By: Michael Crampton
It would be hyperbole to suggest that absolutely everything has gone wrong so far in Toronto FC’s 2012 season. It may feel like a season ago but it really only was in March and early April of this year that Toronto supporters were daring to dream the impossible and imagine their team contesting the final of a continental championship. Before the calamitous second half collapse in Torreon, Mexico there really was hope that Toronto FC might finally have turned a corner and started to achieve a measure of respectability so often denied the sixth year club. Now, in the midst of a record setting losing streak in MLS play the tone is decidedly different.
At this point TFC supporters can be forgiven for investing all their remaining hopes for the 2012 season in Wednesday night’s Amway Canadian Championship semi-final second leg match against the Montreal Impact. The proposition is simple enough: win, by any score, and the Reds eliminate a rival and earn the right to play in the final and defend the Voyageurs Cup. Draw (by any score other than an extra time necessitating 0-0) or lose and, not even halfway into the month of May, they’ll have to seriously begin planning for 2013.
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Admittedly, this sort of “do or die” environment might be exactly what Toronto requires. The team’s best performances under Aron Winter have largely come in exactly these sort of circumstances: down a goal at half time at home to Vancouver in the Voyageur’s Cup final of last year, needing at least a draw at home against Pumas with the talismanic Torsten Frings unavailable, needing a win in Dallas to advance out of the CONCACAF Champions League group stage, and, of course, almost certainly needing a win in Los Angeles in the CCL quarterfinal after conceding two away goals in the first leg. As strange as it sounds, when called upon in cup competition, TFC has more often than not answered the bell.
After a three day period where much of the discussion in Toronto was dominated by hints of possible player revolt over Winter’s tactical decisions and predictable questions about whether he’d “lost the room” maybe the clarity of an all or nothing game where the team has no choice but to play to win will be a welcome respite. Winter’s side was criticized for their negativity in the first leg in Montreal and were lucky that the Impact didn’t make their territorial and possession advantages count but, in the end, have now left themselves a completely achievable task. Beating a first year MLS expansion side at home, regardless of form, is never going to be the same as travelling to Estadio Corona already down an away goal.
The Impact’s victory in Kansas City over the weekend will have raised expectations in Montreal. Not only was it the Impact’s first road win of the season it also, for the time being, lifted the club into an Eastern Conference playoff position. Impact supporters had their first opportunity to see another of their major signings, Colombian centre back Nelson Rivas, and by all accounts he looked a strong addition to an improving defence. Still yet to be played alongside regular first choice Matteo Ferrari the prospect of two players with Serie A experience anchoring a backline is a tantalizing prospect barely conceivable to Toronto’s supporters.
Furthermore, in addition to limiting Ferrari and Davy Arnaud to substitute appearances, Montreal’s surprisingly deep squad allowed head coach Jesse Marsch to rest his regular strike tandem of Sanna Nyassi and Bernardo Corradi ahead of the midweek Canadian Championship match. Clearly Marsch has his eyes firmly set on competing successfully in both league and cup play and won’t be taking the second leg lightly. Unlike a much debated previous occasion if Toronto FC is able to get the necessary result against this Impact side there should be no doubt that it was achieved against a full strength and committed opponent.
In the end, winning this match and advancing to the Voyageurs Cup final will not save Toronto FC’s season. It won’t make up for the team’s worse than terrible form in the league and the increasing certainty of a sixth consecutive season outside the playoffs. It won’t even necessarily mean that the Reds retain their title of Canadian champions. What it would mean however is that on this occasion Toronto eliminated Montreal and ended their chance at lifting the Voyageurs Cup in 2012. For one night, in a season of few highs, that’s something worth cheering for in and of itself; we’ll see if the team responds.