It made no sense, yet made all the sense in the world. For the 17th time since the start of the 2012 season, Toronto FC allowed a goal after the 85th minute on Saturday. It was likely the worst kick in the gut yet for the tortured TFC fan.
The Reds played, by far, their best game of the season. They dominated for long stretches of the game. They were against 10 men – a situation they forced with a great ball over the top to Robert Earnshaw – and they really didn’t look likely to allow.
And then they did. Almost on the last kick. And, it really, really sucked.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The reaction is the stands was stunned silence. There weren’t a lot of people still in the stands to begin with, but the building had likely never been quieter. Sure there was the odd angry voice, but that only served to act as juxtaposition to how mute the majority were.
It was the equivalent of walking into the house after the funeral of a good friend to find your beloved pet dog dead in the living room – all of your emotion was gone, used up by the pain already suffered. You could only turn away and hope it was all a dream.
Really? Really??? That really just happened?
A true reflection on the game would attempt to see the positives and point to the growth of the team overall. Yes, things are better now than they were last year at the same time when TFC had an historically poor start to the season.
Yes, management has asked for patience as they attempt to rebuild the team and no one in the front office is willing to put any sort of expectation on the club. You won’t hear the P-word mentioned at BMO Field unless it’s in relation to scoring Leafs tickets for early May.
For the most part, fans (those that remain) have bought into this narrative. They have seen the turnover of the past and have decided that that’s the reason TFC has failed to advance itself. They’d be partly right. There has been too much turnover and that has created the type in instability that has made the Reds a punchline.
So, the fans that remain are willing to wait out a multi-year rebuild. They’re also willing to ignore the fact that Chivas and Philly are both in playoff sports right now despite being terrible last year and, in Chivas’ case, completely having blown up the team in the off-season.
They are holding onto the fact that Kevin Payne has gone young with this team and ignoring the fact that Toronto was the youngest team in the league last season under both Winter and Mariner.
Basically, what they are doing is subscribing to the idea that a MLS team should be built like you build a NHL team, with slow improvement made through good drafting and player development.
A theory that ignores the fact that doing so might possibly be the worst way to try and build a MLS team. The draft is of limited use – neither of TFC’s first rounders touched the pitch again this week – and, currently, there isn’t enough opportunity for young players to develop while on MLS rosters.
There is no happy medium in the TFC universe. Fans either have the loyalty of a 12-year-old girl following the latest boy-band, or the patience of Job.
It’s OK to demand a little accountability from this team and it’s possible to do so without wearing a paper bag over your head to the next game.
Put less flippantly: This is MLS. 10 of 19 teams make the playoffs, so that needs to be the goal of TFC NOW. Giving them a year’s pass will only reinforce the losing culture that is a poison around this club.
That said, this is football: It’s possible – advisable, really – to appreciate the sport and the club on a game –to-game basis and take joy in small victories.
Saturday should have been one of those small victories. Sadly, 10-seaconds of poor play ruined that.