It's worth watching Vanney's post game interview. He goes into how he adjusted the team to the situation both tactically and emotionally. It gives some insight.
It's worth watching Vanney's post game interview. He goes into how he adjusted the team to the situation both tactically and emotionally. It gives some insight.
Wow. The first extra Half was the best 15 minutes I have seen TFC play since the 2017 MLS Cup. They just did not stop.
There’s some hilarious posts at the start of the match in this thread that aged terribly.
On to NYC and the mini-pitch! COYR!
One of the craziest games I've ever seen. Such lows and such highs. Crowd was also weird at times. Lots of people left around the 85th minute, thinking TFC is winning. Boy did they miss out.
And on the pitch: some really intense periods; and some parts of the game that felt like a senior men's kickabout where people don't want to get injured; and/or were too tired to do much. TFC had phases with the best passing and combinations I've seen all season, as well as the best pressure & winning back the ball in midfield. Up there with the recent LAFC game (and with Canada in the game vs the US). And TFC had other phases that we would rather forget.
Now I can laugh about the goal we gave up in stoppage time. I just re-checked the lowlight video of that. It was almost comical: literally 8 TFC players ball-watching, all getting drawn to the ball (and away from the net), like moths to a light bulb. Leaving only two TFC players (plus Westberg) in front of net, and three DC players. It's true that Deleon also ball watched, and let Rodriguez drift to goal all open & score. But I can't give him too much blame: somebody else first let Arriola slip in all alone to setup the goal. With 3 DC players in front of net, and only two from TFC (Osorio and Deleon), somebody was bound to score. I wonder if Gonzalez would have been more disciplined there.
I was really worried about the starting lineup, especially with Omar out. I thought Ciman and Mavinga did quite well, at least for about 90% of the time.
Poor Marky: he could barely move anymore. But he put in a perfect pass to Mullins near the end, who was fresh off the bench. And Mullins shoots it at the keeper...
Hamid spilled most of the low shots, throughout the whole game. So the Delgado goal wasn't really a surprise to me. That's where we were really missing Jozy, or any true striker for the majority of the game. Somebody should have been crashing the net everytime we advanced towards goal. There were so many rebounds to be had.
What a pitiful showing by the DC away fans. So few of them making the relatively short trip, on a weekend. To think DC used to have the first and best supporters culture in the league. And this was the potential last game of their star player.
PS I thought I had already seen a NYCFC pre-match thread? OTD still recovering I guess, perfectly understandable.
Mavinga, Delgado, Altidore, and Gonzalez all with potential injuries for Wednesday. And all the other starters tired, after a hard-fought game with overtime. A couple of players are going to really have to step up for Wednesday.
Last edited by Auzzy; 10-20-2019 at 05:23 AM.
Did they announce the official attendance? I didn't see it.
Also, re: the lack of traveling support for DC - remember that only around 40% of Americans have a passport. Coming up to Toronto is not so straightforward a thing for some people.
DC traveling support had nothing to do with passports, they have been here in numbers before. It had more to do with the fact that they have demoralized their support with (i) a bunch of ticket rules and stadium rules that came with the move to Audi Field that have the support upset, (ii) a bad last few games, capped by blowing the home playoff game by not scoring on 9 man Cincinnati at home, and (iii) that the city has gone berserk for the Nationals.
Rooney did not talk to reporters postgame. Did it have anything to do with the way he came out? I was disappointed that Rooney was just ghosted by being subbed out during the switch in extra time. I think it was disrespectful by Olsen. That is a longtime World XI player leaving the league who deserved to be traditionally recognized as such, whatever the circumstances. Rooney should have and would have been clapped off properly.
DCU allowed more goals in the first half of extra time than they had in last six matches combined.
I have no idea how the Audi index works but until extra time Pozo was by far the dominant player for TFC. Oso had not seen that much of the ball.
Ciman was outstanding. What a pleasure to see that. His timing on stepping forward, something he was bungling all year, was perfect
Last edited by ensco; 10-20-2019 at 06:43 AM.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
U have witnessed the greatest extra time half because tfc went back to the championship winning formation of 3-5-2. The team was forced to use thi formation having 3 CB on with moor ciman and mavinga. This I believe benefitted the red and having been familiar with the formation helped alot.
Just read that Bill Hamid has 5 clean sheets coming to this game.
He made a number of errors, but some of the shots were impossible to stop. TFC was just too good last night.
The Audi Index is snake oil bollocks btw
Hamid's best saves came when TFC was already well in front, compared to Q's three really important saves in the second half that kept us in it. Westberg and Laryea have been fantastic this season and I'm glad they both got the starring role they deserved.
