If, last July, someone was to predict that Toronto FC would be the last MLS team standing in the CONCACAF Champions League, they’d have been offered some pretty sweet odds.

Yes, the Canadian Soccer Association’s rules are quite clear. A match that is abandoned must be replayed in full. But Winter can still do the right thing. He can order his troops to take the opening kickoff and then fire the ball into their own goal.

Assuming that there aren’t any more points to be thrown away, and both Arsenal and Chelsea win out — winning their games over United — the season would end in a… Three-way tie.

These are signs that the women’s game isn’t getting stronger; in fact, we may be seeing the same trend that we’ve seen with women’s hockey. After a surge in interest in the 2000s, the game is shrinking rather than growing.

It was a fascinating exercise to go through a couple of hours worth of tweets after Arsenal’s stunning 2-1 win over Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie. The pundits are one thing, but when the tweets come from players or, in the case of Eskandarian, recently retired players, it’s amazing to see people who are (or recently were) paid to play the game become fans.

Major League Soccer continually talks about the importance of having its teams succeed in international competition but, once again, the league has placed its All-Star game in direct conflict with the CONCACAF Champions League. MLS announced that it will host its annual All-Star Game July 27 at Red Bull Arena. But, as has been the case with the last two All-Star events, it clashes with the preliminary round of the CONCACAF Champions League. CONCACAF has already slated July 26-28 as the window for the first legs of the opening round.

It was clear from talking to players and manager Owen Coyle that the club believed that the coming Premiership season was going to be wide open, that the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal were going to turn the world’s most popular sports league into their own three-team tournament.

Jürgen Klinsmann blew into Toronto this week to meet the local media. It was a super photo op for a Toronto FC club desperately needing some positive press. With a season-ticket holders’ revolt on their hands — and another season of broken promises of playoff success in the books, the Reds need the German soccer legend more than he or …