Playoff run has arrived, but is TFC ready for it?
Nothing like a pair of Blue Jays-Yankees weekends to put the intoxicating scent of a fall pennant race within sensory range.
It’s the kind of thing that should be inspiring to Toronto FC, struggling to clear out the stumps and grow something in their forlorn patch of the local sporting real estate.
And while his baseball counterpart was furiously making moves up against a deadline, so too did TFC general manager Tim Bezbatchenko shuffle while the clock ticked down on MLS’s midsummer transfer window.
Herculez Gomez, Ahmed Kantari and Josh Williams are the new names, but as they bed in the results have gone to worrisome — Kantari, the key figure replacing retired Steven Caldwell at centreback, has looked particularly ill-suited to the pace and harem-scarem attacking of MLS. Meantime, the days grow shorter, and so too does the club’s profile. Mostly, they look ill-suited for the reality of the playoffs, when flaws are magnified.
Soccer’s a cruel game where the relative rarity of goals means that one’s weakest link cannot be covered up. So the team’s defensive deficiencies — and it goes beyond just the back four to include dodgy goalkeeping, a failure to close out in the midfield, poor communication and not getting the ball back quick enough when they give it away too easily — become just as big an element in the reckoning, and ultimately something that another bit of attacking wizardry from Seba Giovinco can’t cover up.
The numbers of late make for bracing reading:
Twenty-two goals allowed since the beginning of July doesn’t cut it. Chris Konopka or Joe Bendik, it doesn’t matter who’s between the sticks — one soft goal a night has been the norm. They’ve won but two games over that eight-game stretch, and those came against a Kakaless Orlando and a Philadelphia side short on quality and bottom of the division.
The history-minded have already started seeing signs of a familiar swoon in keeping with the seasons. TFC has over its history averaged 1.14 points per game to the end of July. After Aug. 1, they have fallen off 23 per cent to 0.88/game, and how many coaches have survived that drop?
Saturday in New Jersey against the Red Bulls they were dominated, managing a season-low one shot inside the 18-yard box while not connecting with a single cross of 19 put in. Not matching up against the better teams is starting to trend: TFC is averaging 1.6 points this season versus teams currently outside a playoff position, and 1.15 points against teams in.
Beyond figures, though, it was a free kick for Kansas City’s winning goal last time out at home on Aug. 8 that, to these eyes, was the purest example of TFC’s deficit in steel, a simple pick-and-roll off the ball taking Kantari and Ashtone Morgan out and leaving Krisztian Nemeth in space for a 15-metre header that caught Bendik well off his line. It was a goal, as they say in a different context, that had everything: ballwatching, lack of awareness and communication, inattention to detail, poor set-piece preparation, a breachable last line.
With Europe’s leagues rolling out now each weekend, the wow factor of Giovinco’s weekly showings and any curiosity factor created by visits from the likes of Didier Drogba and former designated player Gilberto will face more competition for attention from neutrals than just a
The days grow shorter, and so too does the club’s profile. TFC looks ill-suited for the playoffs, when flaws are magnified
crosstown baseball team. For the regulars who remain, there’s already a sickening “here we go again” lurch following moments like Nemeth’s flick.
Bezbatchenko has vowed not to knee-jerk any moves this year, preaching continuity. Outgoing boss Tim Leiweke has avoided any guarantees. And indeed, MLS is a mercurial place where it’s how you finish out September and October that matters.
With a friendly schedule of eight home games starting an 11-game stretch run on Saturday when Orlando comes in, we might as well call game on for TFC’s playoff run — unready or not, here they come.