Reds report robbery after Fire storm
Lack of video review on key play riles TFC in draw
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Toronto FCcoach Greg Vanney wasn’t worried about his team’s fitness on Saturday, in their return to league play following a gruelling run to the CONCACAF Champions League final. He was more concerned about Major League Soccer’s implementation of the video assistant referee.
Toronto FC played the Chicago Fire to a 2-2 draw at BMO Field, but felt robbed of a win.
Trailing 2-0, Fire midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger got the visitors on the board in the 69th minute when his header off Diego Campos’s corner kick beat Alex Bono. However, prior to Schweinsteiger’s header, replay showed Nemanja Nikolic attempted to head the ball from an offside position. The play in question was not reviewed by referee Alan Kelly, even though it appeared he received a message in his ear from the VAR about it.
“There’s a percentage of the run of play that maybe comes down to (fatigue), but I don’t think the game was decided by that,” said Vanney. “I think the game was decided by a player who is offside — not necessarily Schweinsteiger, but the other player right in front of, or next to, Schweinsteiger who tries to head the ball.”
Alan Gordon scored the tying goal in second-half injury time for Chicago, now 2-3-2.
Jonathan Osorio and Victor Vazquez scored for Toronto, while Alex Bono made six stops. With the draw, Toronto, now 1-4-1, avoided a third consecutive loss in MLS play.
In the first half, the Reds appeared to take a 2-0 lead in the 11th minute when Sebastian Giovinco one-timed a Nicolas Hasler feed past keeper Richard Sanchez, but Hasler was ruled offside after video review.
“He certainly took his time to review our (goal). I think that would be respectful to do the same for us (but they) didn’t,” said Vanney. “I think, as I look at it back, he’s offside. Everybody that I know of understands the interpretation of the rule: play- er who is offside, in front of the goal and attempts to make a play on the goal, and affects the potential decision making of anybody around it, is offside. That is (their) first goal … a momentum shift.”
“To me, today’s game was about decisive moments and we didn’t get the right end of the deciding moment.”
The Reds were playing with a depleted back end as defenders Chris Mavinga (hamstring), Nick Hagglund (hamstring), Drew Moor (quad), Eriq Zavaleta (quad) and Justin Morrow (calf ) were all unavailable for selection. Star forward Jozy Altidore, injured in Wednesday’s CONCACAF Champions League final, was also out.
In the game’s dying seconds, Gordon put home a rebound off Schweinsteiger’s shot to pull the Fire even.
Osorio put TFC on the board in the eighth minute by tapping in a Giovinco cross for his first goal of the year. Vazquez doubled Toronto’s lead in the 22nd minute when his chip shot landed just inside the far post.
Vanney wasn’t the only one furious about Saturday’s implementation of the video assis- tant. Reds captain Michael Bradley spoke out about confusion over the league’s new system.
“Nobody has any idea what VAR is, when it can be used, when it can’t be used,” said Bradley. “Sometimes it has to be clean and obvious, other times it doesn’t. Some things are checked, some things aren’t. Check takes five minutes. It’s a joke.”
There was a moment of silence before the game to honour those who died in Monday’s van attack in the north end of Toronto.