Really, there isn’t much point looking for excuses.
In their very first two-leg taste of CONCACAF Champions League soccer, Toronto FC wrecked on a packed defence and hot goaltender. The loss to the Puerto Rico Islanders of USL-1 is now confirmed and in the books, and whining about anything won’t get it done.
So, if not excuses – how about causes?
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I find myself concerned this morning about TFC’s strategic approach – particularly in the second leg, last night’s punitive 0-0 grind job in a baseball stadium in San Juan.
The Redcoats didn’t play a lot of what you’d call lovely soccer. Mostly it was a disorganized defence somehow surviving, and hoofing the ball upfield to attackers who were clearly hearing footsteps, feeling pressure, and trying to do far too much on their own.
Teamwork was, to be kind, strained. Movement away from the ball – essential against hard-bunkering underdogs – was woefully inadequate.
Ali Gerba was getting to the long balls, certainly, but had nowhere left to operate. What he really needed was the ball to get to him. As I’ve already said, what he really needed was Danny Dichio.
Dichio spent so much time on the bench in the two Puerto Rico games, I was becoming convinced he must be gritting out an injury. Why else leave on the bench the one man on the roster who can corral a high ball and flick it into Gerba’s path?
On both the strategy and the Dichio deployment, eyebrows are being raised in Toronto coach Chris Cummins’ direction. But you can’t really blame the coach for what happened after he did – finally – insert Dichio on 73 minutes last night.
Dichio’s teammates got him the ball just once – and he just about tore down a goalpost with it. This a nice companion to the fully extended fingertip save Dichio forced from Islander goalie and U.S. Marine wannabe Bill Gaudette at BMO Field a week ago.
TFC was launching long balls galore, but there was nothing Dichio could lay in front of the onrushing Ali Gerba express. Chad Barrett e-mailed things past the post. Dwayne DeRosario fired everything over the crossbar. More than one corner kick landed short – directly on the ankles of forward-posted Puerto Rico defenders.
Entirely inadequate, in other words. That’s certainly where the Toronto half of 0-0 came from. Puerto Rico getting whitewashed was more about ill luck and bad shooting than anything TFC’s back four did to shut them down. So many tentative touches from the Torontos! It was like they felt there was some rule they all had to touch the ball before it could be randomly hoofed over the centre stripe.
Once again, an MLS team falls to a USL-1 side. And once again, I tell you that games like this aren’t about talent. It’s applied talent that advances in cup competitions, and Toronto FC did not apply itself adequately to the task.
Dichio was their best bet, and he hardly played. When he did, the service simply wasn’t there. The opportunities were there in abundance, but high-probability plays were chronically dumped in favour of the good ol’ hit-and-hope, which clearly – over both games – had almost no hope of hitting.
Toronto FC stands exposed as a team with decent enough talent for the level they’re playing at, saddled and dragged down by dreadful deployment.
If that’s the coach, if that’s the talent: I don’t know.
But I sure would have liked to have seen a whole lot more of Danny Dichio, and I believe this team would have advanced to the group stages had that wish been granted.
At least they won’t have any more fixture backlog problems, as they hit the road and try to qualify for the MLS post-season for the first time in franchise history.
A dreadful, optional loss in my books. It simply didn’t have to happen that way.
Onward!