Team’s newfound effort disappeared just as it needed it most vs. Toronto
THE coach demanded a nothing-to-lose, reckless abandon from his players. And instead, he got timid, play-not-to-lose soccer from them in their biggest game of the season.
Jesse Marsch demanded that his players play like men and, too often across the 95 minutes on this crucial playoff night at Red Bull Arena, his players performed more like boys.
That’s what makes the Red Bulls’ 2-1 loss to Toronto FC in the first leg of the Eastern Conference semifinals Monday night so sickening.
The Red Bulls were home, they were playing the No. 1 overall seed in MLS, a team that played 34 regular-season games and lost only five of them, a team that set the league record for most points in a season.
“I’m a little perplexed,’’ Marsch said. “I’m a little unsure as to why we were so unsure. We wanted to have a little bit more of a nothingto-lose mentality tonight, and I felt we played very tight. We hurt ourselves by not really being brave and fearless and going after it.
“I didn’t see it coming, didn’t ex- pect so many subpar performances from our guys. Our team has fought so hard all year, and they’re such good young men, and today they let themselves down.’’
The Red Bulls’ best players let them down.
Their leading scorer, Bradley Wright-Phillips, had a late chance to turn and shoot with the ball on his foot, and missed the net on what he later described as a “poor touch.’’
Their ironman keeper, Luis Robles, who was playing in his 200th career game, yielded a loose rebound of a Jozy Altidore cross that Victor Vazquez settled in front and buried for a stunning 1-0 Toronto lead in just the eighth minute.
So now the Red Bulls were chasing the best team in the league just eight minutes in.
“I’m disappointed, because I don’t think we played like us,’’ Red Bulls captain midfielder Sacha Kljestan said. “It just leaves the worst taste in my mouth, because I told the guys, ‘I don’t care if we lose as long as we play like we’re supposed to play, and if we go down we go down swinging.’
“And tonight, we went down just … too easily. We’re playing against the best team in league history pretty much. We should have nothing to lose. And we played a little bit scared, like there’s pressure on us and we kind of bottle up and don’t perform the way we
played in Chicago five days ago.’’
The Red Bulls dominated Chicago on Wednesday, 4-0, in the one-game knockout round to advance to this series, but they stepped back significantly in competition Monday night.
A look at Sebastian Giovinco effortlessly giving Toronto a 2-1 lead on a set-piece bullet in the 72nd minute was all you needed to see in heightened skill level.
On the play, Red Bulls defender Michael Amir Murillo was supposed to man the left post and was late just as Giovinco rippled the netting for the winning goal.
“We had a game plan to have Murillo drop to the line and he dropped too late,’’ Kljestan said. “Otherwise, he’s there and I think he easily heads that ball out. So it’s the little details that annoy me. It wasn’t Luis’ job to be there, it was Amir’s job to be there.’’
This was another game in which the Red Bulls dominated their opponent on the stat sheet — 12-6 in shots, four on frame to two for Toronto, 64.4 percent possession to Toronto’s 35.4.
Yet now, with road goals weighted more heavily in this aggregate series, the Red Bulls are faced with having to score at least two in Toronto in Sunday’s second leg against a team that’s lost only once at home this year.
“We are now like the 1980 [U.S. Olympic] hockey team times five,’’ Marsch said. “If we had a big hill to climb before, we’ve got a mountain now. Obviously, we’ve made it even more difficult on ourselves.’’
This is in the Red Bulls’ DNA, though, making things tough on themselves. This is a team that, before this year, was the high-seeded team expected to prosper in the playoffs. Yet they’re still seeking a first MLS Cup in franchise history.
“That’s what this team’s about: We always seem to make things hard, and I think the fans would be the first to say that,’’ Wright-Phillips said.
“As we look to the next leg, now there’s really no excuse,’’ Robles said. “We have to go down swinging without any sort of timidity and thinking that we have something to lose, because at this point we don’t.’’