Toronto FC season in review
Reds burst onto MLS scene backed by rabid fan support
On April 28, as the Reds prepared to host the Kansas City Wizards, the home side was greeted with an overwhelming response from the capacity crowd of 20,148 fans. It was an ovation that might echo for years in both the Canadian sports scene and league history.
"The highlight for me was the first game, walking out of the tunnel and seeing 20,000 fans [with] their scarves in the air singing the national anthem," said TFC team captain and Canadian international Jim Brennan. "It was unbelievable ... that will stick with me for a long time."
Brennan was one of several Reds who selected the home opener as one of the season's top moments, which underscored the dichotomy of Toronto FC's inaugural campaign. That game, a 1-0 loss to the Wizards, provided a glimpse into the themes of 2007 for the Reds --- great home support, but a lack of goals and positive results.
The calendar year began in notable fashion as the Reds held the first overall selection in the 2007 MLS SuperDraft held on January 12. Maurice Edu, then 20 years old and a first-team NCAA All-American from the University of Maryland, lived up to his high billing. The rookie started 25 games for the Reds and ended up third on the club in minutes (2180) and second in goals with four.
"There's things I can improve on, but I think I did pretty well this season," Edu said. "I scored a few goals, but I could've had four or five more. I've grown since I've come here and that's due to the coaching staff and the players around me. Every day you're competing for your spot and that's a positive. Playing with guys like Ronnie [O'Brien] and Carl [Robinson] has forced me to play a lot quicker and it's going to help me down the line."
Check out the best of 2007New Zealander Andrew Boyens, selected 10th overall in the 2007 SuperDraft, made 21 starts on the back line and turned in a solid rookie campaign. The fact that two first-round picks made an impact for TFC was not lost on Johnston. The coach traded his way to two first-round picks in the 2008 MLS SuperDraft, thus ensuring that TFC will again get twice the opportunity at adding young talent to the roster.
Johnston's deals didn't stop at draft picks, however. The Scotsman earned himself the nickname of 'Trader Mo' from Toronto fans and media by making moves almost from the moment he was hired as TFC's first head coach on August 25, 2006. Johnston made Brennan the first player in Reds history on Sept. 22, 2006 and built a diverse roster around the team captain.
The midfield was bolstered by the acquisition of Ronnie O'Brien (a former two-time MLS Best XI honoree) from FC Dallas, and the signings of Welsh international Carl Robinson and England's Andy Welsh. Canadians Chris Pozniak, Adam Braz and Greg Sutton added some domestic flavor to Major League Soccer's first Canadian club.
As opening day approached, however, the roster tinkering was not complete, and TFC didn't yet have a full-strength side. It didn't help that several players --- including key names like O'Brien, Edu and Pozniak --- were sidelined with injuries during training camp. It was the first appearance of fitness problems that would plague the Reds all season long.
"At the start of the year, we had 10, 10, seven and seven missing [players in four games] before we got [our full] 18," Johnston said. "That was way too much.
"We couldn't get everyone on the training field. We had to mix formations, which I didn't like."
The early results showed this disorganization. TFC lost its first-ever game, 2-0 to Chivas USA on April 7, and dropped their first three matches by a cumulative score of 9-0. The club entered its home opener in need of not just goals, but points.
The Toronto attack, much like BMO Field, was still being built. Johnston swung a deal on April 19 for attacking defender Marvell Wynne (the No. 1 overall pick in the 2006 SuperDraft) from the coach's old club in New York, and signed English striker Danny Dichio.
The duo couldn't prevent the Reds from taking a 1-0 loss in the historic first game at BMO Field, but TFC did give by far their strongest effort to date. As well, with six of their next seven games in Toronto, the club knew they had a home-field advantage they could rely on.
It all came together for Toronto FC on May 12. The squad captured its first-ever victory, a 3-1 decision against the Chicago Fire. Dichio was named man of the match for his historic goal in the 24th minute that put the Reds on the scoresheet for the first time.
The reaction of the BMO Field faithful also entered the history books. Dichio's goal caused pandemonium amongst the TFC fans, who reacted as if the team had just won the MLS Cup. Many threw soccer ball-shaped seat covers (a pregame promotional giveaway) onto the field in celebration of their new hero. At each home game thereafter, the fans sung a song in Dichio's honor during the 24th minute to commemorate the inaugural strike.
