Toronto FC gives away precious points
Drawing lowly San Jose doesn’t cut it in playoff race
If Toronto FC falls a couple of points short of making the playoffs in a couple of months, Saturday night’s failure to secure a win against the league’s worst team will be up there with the biggest wasted opportunities.
After a poor first half, the Reds looked to have the game in hand. Substitutes Sebastian Giovinco and Gregory van der Wiel had shifted the field, resulting in far better play from the visitors and a 1-0 lead after newcomer Lucas Janson’s 59th minute goal in his debut. However, disaster struck when longtime TFC antagonist Chris Wondolowski pounced on his own rebound after Alex Bono could not catch his initial strike and equalized in the 77th minute. It was Wondolowski’s ninth goal in 14 meetings with Toronto and prevented TFC from winning what was on paper its easiest remaining match of the season.
San Jose came in as the worst defensive squad in Major League Soccer, yet Toronto generated nearly nothing on the attack and only Giovinco, playing through a groin issue, made things happen later on. Missing the suspended Jozy Altidore and the injured Victor Vazquez had something to do with that, but not creating more against San Jose was puzzling and had to be disappointing for a group that still believes its season is not over.
Bono will likely take most of the blame. He has mixed great saves with bad reads in recent weeks and has had trouble catching a number of shots, but the offence should not be off the hook, either. Fatigue is a valid excuse, to a degree, but Saturday’s work was simply not good enough and this team is not showing enough urgency. San Jose had an 18-8 shots advantage and nine corner kicks compared to only two for the Reds.
“Probably on most seasons and most nights I would be OK with (the draw),” head coach Greg Vanney said.
“It’s our fifth game in 15 days and we travelled all the way from Toronto here on a short rest, the guys put a lot of effort into it no doubt, but having gone up 1-0 and in pretty good control of the situation, to lose a ball that in one pass turns into the goal, really, just off of mistakes, just shooting ourselves in the foot at that point, then it’s extremely disappointing,” he said.
“We don’t have the leeway to make errors and give points away and that’s ultimately, in the end, what it was”
Veteran defender Jason Hernandez added: “At this point in the season when you have a 1-0 lead, we really feel like we should hold on to that and get away with all three points. It’s been one of the toughest schedule travel grinds I’ve been a part of in my 14 years, this past month, really. So to win a Cup final Wednesday and come out here and grind out a result, like I said, in the general sense it’s good, but we felt like we should have had all three.”
Vanney still believes this group can get back into contention for a playoff spot. “I think we have a big challenge in front of (us but) I think we are in decent form and if we can come off of a regular week’s preparation and guys are somewhat in form and healthy and we can put a group out there then I think we can go on a big run and that’s what it’s going to take.”