TFC coach sees silver lining in weekend off for Pozuelo
TORONTO—It may be looking for a silver lining, but Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney says Alejandro Pozuelo missing Sunday’s visit by the San Jose Earthquakes may not be such a bad thing.
The Spanish playmaker, suspended in the wake of two illtempered yellow cards in the 3-0 weekend loss at Salt Lake City, has not had a break since coming to MLS in March straight from his season in Belgium.
“He’ll never admit it because players love to play and they want to play all the time and they want to help their teams but I do think — and I talked to him about it — this is a good week for him to be able to kind of catch his breath a little bit,” Vanney said.
“He came (here), he came fast, obviously had an incredible start to the whole thing, which then ramps up the attention and everything else on your arrival.
“No matter who it is, everybody goes through a stretch too where you have to adapt to the league and you start to learn the refereeing, you start to learn the physicality, you have to get to know your teammates.
“And you realize the travel of the league is tough. There’s different facets that everybody goes through.”
Not to mention settling your family in a new home.
“He’s got a good sample size of what the league is about and everything,” Vanney added.
“And now we hopefully can help him get his legs back under him. Again, he’ll never admit that.”
Pozuelo has five goals and six assists in 10 games, despite the injury absence of star striker Jozy Altidore, who has played just 53 minutes in two stints off the bench over the last six games due to hamstring and heel issues.
Pozuelo has taken his lumps from defenders in recent weeks and that frustration seemed to boil over against Real Salt Lake.
“It’s not good that he got a red card but I think it shows the edge that he has,” Vanney said.
“I think all great players have an edge. I don’t know if we had seen it ’til that point … There’s an edge in there that will serve us well in big moments down the road.”
Having Altidore back on the field will help take some of the opposition’s focus off Pozuelo, he added.
Altidore is deemed fully healthy now.