Is Fortress BMO starting to crack?
By: Mark | July 26th, 2010
Toronto FC vs. FC Dallas: 1-1 tie on Saturday at BMO Field. I couldn’t catch the game this weekend, so my thoughts are based on the hi-lights, which you can catch here, as well as the various post-game write-ups out there, such as this one.
It looked like TFC had a lot of scoring chances in this game, going with a 4-3-3 formation with DeRo, Santos and Barrett upfront, with de Guzman, LaBrocca and Sanyang in the midfield. That sounds like a pretty decent lineup with the team desperately needing to score some goals. They finally did that with a goal from Santos about an hour into the game, and then after that they took the foot off the gas to defend. AGAIN. 1 goal lead, time to defend for 30 more minutes! And look what happened, a late equalizer by Dallas, and Toronto have seen another 2 points slip away. Ah, the memories of last season…
Sure a tie isn’t that bad, but the problem here is the disturbing trend to Toronto’s overall performance at BMO Field lately. You have to go all the way back to May 8 for that last time TFC scored more that 1 goal at home. That’s in all competitions – including the Canadian Championship and the Bolton Wanderers friendly last week. Since the 4-1 victory over Chicago Fire on May 8, TFC have played 8 home games, winning 2 of them and drawing 6, scoring a grand total of 5 goals. 6 of these games (including both wins) were regular season. That’s a lot of numbers, but they all add up to 1 thing: TFC NEED TO SCORE GOALS!
I think the team have got too much of this whole Fortress BMO thing in their heads and they think no one can beat them at home. So as long as they can pick up a goal they’ll be able to win it. Well, that kind of attitude has cost them a potential 8 points in league games, which could potentially have put TFC in a tie for first place in the east with Columbus. Looking at the standings doesn’t reveal too much alarm right now, but Toronto are actually now in a 3-way tie for the last playoff spot, only 4 points above the 9th place team in the league.
With 6 home games left and 8 on the road, this trend has got to be reversed. Toronto can no longer rely on home games to pick up points. They have got to play more gutsy at home to score goals and secure the wins, and they have to play tight on the road to try to get ties there. They also have to figure out which teams are beatable on the road, and make the most of their chances to get a few wins.
Time to show your mettle boys – we don’t want to leave it up to chance on the last game of the season to get into the playoffs!
Any other thoughts on the game against Dallas, or the overall team performance lately?
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Comments
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Why wasn’t Mista playing? We have a designated player who’s finally cleared to play here and we leave him on the bench? Am I missing something?
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Just checked the game summary – it looks like Mista did come in at the 55th minute as a sub for Sanyang. The goal came in the 61st minute by Santos. I don’t think Mista had much involvement in the goal though. I’m not sure if Mista is fully match fit either (I assume he didn’t have any training camp after the La Liga season ended in the spring).
The only bright spot I see right now though is that Santos scored a pretty goal against Bolton and also scored against Dallas. Can he do that again tomorrow night when Motagua come to town?
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It was a frustrating match. We definitely played better than the Philly game. We really could have won it but for some reason they stop attacking as aggressively when they go a goal up. The goal we gave up was so preventable too. Askew passing and then give up a stupid corner only for Gargan to lose his marker who gets a header in.
On the positive side, Preki probably tore them a new one after the match. Also, when Mista, Maicon, deRo, and deGuzman were all playing at the same time, you could tell that the passing was better. Also Chad playing wide right (or even left) looks good to me. He puts in decent crosses and of course he gives defenders a hard time always. We should see more goals now with Mista and Maicon, I’m fairly confident. Maicon is getting chances, Mista is pretty good with corners and set pieces it seems.
Dallas looked decent and were definitely happy with a point. They were excellently cutting out any through balls sent in. Solid defense.
Anyway, big CL game tomorrow. Amado is back in town! Hopefully it will be better than last year’s games which kinda sucked. -
TFC is shit…. what a fuckin joke.
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