‘Unlucky’ Toronto FC denied MLS title
Justin Morrow sat on a stool in the dressing room, away from the lockers, looking down, his arms crossed, barely moving. He tried to speak but at first he could only whisper. He tried to look up, make eye contact. But it was all too soon in the near silence of the Toronto FC locker-room.
“I didn’t see it,” he eventually said. “It went off my leg, hit me on the shin. It’s never happened to me before, ever ... never had an own goal. This is hard. Really hard. Hard way to lose.”
The final score in the MLS Cup was Seattle Sounders 3, Toronto FC 1 — but really, the first goal in the championship game at a crazed, sold- out and loud Centurylink Field was everything.
“We played a great game for about 70 minutes,” said left back Chris Mavinga. “But you know, it’s not a 70-minute game.”
The goal was credited to Kelvin Leerdam and it was then the Reds began to unravel. The goal came in the 57th minute. It came when Toronto had been controlling the pace of the game, the style, doing just about everything right but scoring, almost quieting a very noisy crowd with its precise execution.
Then came the bad bounce.
“Bad luck,” Mavinga called it. “You get a goal like that and it’s luck. That’s all it is.”
But that wasn’t all it is. The bad luck, the bad bounce, came after TFC players thought a foul should have been called.
Jonathan Osorio had the ball. The Toronto players, especially captain Michael Bradley and best player Alejandro Pozuelo, vehemently believe Osorio was fouled. The foul was never called.
The ball ended up on the right side to Leerdam, whose harmless shot normally would have presented no trouble for TFC goalkeeper Quentin Westberg, had it been on goal at all.
Except it deflected off Morrow’s shin. And it was 1- 0.
“It changed the whole game,” said Osorio. “Everyone here knows what should have been called. It’s a crucial play. The official said I ran into ( Christian) Rodan. That was the explanation given. That hurts.
That ends up being a big play in the game.”
The biggest play. Morrow has known this kind of difficulty before at the championship game level. In 2016, when TFC lost the MLS Cup to these same Sounders at BMO Field, it was Morrow who missed on a penalty kick attempt that prevented the Reds from keeping the game even.
Toronto was the better team in 2016 but didn’t get the championship win. For almost 57 minutes they were the better team Sunday afternoon. And then one goal tilted the field here and they never quite recovered.
“It hurts bad right now,” said Morrow. “I thought we played really well. I thought we really battled. This hurts really bad right now, but I’m so proud of this group of guys.”
As he said that, his voice began to crack. He had to stop.
“This shows what kind of team we are,” said Morrow. “What kind of players and people we are.”
Bradley was playing his 200th match for Toronto on Sunday and he played it to the highest level. If this was his last TFC game, the result was unfortunate, but the leadership and strength of the captain was evident.
There is nothing in sports that stings the way losing a championship game stings. It stings even more when you are right there, when you’re controlling the pace, when your game plan is working, when you can almost feel victory.
Then, almost in a matter of seconds, it’s over. And the score makes it look like it was one-sided when it wasn’t.
“Finals are tight,” said Bradley. “Both teams step on the field with everything to play for and concentration is at the absolute highest level ... You know you’re going to need a little bit of a break, a bounce, a deflection, something. Obviously they got that. And they were able to use that to get the second goal.”
Jozy Altidore, who got to play briefly in the second half and scored Toronto’s only goal after the 90- minute mark, wasn’t as philosophical.
“We know the standard of MLS refereeing is next to horrible,” said the soon-to-be-fined Altidore, talking about the game- changing first goal. “It’s a deflection. A lucky deflection, unlikely for JMO ( Morrow).”
Coach Greg Vanney was less emotional, more pragmatic in defeat: “At the end of the day, you have to score to win the game.”
Toronto did so when it was already over, when it didn’t matter, when the championship had already been lost.