With Toronto FC’s brief (three-game) run of mid-summer improvement in results beginning to disappear in the rear view mirror the attitude in Toronto is once again turning to glum resignation if not outright disappointment. The promise of a team enhanced by summer signings and showing improvement as part of the build-up to 2014 has, to date, not been realized. With Matias Laba possibly out for the remainder of the season, Jeremy Brockie’s loan completed, and most of the club’s new additions failing to see significant minutes for one reason or another there’s even the possibility that TFC is weaker than when the summer transfer window opened.
As Daniel Squizzato pointed out, being a Toronto sports fan all too often requires finding a reason to stay engaged. The simple joy of watching live local football in a purpose built stadium on a late summer evening will, of course, be the main reason most are attending. The darker, more perverse possibility, however, is that, while still holding out hope of improvement, there will be a desire to see just how low Toronto FC can sink.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
In his famous football book Fever Pitch Nick Hornby wrote about fans of Cambridge United embracing the absurdity of their record winless streak.* Toronto FC supporters who’ve been there from the beginning already know a thing or two about winless streaks (and playoffless streaks and goalless streaks and season initiating losing streaks). Those fans will understand the sentiment.
While not precisely cheering against your own team, at least when they’re achieving historically poor results they’re doing... something. And something is very often better than the blandness of nothing. No one likes to admit it, but we all slow down to have a look at car crashes.
Even anger and outrage can be cathartic in comparison to the banality of indifference. A big part of football is about feeling – at its best, the feeling of community and euphoria – but even misery can forge the human connections we seek. More cynically, there’s a fair bit of credibility, the currency of fandom, to be gained from the oft repeated “I was there during the bad times” mantra. What’s often overlooked is that for that to be true your team had to be bad.
The problem with Toronto FC in 2013 is that they’ve so rarely been awful. They haven’t really gotten better either, which, as alluded to, was supposed to be the plan. The team that could hang around in games, rarely scoring, rarely giving up many, and often drawing or losing by a goal has had a massive amount of in-season turnover yet still hangs around in games, rarely scores, rarely gives up more than two goals (but rarely keeps clean sheets), and often ends up drawing or losing by a goal. The new argument seems to be that at least they’re achieving those same results with a team no longer pressed tightly against (or over) the salary budget.
So, apparently, they’re losing the right way this time?
Friday evening’s game against the New England Revolution ends a run of three matches that highlights just how little tangible improvement there has been at TFC. With the loss in Columbus and draw in DC, even a win over New England would see the Reds take significantly less points from those same three middle to lower half Eastern Conference clubs than they did the previous time they faced them.
Yes, it’s unfair to expect a team who has only won four games all season to repeat their performance against three of the teams they actually managed to beat (and results don’t always reflect performance), but with their schedule about to enter a relatively harder sequence of mostly playoff calibre opponents, it was a good chance to show that those results weren’t flukes. One, two, or four points from nine, against weaker opponents, will have a hard time keeping you relevant over the course of a season.
The Revolution currently sit in the Eastern Conference’s final playoff position (though Houston have a game in hand and thus better points-per-game). So, beyond the desire to avenge their embarrassing home loss to Toronto earlier in the month, Jay Heaps’ young team will have ample motivation to earn maximum points. In fact, as they are technically the team that the Reds are chasing for that final playoff position a win or draw for New England will see TFC move significantly closer to final, formal mathematical elimination.
With only nine game remaining in the season, Toronto’s maximum number of points, even if they were to win all those matches, cannot exceed 48. Since New England are currently on 36 points ANY combination of 13 points gained by the Revs or dropped by TFC ends official playoff contention. A draw Friday would cut that number by a quarter to 10 (one point gained by New England and two points dropped by Toronto), while a New England win would see it cut nearly in half to 7.
Of course Toronto FC will not be making the playoffs and this exercise is essentially academic. At this point, however, an end to any pretence of relevance might actually make watching the remainder of the season more bearable.
*Update: Thanks to Ian Clarke of rednationonline.ca I've realized that I was conflating Hornby's two recounts of Cambridge United's miserable season. While he does mention the story in Fever Pitch the fuller version is in his contribution to the When Saturday Comes anthology he edited titled My Favourite Year. Here's the most relevant passage for TFC fans:
Of course, it was irritating to begin with -- one does not enjoy seeing one's team lose. [...] However, as it became clear that there might be a little history to be made, each 5-0 away defeat, each 2-2 draw snatched from the jaws of victory, became perversely satisfying. Hartlepool recently set a record for the longest period without scoring. How many Hartlepool fans, even in the midst of temporary jubilation, did not feel a little pang, a sense of something gone, when the net finally did bulge after Lord knows how many goalless hours?