By: Michael Crampton
Four years is a really long time in Major League Soccer. Four years ago the Columbus Crew were having their breakout double winning season and the Los Angeles Galaxy were a dysfunctional team of misfits coached by a famous former Dutch international. While followers of Toronto FC will be intimately familiar with the Reds’ record of futility over the past half decade it has probably escaped the notice of many that DC United, the team they face on Saturday, actually has the second longest active streak of playoff-less soccer in the league.
In fact, were it not for TFC’s inability to qualify for the post-season at any point in their history, United would have equalled the old league record for consecutive seasons missing the playoffs. For a club that is still the most decorated in the history of the league – 4 MLS Cups, 4 Supporters’ Shields, and 2 US Open Cups domestically alone – it has been a drought of epic proportions.
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So, from Toronto’s perspective the weekend’s matchup may be all about the return of two former captains in the form of Dwayne De Rosario and Maicon Santos and the desperate need to get a win, or even a point, to avoid the infamy of taking sole ownership of the record for losing matches at the start of an MLS season. Stories in the Toronto press and pre-match chatter have, quite reasonably, focused on these angles nearly exclusively. From DC’s perspective however this trip to BMO Field will be viewed the same way it will by all of TFC’s opponents in the coming months: as a winnable away game that they can target as an opportunity to pick up three points on the road and help in their quest to qualify for the post-season.
While defensively United look far from stable what they can rely on is offensive firepower. In his second full season in charge young manager (and club legend) Ben Olsen has assembled an adventurous team more than capable of outscoring an opponent. It didn’t work out for them in San Jose in midweek where they lost 5-3 but prior to that the club had been riding a 7 game unbeaten streak during which they collected 15 points and pushed all the way up to second place in MLS’s Eastern Conference standings.
As noted, Toronto fans will be more than familiar with the talents of De Rosario but in Olsen’s side the Torontonian has been moved back to a more midfield orchestrator role and isn’t expect to carry the team with goals like he did last season and while with TFC. Goals haven’t been a problem though as Santos has hit a rich vein of form with his six goals in league play equaling the amount scored by Toronto’s entire squad to date. Young midfielder Chris Pontius was recently converted to forward and managed to notch a hat-trick of his own in the recent offensive explosion against the New York Red Bulls. Finally, among the most exciting new talents in the league is DC’s first round draft pick Nick DeLeon. A left sided midfielder capable of beating players on the dribble and delivering a good ball DeLeon has been scoring goals and setting them up and could give Toronto’s defence fits if he’s allowed to regularly get on the ball.
All of this has been going on during a relatively quiet spell for star homegrown player Andy Najar whose attacking talents allegedly caught the eye of Arsene Wenger and Arsenal at one point. If Olsen ever manages to integrate DC’s consistently ill fitting designated players Branko Boskovic and Hamdi Salihi into this attack as well United could have a wealth of attacking options likely unequaled in Major League Soccer.
How Aron Winter and Toronto FC propose to deal with this will be interesting to see. The Reds were listless in Montreal in midweek but managed to finally keep a clean sheet for the first time all season in any competition. Winter’s recent comments seem to have completely embraced the pragmatism of that display but against a much more aggressive side like DC United it’s hard to imagine TFC holding out and riding their luck as successfully as they did against the Impact. On the other hand it’s clear that goals can be scored on United and Toronto did manage to find two goals in each of their last two league games. If Toronto can find the balance between attack and defence that has eluded them since their home performance against Santos Laguna Reds supporters may get more than just an exciting match: they may actually see a win.