“I know it’s over. I just wish it was mathematically over.”
- A Toronto FC fan, in the wake of another needlessly blown result.
It’s kind of like watching a wildlife documentary:
“The Toronto FC late goal-against is a cunning, sneaky and remorseless predator,” a breathless David Attenborough whispers. “It never attacks the same way twice, and is a master of camouflage. You never see it coming. There’s just an eerie sense you’re going to get it in the neck. Then, out of nowhere, a three-man attacking opposition line forms up, and just like that, you get it in the neck.”
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
It was deep in second-half stoppage time, and I was laying out this exact scenario for a friendly, chatty chap from Oldham, England on the north terrace of BMO Field. Toronto FC was leading the hopeless San Jose Earthquakes 1-0 is a game with do-or-get-eviscerated playoff implications.
TFC had controlled the game, but (surprise, surprise) not finished enough of their chances. If not for inspired young defender Nana Attakora coming all the forward and ripping home a screamer, they wouldn’t have been on the scoreboard at all.
Now, the pink-shirted Torontos were all falling back on defence, and San Jose were rising capably to their first shot of sustained attack all afternoon – possibly in weeks.
Suddenly, fatally – in thick traffic in the TFC penalty area – the three-man attack wall shimmered into being. They had the ball and were all racing forward.
Bang, bang, rebound … lob!
1-1. Final.
Before the game, I’d gone up and down press row calling a 1-1 draw, with San Jose scoring the equalizer late.
It was pure and informed cynicism. This is the fifteenth time Toronto has conceded in the final fifteen minutes. Cure half of that, and they’d already have the franchise’s first post-season berth locked up. Cure it all, and they’re printing tickets for a home playoff match.
With the draw, TFC remains buried in eleventh place. Only two points from safety, but they need half the league to quit racking up any more points. That will never happen, and this team remains too wildly inconsistent to take advantage, even if it did.
I hollered to a colleague down the hallway. “Why do they keep doing that? If you push the ball for 85 minutes and you’re winning, why not just push the damn ball for five minutes more?” Injured TFC players Marvell Wynne and Stefan Frei were standing right there, and heard it all. I was being a fan more than a writer, but how many games after games upon games have ended this way?
It was a nervous ride down the elevator to the post-game press conference. The question had to be asked, and I was worried it would be me who ended up asking it. Nothing like kicking off your Thanksgiving weekend by getting publicly drumstick-chewed by what everyone with press credentials knows will be a frustrated, furious coach.
But in the end, Toronto FC coach Chris Cummins beat us all to it.
After thanking the fans for their raucous support, he incredibly said he’d spent the last twenty minutes of the match screaming at his players to not fall back. Stick to the game plan, keep pushing, don’t fall back.
“What can I do,” he asked a silent room of scribes, “if they don’t want to listen to me?”
Take a moment, please, to take that in.
…
What more important duty could a professional coach possibly have than to make his players hear him with the season on the line?
I know, I know. It’s a big field. But Cummins had two substitutions he never used. If the players were ignoring him and endangering the game, get the worst offenders the heck off the field. And kill some precious time, while you’re at it!
Cummins admitted to all the world he was helpless down the stretch. But he didn’t even use his one huge, best tactical option – which fell from his fingertips and died useless at his feet.
And then he as good as publicly announced – in a room full of professional journalists – that he can’t do his job.
Wow.
I see huge heart in Cris Cummins. I see passion, desire and genuine anguish. I see a man, reluctantly separated from his wife and children in England, who was given a crushing burden and carried it well – for a time.
Most of all, I see a man who wants to go home.
And for all his honest effort, I see no soccer-related reason why he shouldn’t.
Onward!