No one wants to hear the positive spin. It’s too much. It’s too hard. It’s too painful.
When TFC allows another injury time goal to drop points (seriously, is there a team in the world that does it more often?) people just want to rant. They want to place blame. They want to forget any type of positive from the game.
And, that’s fair. The late game collapses are a major problem. They need to be fixed. They are a buzzkill of magnificent proportions.
That’s especially the case when, like Saturday, it was the TWELTH time since the start of 2012 that the Reds have allowed after the 85th min.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]“Don’t look now, it’s TFC time!” is a familiar statement around BMO Stadium at about 85 minutes. An argument could be made that you should leave the stadium around that time to maintain your sanity.
If I, or you, or Aron Winter, or Paul Mariner knew the answer to “why does TFC not know how to close out games in the dying moments" I, you, Aron Winter or Paul Mariner would be sitting behind the podium at the post-game press conference. Since we don’t, all we can do is speculate.
Is it fitness? That was Mariner’s belief – with a little nod of blame to his predecessor – and there could be something to it. TFC did play a light preseason again in 2013 -- although whenever I brought this point up in the preseason I was reassured by former players that preseason friendly games are not where fitness is developed. Still, if every team is doing it one way and you’re doing it another then, maybe, you’re the one that needs to have a hard look at things.
Is it simply a lack of skill? This has to play a major role and is something that can’t be easily fixed – at least not over night. Then again, every MLS team has holes. At some point a team needs to learn to overcome weakness in the 11. On paper, TFC really isn’t that far behind most teams (hell, in the standings they aren’t either, but I said this column wouldn’t put a positive spin on things). They don’t need significantly better players to stop the late game bleeding. They just need to stop being so bad late in games (sometimes it really is that simple).
Is it coaching? Some of it has to be. Why are they playing so deep late? Is that by design? If so then why continue playing that way when it’s clear it doesn’t work? If it isn’t by design then why aren’t the players listening to instructions from the coaching staff? A lot of questions, but no real answers here.
Is it confidence? This is my theory, but it’s just that – a theory. They play scared in the dying moments of games and provide too many opportunities for teams (teams that are playing with their tail up because they are aware of TFC’s late game tendencies every bit the same as the fans in the stands are). Jose Villarreal tying goal was world class, and it’s unlikely that too many players will score a goal like that against Toronto again this year, but why was he even allowed to be that deep? Why was the ball not in row Z at the moment he spun to hit it?
Because TFC doesn’t yet believe it is good enough to win games. Fixing that core problem is Ryan Nelsen and Kevin Payne’s greatest challenge.