The new season begins on Saturday.

Toronto FC will kick off the 2022 MLS regular season this weekend with a match against FC Dallas at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas. 

It has been a very busy off-season for TFC, but heading into Game One head coach Bob Bradley is pleased with where the team finds itself at this junction.

“We're very happy,” said the coach on Thursday afternoon. “Guys have done a really good job throughout preseason, you get a real sense of the commitment of the group. And now we need to get started with real matches.”

There is excitement in the air, not just for Saturday, but for the project as a whole.

“I get excited for all games,” Bob expanded. “I really enjoy the process of the way you work with a team and trying to get guys going in a good way and then putting it all together and getting closer to a match where you prepare for a specific opponent and then step on the field and see what you can do.”

“Games tell you about the work you're doing, give you ideas on things that will need to be worked on even more,” he added. “But I really look forward to all the matches.”

The promise of how a Bob Bradley team would take the pitch has been the same since the day he took the reins. Now there is the anticipation that all the work to this point can begin to take shape in the crucible of competition.

“A new, excited team that's going to step on the field and try to go after the game in a real way, try to impose ourselves on the other team, try to play football, try to create chances, try to win the ball back quickly,” reiterated TFC Captain Michael Bradley. “The details of exactly how things go and exactly what it looks like, those will be a work in progress as we go and as the season goes on, but the starting points will be those.”

“We’re excited,” he added. “You get to the end of preseason and the excitement is at a high level to now get things going, to play a real game, and to start to get in a good routine. We feel good about the work, we feel good about how things have progressed as preseason has gone on, and now we're ready to go.”

The first of 34 matches is always special, as is the home opener next weekend at BMO Field when the New York Red Bulls visit, but these early season games are as much about continuing the work begun.

Preseason action serves its purpose, but there is no substitute for proper matches.

“The real answers come from matches,” stressed the coach. “I know from experience that even when you’ve had a team together with few changes, you're always interested to see how you come out of preseason, how you start.”

“And you look for all sorts of little details to see if the things that you've been trying to implement are as far along as you hope,” he continued. “I think that's normal, but I would say that it's a little bit more of the case when you have as many new players and young players as we have.”

All good teams are a work in progress, always. 

“The best teams are the teams that continue to evolve and grow through a season,” highlighted the coach. “You never, well, only in rare cases would a team – and it would normally be with experience and having had success in the past – come out of preseason and absolutely know exactly where they are. More often than not, you establish starting points and now it's the regular games that start to give you more information and help you find the best ways to continue to move forward.”

That journey begins on Saturday in Texas.

Dallas too are embarking on a renewed venture under a new coach after a busy off-season of their own.

Nico Estévez has taken the managerial reins, two more talented youngsters have moved on with the transfer of forward Ricardo Pepi to FC Augsburg and the loan of defender Justin Che to TSG Hoffenheim.

Jesús Ferreira, who scored eight goals and added nine assists in 2021, has graduated from a homegrown to a designated player, USMNT attacker Paul Arriola made a high-profile in-league swap from D.C. United, and teenage winger Alan Velasco arrives from CA Independiente.

“Nico is a new coach,” said Bob Bradley. “He was an assistant with Gregg Berhalter in Columbus and then with the national team. He likes to play 4-3-3. They've got some skillful players – he’s using Ferreira a little bit in nine or false nine. They brought in Paul Arriola to give them some danger coming more from the right side. They do a good job of how they play from the back.”

“So it's a team that tries to play football, a team with good ideas,” he added. “And I think it sets up well for a really good match.”

Scouting early in the season, as teams are still building those foundations, is always a little tricky, but there are few secrets between MLS cousins.

The eternal question is the balance between playing one’s game and making accommodation for the opponent.

“We do a combination of both of those things every week,” explained the coach. “There are certain parts to our game that need to be there all the time: our ability to move the ball quickly, our ability to find the right spaces, build from the back in ways that we get forward and put ourselves in good position. We look for ways that we can win the ball and get into the box quickly.”

“But in order to do those things, you have to know specifics about how the other team plays,” he added. “We've had a chance to see a little bit of what Dallas has done in preseason. And they've had a chance to see a little bit of what we do, so it's even on that side of things. And so it's a mix of ideas that we've worked on throughout preseason with a sense as to Dallas’ strengths, their best players, and some of the things that they like to do.”

After two fractured years spent largely on the road, TFC are eagerly anticipating next weekend’s home opener, but there is a job to do on Saturday.

“The last two years was really difficult, but we are happy to be back again with all the fans in BMO. I hope everybody can come to the first game,” said Alejandro Pozuelo. “But first we need to start with three points in Dallas. This is the most important.”