Red Bulls give TFC challenge wings
Reds brace for quick strike when two-leg Eastern semi kicks off in New Jersey
A dome covered one of Toronto FC’s practice fields on Thursday for the first time this fall, a clear indication that the playoffs had finally arrived.
Inside the Reds’ training facility, the vibe mimicked the change outdoors. Together for the first time since the regular season ended in Atlanta on Sunday, they knew their opponent for the two-leg Eastern Conference semifinals: the New York Red Bulls, starting Monday or Tuesday at Red Bull Arena, with the finale at BMO Field on Nov. 5. The game was officially on. “I think in the last week, and today in particular, there’s just a different level of engagement,” TFC coach Greg Vanney said. “There’s just another little notch of intensity.”
Intensity is also what they expect from the Red Bulls, an attacking team that boasts striker Bradley Wright-Phillips — with more goals (17) than TFC’s Sebastian Giovinco (16) and Jozy Altidore (15) — and Sacha Kljestan — who led the league in assists with 17, one more than TFC’s Victor Vazquez.
Wright-Phillips and Kljestan didn’t start the last time the teams met in late September, subbing in for limited minutes, while Giovinco has yet to face the Red Bulls this season because of injuries.
The Reds earned a win and a tie head-to-head in the regular season, but expect the Red Bulls to enter the semifinals full of confidence after upsetting the Chicago Fire, who finished three spots ahead of them, in Wednesday’s knockout round. The Red Bulls were mired in losing streaks the last two times they faced TFC.
Hot or not, it’s not in coach Jesse Marsch’s nature to have his Red Bulls sit back.
“We’ll try to find our moments that we can really get after them and try to really dictate the game,” Vanney said. “But we also understand that they’re a team that likes to press, and we just have to be smart about how quickly we try to transition and go forward — when we choose to keep the ball, when we choose to press, when we choose to sit back.” TFC defender Justin Morrow — who scored a hat trick in a 4-2 win over the Red Bulls on Sept. 30 to clinch the Supporters’ Shield — said a strong start in next week’s first leg in Harrison, N.J., is crucial to set the tone. That’s what the Red Bulls did against the Fire, with Wright-Phillips and Kljestan scoring in the first11 minutes.
“We have to expect that they’re going to throw their all at us in the beginning of this game, so we’re going to have to not make mistakes in the beginning of the game,” Morrow said. “We’re going to have to play smart, and we’re going to have to know what they want to do.”
What they want to do while facing an “incredibly big challenge,” Marsch told reporters following the Chicago match, is use the opening home game to their advantage.
“In the playoffs, in my years here, we’ve always been the higher seed, so we go on the road first,” he said. “We will get to try it this way. You can make an argument that having the home game first sets the tone for the series. So it’s time to put our money where our mouth is.”
For their part, the Reds plan to be in the driver’s seat by the time the Nov. 5 second leg rolls around on home turf. If the teams finish tied on aggregate, away goals (not including extra time) are the first tiebreaker.
“We can spoil the party at their home,” said TFC midfielder Marky Delgado. “We want to do that. We want to be the spoilers. We want to go in there and really make a statement: We’re here to play.”