And as I said earlier this was a solid performance all around, Benezet maybe being the only disappointment. Defence seemed well organized and there were no major breakdowns from what I saw, so credit the CB's especially Ciman who was very good today. It's impossible to ignore the Hamid flub, but got to give lots of credit to Marky for gambling like a top striker would and getting there. Endoh also very good I thought, he was wide open 2 or 3 times in that second half and wasn't passed to, but he's tricky and eager to shoot which gives DC's defenders something to think about. DeLeon was at fault for the first goal but made up for it in extra time. The stream I was watching wasn't the greatest quality so I originally thought Laryea's goal was assisted by Poz, which should say a lot about how good DeLeon's pass was.
And Oso stepped up in a big game like he virtually always does. He can be frustrating to watch at times (and even last night he had a few of those moments in the second half) but he is awesome to watch when he's on. It's been terrific to see him and Laryea (and Fraser!) kill it in both BMO games this week
Only 25k attendance is concerning. I think they made bmo field too big when they expanded. 25 to 27k would look a lot better than 30k with 5k empty seats. I guess they could lower prices in the upper east side and the upper West cirners werent close to capacity.
If I was Olsen I would have yanked him when he bailed on the 50/50 with Bradley. He was in 100% half ass mode once we went up in ET.
And it was probably better for him to get taken off as he did. No clapping was coming his way and nor should there be. Just a long walk of laughs, boos, insults, and the na na na na hey hey hey goodbye song.
Not my pic -> https://i.imgur.com/FWKTi2y.jpg
Looks like they thought the game was over at 1-0 and decided to set off a few flares. I wonder if they still would have been kicked out if there was a larger number of DC fans.
Last edited by mauser09; 10-20-2019 at 10:18 AM.
Not so sure about that. I thought Osorio had more of the ball than Pozuelo if anything. Although Pozuelo’s movement up top was critical to everything else that happened for the team offensively.
The wide play makes all the difference. Teams are stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out how to defend is right now.
About time Laryea found his shooting boots.
what a crazy game, so much already was commented on. I was really happy to see that it was probably the best game i've seen by Oso since maybe we signed that extension deal. I feel that Canada win on Tuesday really gave him the extra step and he seemed to have a bit of that swagger back when he was dribbling one on one against guys.
Flares were set off by the supporters when the ball got headed out of bounds just before they were going to take that corner kick and then scored.
lol someone mentioned the pitch was slippery and watered for 15 mins at halftime...clearly could tell when that guy ran on the field and wiped out hahah
Was able to hit up the march down with RPB and it was such an amazing experience!! thanks guys!
Yeah, I find Ensco's comment strange. If anything I thought that game showed Pozeulo is totally in the wrong position as a lone forward. I thought that was almost the least effective I've seen him this season. I get why they put him there, but it clearly is not his best position. He needs to be creating, not holding, scoring.
Thought Osorio had a great game. One underrated element of his play is how good he is on the ball. I saw him get out of a number of tricky situations with some good footwork and a nice pass. He really is an all around solid player in my opinion.
The guy beside me (a friend of the season ticket holder I sit with) was saying all game I don't like this 1-0 lead. It's too tight, we're going to blow it. Then they scored and he was ready to jump off a bridge. He then flew out, saying he had to leave before extra time to catch a Go train to Barrie. Missed the entire extra time completely.
I was at a Wedding so I only was able to catch bits and pieces of the match, but watched the 12 minute highlight package at least 10 times. I have never seen an extra time period like that... I don't think i have ever seen 3 goals in 30 minutes of extra time never mind 4 goals in 15 minutes. It must have been a mess in the south end all that celebrating, and the goals kept getting better and better!!
I really think our team is flowing beautifully and we finally have some cohesion defensively even without Gonzalez. We are 2 deep at every single position and this team will go as far as Greg Vanney takes them. On paper, we are absolute quality. The only issue is it took us too long to find our flow that we didn't have a good enough regular season and have to win 3 road games to take home MLS Cup.
When you have De Leon, Laryea, Moor coming off the bench, you have a pretty stacked squad. I like our prospects for next year starting the season with a full team as long as we can resign Bradley who is our rock.
Getting back to the only 25000 in attendance for me it is worrying no excuses that stadium should have been packed , unfortunately we will never know if interest will improve because there will be no more games at BMO this year . The second tier east side is always a hard sell always seems to be more than half full every game. I’m a season ticket holder who seats in the upper tier on the west side , but I’ve sat in the east second tier once and what a joke of a tier , way too high much higher than the west side second tier. No wonder they always have a hard time selling that tier . The blame lies solely in the hands of the idiots at MLSE who decided to expand BMO by building this crazy gigantic second tier way too high when what they should have done is fill in the north end with a proper stand and fill in any of the open spaces of the stadium but no they go and build this waste of a second east tier that could have been built a bit less higher by first filling in all the open spaces in the stadium.