TFC midfielder surprised to be facing Seattle again
Bradley confesses to rooting for LAFC so he could face dad’s team in MLS Cup
Michael Bradley may have given the Seattle Sounders some extra motivation when he spoke to the media following Toronto FC’S 2-1 win over Atlanta United. Bradley said he was hoping Los Angeles FC would have defeated Seattle for the Western Conference title on Tuesday.
The Sounders upset LAFC, by far the best team in the MLS all season, 3-1.
Bradley, of course, had personal reasons for wanting LAFC to win: getting a chance to play his father’s team in the MLS Cup final. Bob Bradley coaches LAFC.
“Wild. Wild,” the TFC midfielder said when asked about playing Seattle in the final. “Obviously I was — with all due respect to Seattle — I was rooting for the other team pretty hard. (But) the fact it plays out Toronto-seattle
for the third time in four years, should make for an interesting day.”
Toronto FC and Seattle will meet on Nov. 10 at Centurylink Field, the third time in the past four years the two clubs have met for the MLS Cup. The Sounders and Reds previously met in the MLS Cup in 2016 and 2017. Seattle won the first match on penalty kicks in 2016, before TFC earned a convincing 2-0 victory in 2017. Both games were played at Toronto’s BMO Field.
The Sounders (56 points) finished higher in the overall league table than TFC (50 points) during regular-season play this year. In MLS’S inaugural single-elimination playoff bracket, the higher seeds host.
Bradley said there was a real sense with the TFC players that once they started getting guys back from international duty and injury midway through the season, they could go on a real run. With the 2-1 victory over the Five Stripes on Wednesday, the Reds have gone 13 games in a row without a loss.
“Since the beginning of July when we got everybody back from the Gold Cup, we’ve been in a good way,” he said. “And we continue to work, we continue to improve and we’ve got to keep that bar going for another 10 days.”
From TSN soccer analyst Kristian Jack: Bradley will play his 200th game for TFC at the MLS Cup in Seattle, where he also played his first game for TFC back in 2014.
In the Eastern Conference final at Mercedes-benz Stadium on Wednesday, Atlanta jumped ahead of Toronto FC 1-0 in the fourth minute and very well might have clinched it in the 11th minute if superstar Josef Martinez scored on his penalty kick. But his effort was saved by TFC keeper Quentin Westberg. A 2-0 lead at that point probably would have sealed the deal for Atlanta. Instead, the Reds answered with a goal in the first half by Nicolas Benezet and the winner by Nick Deleon in the second.
The online headline in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Thursday announced: “Atlanta United dominates the East final. It also loses.”
No doubt, for large parts of the match, the Five Stripes did dominate, but TFC rallied when it had to and came up with two big goals and battened down the hatches in the last few minutes with United pressing to preserve the victory. Still, there was a real sense down in Georgia that the defending MLS Cup final champions deserved to win. A local journalist asked Toronto coach Greg Vanney after the game if Vanney told United coach Frank de Boer that the Reds didn’t deserve to win.
Vanney danced around the question a little, and said: “It would be disrespectful to my team to say they (TFC) didn’t deserve it. But they did. But we didn’t play our best soccer. From a soccer perspective they were a better team.”
Atlanta United had 59.5 per cent of possession and outshot the visitors 18-4.
The Reds will be back at the BMO Training Ground on Friday and that means Vanney will be asked again about the status of forward Jozy Altidore (quad strain) and centreback Omar Gonzalez (hamstring strain). Both have missed the three playoff games so far because of their respective injuries, though Gonzalez was in the 18 for the Atlanta United and NYCFC games.
“I know Omar will be a lot farther along and will have a number of good training sessions under his belt,” said Vanney. “I am very optimistic now gaining 10 days or so that Jozy will be in the fold. It’s obviously way too early to say, but my hope is that we’ll have at least options from our entire roster (for the final) and get everybody back and decide what’s the best way to attack the game.”
The thought is that Altidore’s quad strain was a little more serious than originally let on.