Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough

Toronto FC is holding open tryouts next month. Think you've got what it takes? Go here to sign up.

The catch is that it'll cost you $110 to sign up, but you'll get an Adidas jersey and vouchers for two Toronto FC games.

If you don't want to play for the team, you just want to watch, tickets for Toronto FC games go on sale to the public November 15. Tickets are expected to cost $15-$65. Club members get first dibs on season tickets, in return for their $50 membership fee.

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In other Canadian soccer news, the Canadian women's team played recently in the finals of the Peace Queen Cup in Korea, losing 1-0 to the U.S. It's still a great achievement for them, as they beat a couple of higher-ranked teams to make the final. Next up for the team is the Gold Cup, November 19-26. Finalists in the tournament will earn a spot at the 2007 World Cup in China, and the Canadians have a good shot, because they've got an automatic berth in the Gold Cup semi-finals, facing either Panama or Jamaica.

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Tickets are also on sale now for the FIFA U20 Tournament being held in Canada next summer. (And I'm putting the information here mostly because I keep looking it up and then forgetting about it.)

The tournament begins on June 30, 2007, with the finals on July 22 in Toronto (full schedule here).

Tickets are only available in packages right now -- with the exception of the Edmonton games, although I'm not sure why. No word on when you'll be able to buy single-match tickets for the rest of the venues. Package prices range from about $50 to $500, depending on how many games you want to see and how good the seats are (details here). There are also deals available for the "soccer community," whatever that means.

The situation with the Toronto tickets is a bit confusing, partly because the way the packages are described on the FIFA website isn't quite the same as on the Ticketmaster site, but basically how it works is that you have a choice between three packages:

  • Package A (four match days) - Opener plus three double header preliminary round games
  • Package B (five match days) - Opener plus two round of 16 games, one quarter-final and one semi-final
  • Package C (eight match days) - Opener plus three preliminary round games, two round of 16 games, one quarter-final and one semi-final
Each of those packages also comes with the option to buy tickets to the final and the third-place match, for an extra $40-$100, depending on which seats you have.

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