Delgado acts like a pro after TFC’s loss

Marky Delgado could have done what most of his teammates did. He could have walked past reporters, head down, headphones on, all the way to the team bus, and never spoke of what happened. Or, what should have happened. Nobody would have blamed the 22-year-old after watching Chivas parade around Estadio Akron late Wednesday night with the Champions League trophy.

But he didn’t walk on by. Delgado, after squandering the chance that would have meant everything to a TFC side on the cusp of history, walked over.

“It was definitely heartbreaking,” he said. “We wanted to win it.

“We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves,” he added.

But he will be. How could he not? Delgado had the game on his foot in stoppage-time with a chance to break a 3-3 (aggregate) deadlock.

Sebastian Giovinco’s cross sat up perfectly for Delgado to strike metres from goal. He saw the goal was empty. Then he saw his attempt fly over the crossbar.

“At the end of the day we didn’t come out with it, but that’s football sometimes,” Delgado said. “I take responsibility for missing the lastminute shot. It went over.”

He held back tears on the most emotional night of his young career. He didn’t want to talk about it, but knew he needed to.

A player who rarely speaks postgame stepped to the mic in TFC’s biggest moment.

“That’s football sometimes,” Delgado said as he searched for words. “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it goes in. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s heartbreaking.”

“Wherever we are, we want to win,” the soft-spoken American finished. “Unfortunately, today we didn’t. But we know we dominated the game.”

Perceived domination didn’t make Wednesday’s Champions League loss any more bearable.

“I’m proud of him and I’ll see him when we get back,” Coach Greg Vanney said. “He’s disappointed because he didn’t finish a chance. But he’s played a mammoth tournament. This guy covers so much ground and does a tonne of work.”

It’s easy to forget he assisted on multiple game-winning goals, including Wednesday night’s, during this tournament.

“We don’t put these losses on one individual,” TFC goalkeeper Alex Bono said. “That’s just the dynamic of our team and the dynamic of our group.”