, with each added overrun and legal skirmish headlined in the media, the laborious building process which began late in the last century finally ended earlier this year. Entire galaxies may have formed quicker and less stressfully than the ordeal which finally gave England it's new 90,000-seat soccer showcase.

It's a spectacular looking building alright, with a soaring arch rising distinctively above the movable 11-acre roof. Unlike it's predecessor, this stadium is clearly built with only one sport in mind - soccer. While the first Wembley stadium had a running track separating the seats from the pitch, this version has stands that are built tight to the sidelines, offering better views and more intimate atmosphere.

The first event of any significance is on May 19 when Chelsea and Manchester United wil play in the venue's inaugural FA Cup final. While clearly proud to be involved in such an historic event, both clubs have expressed their displeasure at how tickets are being distributed to their fans and the prices those fans will have to pay.

Angry that each club were allotted only 25,000 tickets each, with a majority located in the higher price range of seats, supporters groups have announced that they'll pay Wembley back by organizing mass boycotts of all food and souvenir vendors during that event.

It's hardly the ideal circumstance for the stadium's first major event. But it's certainly in keeping with the wooly thinking that pervades much of the management ranks of English soccer.

Stadium officials recently poured cold water on a proposal to allow Tottenham Hotspur temporary tenancy for two seasons while their White Hart Lane stadium is being rebuilt and expanded. It's caused a ruffle among Spurs fans who are eager to see their stadium reconstruction get underway. They can't help but notice that their ardent rivals, Arsenal, were rumored to be moving permanently into Wembley before choosing to build Emirates Stadium.

With only a small number of events scheduled each year for Wembley, such a move offers some interesting benefits.

Spurs are not likely to fill the stadium every game. They might for big matches against local rivals like Arsenal or top clubs like Man U, Liverpool or Chelsea. but there will be many games when a 60,000 crowd would be a good turnout for them, yet Wembley would still be almost one-third empty.

With ticket prices to Premiership games already at extortionate levels, gone are the days when a working-class fan could take his family to watch a game. A generation is growing up these days aware of the Premier league stars only through television.

You wonder why England struggles to win nowadays, when youngsters that should be having their desire to play sparked through an afternoon at a soccer game are continuosly denied by runaway ticket prices.

A club playing for a time at Wembley, particularly so soon after its protracted and embarassing opening, would breathe life, fresh perspective, into a stadium and a management situation grown stuffy and out of touch.

By opening up Wembley to a temporary club tenant, the FA have a great chance to sell off large sections of seats at affordable prices and bring the game back to fans who need see first hand the glory of a great goal or the roar of a delighted crowd.

Instead, Wembley management prefer to comfort themselves knowing that 15,000 or more Club Wembley members have lined their coffers by snapping up the best seats for every event for years to come.

They say things like they don't want the stadium to be associated with anything but the national team and the FA Cup or it might weaken the brand. They want games scheduled there on a controlled basis so that they can bring in concerts and NFL games and the Race of Champions motorsport event.

Well, now they've got fans - the people who support the very core business of the stadium - upset to the point of boycott about FA Cup ticket distribution and the high-handed dismissal of Tottenham's leasing arrangement.

The last thing Wembley needs is to begin alienating fans. In fact, drawing more of them to the site would be beneficial in helping to encourage the redevelopment of the blighted area around the stadium.

One hopes the new stadium will work to reverse the lengthening series of poor results of the team the place was principally built for, the English national team. Based on the performances we're presently seeing from the team and Wembley management, they look like they were made for each other.

As we stood among an anxious, hoarse throng waiting for Toronto FC to set up a final corner kick, my neighbour turned and said, "Hey, Toronto might be the first team to have it's first-ever goal scored by a goalie."

An interesting and timely observation, in light of two recent goals scored by European keepers - Paul Robinson of Tottenham Hotspur and Andres Palop of Sevilla. Seeing Toronto's lanky Greg Sutton arrive at the top of the Kansas City box, we wondered if history was in the making.

But the corner kick was cleared away, the final whistle blew and the likelihood remains that Toronto's first MLS goal will come in more orthodox fashion, probably less of an embarassment for all concerned.

The observant neighbour is my friend, Vanooch, a title created by dropping the vowel from the final three syllables of his Italian surname. 'Noochi was too much like Gucci, not really him. His countrymen often do that with their first names - Enzo, Renzo, Cenzo, etc. - so I did it with his surname.

We've shared many soccer sojourns the past few years, our boys growing up in our downtown neighbourhood, opponents in house league, teammates on competitive squads. Mine, a tall, two-footed left or right back, his, a darting striker in the mold of an Inzaghi or a Rossi, a right-footed stiletto. They were with us on opening day.

Vanooch figured to be the perfect seatmate for the four season seats I secured before Beckham's transfer announcement triggered a ticket-buying stampede, selling out the stadium for the year and creating a waiting list already two years long.

I heard him before I ever met him, an Abruzzi accent ringing out instructions or booming in goal celebrations from the sideline of an under-7 game one night. He only quieted down when his son's coach asked if he could be allowed to coach the team his way.

He's been lke that for each of the eight years since, an unofficial manager's assistant or referee's 'helper', the only man I've seen get red-carded as a volunteer linesman, for defying orders not to coach while carrying a flag.

He made himself a welcome sight at practices on cool, wet spring mornings, hauling a hamper with a stack of paper cups and carafes of dark, sweet espresso coffee. That recipe would get an octane boost at tournaments when he'd spike it with Italian grappa liqueur and have us all fired up.

And as soccer dads got into animated soccer discussions about international events, you could count on detailed, up-to-the-minute info on Serie A matters and how it all pertained to his beloved AC Milan. He still expects the prodigal striker, Andriy Shevchenko, to escape along the Hernan Crespo trail and return from Chelsea. Any day now.

