Toronto FC hands Philly first loss of MLS season

Bob Bradley wasn’t interested in talking about his 200th career MLS win, counting the regular season and playoffs.

“Not at all,” said the Toronto FC coach after his team downed the Philadelphia Union 2-1 Saturday to hand the league-leading Union their first defeat of the season.

“It’s all about the team and you’ve got to stay in the moment,” he added. “The thing that is so important is that you don’t become a good team by accident. You become a good team just with consistent training, consistent work every day. And then you can grow into becoming a good team.

“The most important thing in tonight is that I saw some of those things going in a good direction.”

Bradley was more interested in dissecting the good and bad of his team’s win.

“I believe in our football. I was very happy with the way we pushed and competed, but I still think our football, in moments, was not as sharp as I expect.”

The 64-year-old coach is a big soccer brain, honed from coaching the U.S. and Egyptian national teams as well as club sides in France, Norway, and the English Premier League — not to mention five MLS clubs.

He has shown in his short tenure here that he is not afraid to give youth its chance or challenge veterans to be better. And under his stewardship, TFC is showing signs of becoming a good team again.

Toronto (3-2-2) won its third in a row at home while extending its unbeaten run to four games (3-0-1). Philadelphia (5-1-1) had won a franchise-record five straight before Saturday, including four consecutive clean sheets which matched a club mark set in 2017, and was the only MLS team without a defeat.