I’ll be honest, folks. I don’t know how to put this into words.
Conveying emotion that intense, to tell a story so unlikely … not an easy task.
So I’ll start with the women’s rugby team.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
They wandered into the back room of Scallywags during a lull in the action. They had no idea – whatsoever – of the astonishing level of shouting, song and exultation that would soon tear from the throats of the fifteen or so Toronto FC fans who had gathered in the shadows to watch this hopeless soccer game.
The women settled in to a fine post-match meal of steaks, roasted veg, mashed potatoes and draft beer, laughing, smiling, bonding – and then the joint blew up.
Here’s the only background I can pause to give you. Toronto FC was at Montreal, needing to win by at least four goals to claim the Canadian championship and a berth in the CONCACAF Champions League. Anything less would mean the Vancouver Whitecaps – who had flown 3,000 miles and were getting rained on in the Stade Saputo seats – would win the Voyaguers Cup. The Montreal Impact, the other team on the field with TFC, had nothing left but pride to play for.
Early on, Montreal made Toronto’s task even harder, scoring on a penalty kick. No question at all about the call. Newly arrived TFC defender Nick Garcia threw a flying figure-four leg lock on a luckless Montreal attacker. Toronto – a team cursed, in general, with an inability to finish – now needed five goals.
I was downstairs in the bathroom when Toronto native son Dwayne DeRosario scored the first Toronto goal. A freaking bicycle kick! He threw himself down on his back, and blasted the ball – backwards! – straight into the Montreal net.
I was out of my chair, pacing, when DeRo buried the second, banking a 20-yard rip off a defender’s leg.
After that, I was informed by the other fans in the room I would not be allowed to sit down for the remainder of the match. I didn’t. Superstition is a big part of sports. And I don’t argue with mobs – even small mobs – when they’re right.
2-1 Toronto at the half. Tension outnumbers hope, but hope exists.
DeRo made it three, early in the second half. The rugby gals were visibly startled by the roar that jarred the place. No set-up, no warning – just BOOM!
The fourth goal was brilliant. Toronto midfield free-kick ace Amado Guevara – already down three goals to DeRo on the night – decided to fight back.
But the truly amazing part was the way his teammates set up to help him. As Guevara lined up a head-on spot kick outside the Montreal area, three TFC players inserted themselves into the Impact’s defensive wall. The middle man, striker Danny Dichio, likely the tallest and coolest player on the pitch.
Guevara, seeing a wide swath of wall that would never rise to block him, ripped the ball a foot over Dichio’s head. The back of the net – and the back room at Scallywag’s – exploded simultaneously.
Very surreal for the rugby gals. They know now they’re in a room filled with maniacs. They don’t have much of a view of the game (sitting under and to the side of the big screen), but must be wondering why a 4-1 score is generating such adrenaline-crazed thunderclaps.
The fifth goal – the one that ultimately carried the night – came off the forehead of embattled TFC striker Chad Barrett. This poor, hard-working, well-meaning schlub has been giving gift-wrapped soccer balls to opposing goaltenders all season. Not this time. Guevara’s corner kick found the uptown neighbourhood of Barret’s face, and fell dead in the net for the impossible four-goal lead.
And didn’t Dwayne DeRosario know it? DeRo was the first to hug Barrett – and wouldn’t let him go. They seemed set to dance back to the centre circle … except the entire rest of the team showed up to join in.
Ah, but it wasn’t over. Games like this seem never to end. The Impact may have been outmanned, outclassed, outmuscled and outscored, but they never quit trying to answer back. Toronto goalie Stefan Frei was forced to make a pin-wheeling reflex dive save at the base of his right post. The gasping groan from the fans was louder than your average goal celebration on a far-more-average night.
And then we started seeing pictures of the travelling Toronto fans in Montreal. Leaping and singing in the rain. Red scarves dancing in darting in diagonal swirls. Familiar faces – glowing with unfamiliar joy.
Across the field, the Whitecaps. Brooding, sullen – mad.
Goal six. Guevara. A nasty brute ground-level bouncer. Perfectly just inside the post. The backroom detonates. I let the songs and chanting ring for two full minutes, and finally go over and explain to the rugby gals what’s actually been going on all night. They’re sports folk. They get it. Big smiles all over the shop.
And no, I’ll never know why the ref added four full angst-driven minutes to the end of this one. The Impact still fought back, but TFC kept getting the ball over the touchlines, eating twenty or thirty seconds with every stoppage.
At the end, drained, adrenalized and exultant, I stood on the chair they wouldn’t let me sit in, singing at the top of my lungs. Our friends in Montreal filled the screen. And then Jim Brennan – TFC’s first player, captain and proud Canadian – hoisted the Voyaguers Bleepin’ Freakin’ Can You Even Believe It Cup.
Bedlam. Relentless, battering hugs.
Three things we learned:
1) Being Canadian means the world, the moon and the stars to Dwayne DeRosario.
2) DeRo and Amado Guevara can – most certainly – find enough chances and room to play on the same field together.
3) It turns out Montreal was the team in the impossible spot. The angry Whitecaps are already publically accusing them of laying down. Yes, it was their back-up goalie, two back-up centre backs and their best midfielder never saw the pitch. But they were also long-since eliminated, and have a very tough, important USL-1 game coming up against Vancouver on Saturday.
That’s about as much depth of analysis as I can muster. Normally, I can be a fan and journalist simultaneously. But this wild, ragged night at Scallywags was all about being a fan.
I think I got most of what happened. I leave it to you and history to fill in the rest.
Wow! Wow! Wow!
Onward!