To advance to the 2014 Canadian Championship final all Toronto FC needs to do Wednesday night in Vancouver is something they haven’t done all season: draw a match. So far, after eight competitive games, the Reds have won four and lost four. If, at the end of 90 minutes, the score is level on the night, TFC will have done enough.
The needless concession of a stoppage time goal in Toronto last week left a bitter taste in the mouth of TFC fans leaving the stadium and made it easy to forget that Toronto is still in a strong position to advance. Win at home, and draw away; it’s the classic recipe for advancing in a two-legged aggregate tie.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The frustration stems from the fact that their position should have been stronger.
Fielding a full-strength line-up against a Whitecaps roster almost exclusively comprised of younger reserve players Toronto failed to take the sort of stranglehold on the tie that was on offer. That said, Reds fans will remember how quickly the 2-0 advantage earned in last year’s semifinal first-leg evaporated in Montreal during the return leg.
Furthermore, it’s easy to overstate the importance of the away goal that Toronto conceded. Should the Reds score in Vancouver, the advantage will be negated. The only possible score line that would see TFC eliminated on away goals would be a 1-0 win for the Whitecaps. If a full-strength Toronto line-up can’t score an away goal themselves, one would be hard pressed to argue that they deserve to advance.
Now the suggestion is that Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson is more than prepared to name another line-up disproportionately weighted towards his younger squad players. For a club that’s never managed to lift the Voyageur’s Cup it’s an interesting decision. Even more incredibly, in spite of fielding what would conventionally be considered a weakened side, Robinson has earned praise in some quarters for naming such a Canadian-heavy line-up in Canada’s national championship.
In Toronto, amidst the annual discussion about how seriously the club can afford to take non-league competitions in the face of seven playoffless campaigns, it’s hard to imagine that Ryan Nelsen would have been afforded that opportunity. While it might be perfectly reasonable to accept that another trip to the CONCACAF Champions League is only worth taking if it can be won with reserves, the politics of TFC fandom make it hard to assert that publically.
The lesson here is that, in the end, principles aside, a coach will almost always be judged by results. Name a weakened line-up and lose and you’ll be accused of “disrespecting the competition”. Name a full-strength line-up and lose and you’ll be accused of not giving young players a chance. Win, and either complaint will, at best, almost certainly ring hollow to fair-minded observers.
So, in addition to a place in the Voyageur’s Cup final, that’s what’s on the line Wednesday in Vancouver: the credibility of both coaches’ approach to the competition. It makes for an interesting subplot and could have ramifications in the way the tournament is approached in the future.
And it’s not even clear which would be better for the long-term. That’s a question that only a future, yet to be written, history could answer but it could be, in a few years, we look back upon this series in an entirely different context.
Enjoy the match.