Owning season tickets for the first time, I wanted the whole rowdy fan experience - the cheering, chanting and singing - and a manic sidekick to join me in tranforming tepid Torontonians into scarf-twirling tifosi. Vanooch had the track record to make him an automatic choice.

So it was something of a shock when the Campobasso Cannon went quiet at kickoff and stayed that way through much of the match. But his eyes were firmly fixed on the details, picking out flaws in certain players' games, debating tactics, deploring unforced errors and accurately forecasting in the first ten minutes that U.S. natonal team striker Eddie Johnson would eventually beat Toronto's defence with his quickness.An hour later, he was right.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. If he wants to be serious, we can always record the game telecasts and study the details later. But I want the real Vanooch for company. Our section underperformed in its first game. They need us.

The way I see it, there's only two ways to bring out the soccer animal  in him.

In the good old days of NASL, we used to have one of our buddies bring a couple of wineskins to the back of the stadium. When we got in, we'd take a long string out, throw it over the railing, haul them up and enjoy a little refreshment at our leisure.

Maybe Mrs. Vanooch could bring a thermos of their high-octane espresso to the back of our section and I'll haul it up.

Or his son's just gonna have to make the team. Soon.

Toronto FC make their home debut Saturday before a sold-out throng of 20,000 that will raucously welcome them into BMO Field, an absolute gem of a new, soccer-only stadium.

 It's the sort of reaction that might be understandable if this was a club that had won a championship, made a series of high-profile off-season signings or just got Jose Mourinho angry. But this is an expansion team in an early-season crisis, having lost, on the road, their first three games by a combined score of 9-0.

 The results hardly matter. Nor will the outcome of the home opener. The stadium will be filled all year and it will be a league leader for attendance and atmosphere. You see, it's not the team that matters to most fans, at least not just yet. It's the game itself. 

That's the remarkable part of these circumstances. World Cups aside, fans here have endured a steady diet of negative soccer coverage from prominent local media outlets, yet their healthy appetite for their game has not only survived, but grown.

Despite the absence of any broad-based marketing campaign, season ticket sales topped  7,000 prior to the January announcement of David Beckham's transfer to L.A. Galaxy and are now close to 14,000 in total. Single game and group ticket sales have assured that every home game will be virtually sold out. It's a remarkable re-birth for pro soccer in Canada.

The collapse of the North American Soccer League and, later, the Canadian Soccer League, forced the city's last pro team, the Blizzard, to close up shop, leaving Toronto fans without a fully-professional local team to follow for almost two decades.

Yet the game has continued to thrive locally, a growing interest visible most summer weeknights in the form of jam-packed recreational playing fields, or every four years when the streets fill with chanting, singing, flag-waving World Cup fans proclaiming support for their favorite team or homeland.

Streets shut down, traffic gets diverted, beer mugs clink, everyone smiles. Only hockey could top this reaction, and an NHL title for the Maple Leafs isn't on anyone's radar.

Perhaps the most profound evidence of soccer's development here is found in the home-grown talent who have recently moved on to enjoy outstanding professional careers.

The long list includes: Dwayne De Rosario at Houston Dynamo, Paul Stalteri at Tottenham Hotspur, Tomas Radzinski at Fulham, the De Guzman brothers, Julian at Deportivo La Coruna, Jonathan at Feyenoord. And then there's Paul Peschisolido, a charismatic striker known throughout England as the 'Super Sub', with 114 goals, and counting, since leaving the crumbling Blizzard in 1992 for Birmingham City and a handful of clubs thereafter. There are others on the way.

This was never enough to satisfy soccer's abundant media critics. Led by Canada's largest daily newspaper and the city's most influential sportstalk radio host, they lined up to slag the building of the $72 million stadium, which is truly a wonderful showcase for the game. They branded it a white elephant as they forecast that the team would flounder and quickly wither, part of the eventual and, they hoped, final demise of professional soccer in North America. 

 The instant impact of Toronto FC suggests they couldn't have been more wrong. It has also sparked an urgency among soccer fans in Vancouver and Montreal, two major markets with and established history of strongly supporting the game, to see their cities become the next targets for MLS expansion.

So why have soccer fans, before a ball was kicked in earnest, before a full team had been assembled, suddenly thronged to support Toronto FC, when media indifference suggests they should be watching something else?

The critics have always maintained that, sure, lots of kids, in ever increasing numbers, were playing soccer in past years, but that didn't have any bearing on how well a pro team would do - they've failed before, surely they'll fail again. Well, the world changes quickly and quietly these days.

Previous generations of soccer players lacked the media options to stay in touch with the game as they grew older. Today, though, their kids, this generation's young players, are able to maintain their interest in any league, watching live games on digital or satellite TV, playing video games with more detail about the sport than ever before, or simply loading their iPods with highlight clips from the internet via youtube and sharing them with schoolmates. Has anybody under the age of 18 not seen Lionel Messi's sensational goal vs.Getafe?

 The return of the pro game now gives those aspiring youngsters a chance to watch live action, share in the noisy stadium atmosphere and develop their own hometown heroes. Since mom and dad were playing the game themselves not so long ago, they 'get' soccer, so it's not hard now to get them to buy tickets.

All of this seems to have passed under the noses of the city's mainstream media, an old guard that had to be courted in past years to ensure that vital publicity and promotion endeavours reached the eyes and ears of the ticket-buying public.

Soccer in Canada, and much of America, for that matter, has arrived at what's often referred to nowadays as'the tipping point', succeeding without the approval or co-operation of the traditional media mechanisms. 

Someone should call the papers and tell them about it. But the game's doing fine without them and their opinions just don't seem to matter much any more.  Kinda like how soccer fans felt 'round here about 10 year ago.