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TORONTO — Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney said this week he felt his team was trying to achieve too much, too quickly — that a return to playoff contention in MLS’ Eastern Conference would be earned inch by inch, not with any quick fixes. TFC captain Michael Bradley agreed, noting there was no magic potion to cure the injury-hit Reds’ literal and metaphorical ailments.
On Sunday, Vanney and Bradley got the adjustment in approach they had asked for. Against a New York Red Bulls team competing among the top sides in the East, Toronto was compact, organized and slowly played its way into the game, eventually creating numerous second-half chances.
The result? Yet another loss.
“We’re looking for those building blocks to build on right now, because things aren’t falling in our favour,” Vanney said. “You can tell with a soft goal and chance missed after chance missed, you just start to kind of feel the sense that the result, again, is kind of coming a little bit. That’s a challenge.”
Two crucial mistakes wrecked Toronto’s plan. The first came in the fourth minute, when Red Bulls left back Kemar Lawrence took aim from 20 yards and saw his shot pass straight through TFC goalkeeper Alex Bono’s hands. That stood up as the only goal of the game.
“It’s poor on my part,” Bono said. “It’s a mistake I’d like to say I don’t usually make, so I put my hand up for that one today. I have to take it on the chin. We don’t make excuses. I don’t make excuses. That one’s on me.”
The second came much later, with little over 10 minutes to play, and was all too familiar: after a review by the video assistant referee handed Toronto a chance to equalize, Sebastian Giovinco was denied from 12 yards by the outstanding Luis Robles. Giovinco has now missed five of his past seven penalties in MLS play.
In fairness to the Italian, he was not the only player to pass up an opportunity to bring TFC back into the game. Following a timid first half in which neither team registered a second shot on target, Toronto took almost total control of the game in the second frame.
“We’ll probably throw most of this video out and just say it was a great result on the road,” admitted Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch.
Bradley sprung Jordan Hamilton — back in the lineup after two goals playing in two games in the second-tier United Soccer League — through on goal seconds into the half, but Robles read his attempt to curl a left-footed shot toward the far post and blocked the attempt. Minutes later, Bradley found himself in unusual territory in the opposition’s box, but Robles, superb again, got down low to deny the U.S. international.
“I definitely, in a way, appreciated that opportunity Hamilton had because it was so early on,” Robles said. “I didn’t really think about it — it was a bang-bang play and now, all of a sudden, I’m locked in.”
He had to be because Giovinco, who had struggled to find space for much of the game, was suddenly drifting into dangerous pockets. On one occasion, he slipped a pass through to an onrushing Marky Delgado, but Robles was advancing with equal haste and Delgado could not lift his shot over him.
Jonathan Osorio, Toronto’s top scorer with nine goals on the season, was uncharacteristically wasteful when Nicolas Hasler pulled a low cross back into his path. He did better when Giovinco ushered him into the box with another smart pass, wriggling past a defender before shooting low — but, again, there was Robles.
The veteran stopper could not hold the ball, though, and out of the melée that followed his save came Delgado, protesting furiously for an apparent handball. The television replays confirmed his suspicions — Red Bulls defender Tim Parker fell on the ball and pushed it away from danger with his hand — and the VAR advised referee Hilario Grajeda to take another look.
He did, and awarded the penalty. But Robles simply went back to work. And now, Toronto will have to do the same.