The Whitecaps played FA Cup champion Manchester City of the English Premier League Monday and the one player connection they shared--Terry Dunfield--was absent from the action.
Traded to cross-country rivals and fellow league basement dwellers Toronto FC, Dunfield was shifted on the eve of his former team's visit. He played in the youth division at Manchester City, signing a contract as a 15-year-old in 1997. Four years later he was named the club's youth player of the year.
As the announcement echoed around Twitter and Facebook, Dunfield was exposed as a polarizing figure for the city's soccer fans. A Vancouverite, Dunfield was heralded as a hometown hero by some. That claim is far-fetched at best. He came of age in England, speaks with an accent that just won't drop, eh, and didn't play in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»for enough years (or months, really) to warrant any resident knighthood. Give him credit, however, for one of the Whitecaps most thrilling goal celebrations. In the Caps MLS debut against his latest team, Dunfield scored a go-ahead goal in the 26th minute. He launched himself into the stands, impervious to the ensuing yellow card. The celebration should be remembered as a high point of the Caps' frustrating two-win, 10-loss and eight-draw season so far. Their ambitions since thwarted, Dunfield was sent packing as the club made sweeping changes, which started with the role of head coach.
In Toronto this week, Dunfield told reporters, "You want to play where you're wanted." He thought he'd be in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»longer but conceded the business of sport is "cut-throat."
He missed meeting Manchester City, but one of their superstars and the mastermind behind the game-winning goal of Monday's 2-1 contest, Shaun Wright-Phillips, stuck around long enough to grab a Dunfield Whitecaps jersey, now a thing of Canadian soccer history.