Dichio, for his part, was proud and even a little stunned by the adoration shown to him and the team by the TFC fans, even outside of Toronto.
"One of my first away games was at Columbus [on May 26], and when we were warming up there we saw 500 Red Patch guys, U-Sector guys, all sitting in the crowd," Dichio said. "I thought 'Wow, these guys are crazy.' I thought they were crazy at home but they've travelled all the way down here by coach and they're out in droves. That was a real highlight."
With the players approaching full fitness and getting more used to playing with each other, results began to follow. Just four days after beating the Fire, Toronto won again when the club upset the defending MLS Cup champion Houston Dynamo. From May 12 until the MLS All-Star break (a period of more than two months), the Reds amassed 19 points and a 5-3-4 record.
The club also had some new faces along for the ride. On May 22, Johnston swung his biggest deal yet when he sent striker Alecko Eskandarian and a 2008 first-round SuperDraft pick to Real Salt Lake in exchange for reigning MLS Golden Boot winner Jeff Cunningham. The striker entered 2007 with 93 career goals, good for fourth-highest in league history, and formed an immediate connection with Dichio. Dubbed 'The Fast and the Furious' by one banner in the BMO Field south stand, the quick Cunningham and the physical Dichio combined for seven goals and two assists in the eight games they started together at forward.
Cunningham wasn't the only addition to the TFC lineup. The team signed Trinidad international Collin Samuel to add depth at forward and at midfield, and traded for veteran MLS defenders Todd Dunivant and Tyrone Marshall.
For Marshall, his first direct exposure to Toronto FC was an eye-opener. The defender was dealt to TFC on June 13, but he had been sent off in his prior game while playing for the LA Galaxy. This meant he was suspended for his first official match with the Reds, which was a June 17 match at BMO Field against FC Dallas.
That game, a 4-0 rout of the Hoops, was Toronto's biggest victory of the season, and Marshall said the experience lived up to the hype he had heard from fellow players.
"Everyone said Toronto is a great place to live, the fans are great, and the atmosphere is incredible," Marshall said. "I came here for the first game against Dallas, I sat out and was up in the [press] box and it was great. I couldn't wait to get on the pitch and experience it as a player.
"The league doesn't have an environment close to that on a day-to-day basis. Here in Toronto is really where we want to get as a league, where every game has that feeling of 20,000 people screaming and throwing confetti."
The club's 19 points by July 15 was already higher than the 18 points accumulated by Chivas in their 2005 expansion season, so Toronto FC had achieved the most modest of their goals coming into the year. With the team on a roll, the focus began to shift towards a possible playoff berth. If the Reds could thrash a contender like Dallas, who knew how far they could go?
"The game against Dallas, the full team was out and we beat them 4-0," Brennan said. "We battered them. There have been a few other games where everyone was fit and it was a glimpse of how good we could be."
Unfortunately for TFC, however, the rigors of the soccer world's summer competitions began to have an effect. The CONCACAF Gold Cup hit the club especially hard, as Sutton, Braz, Reda and Pozniak were named to the Canadian roster. The tournament proved particularly costly when Sutton suffered a severe concussion during Team Canada's training that ended the goalkeeper's season.
Wynne, Robinson and Boyens also missed time due to international commitments, and then the entire Toronto squad found itself displaced in late June. The 2007 FIFA Under-20 World Cup was hosted by Canada, and BMO Field was the centerpiece venue as the site of 12 games, including the final.
This meant that TFC would be on the road for six consecutive games, and since FIFA had exclusive rights to BMO Field, the Reds were forced to train at a different field 30 minutes outside of Toronto. If that wasn't enough, the club's depth was stretched even further when five members of the reserve squad were named to Canada's U-20 roster.
The Reds managed to survive the road trip somewhat intact (a 1-2-3 record), and picked up their first-ever away win on July 4 in Salt Lake City. Another trip highlight was a come-from-behind 1-1 result on July 7 in Chicago when Edu scored in the 78th minute to salvage a draw.
Little did Toronto FC know how important that goal from Edu would be to their season. That was the last time the club would score until Sept. 22 -- a drought that spanned 10 matches, 2-1/2 months and an MLS-record 824 consecutive minutes.
The central reason behind the lack of scoring was that few healthy bodies were available to put the ball in the net. Cunningham first felt the effects of a sports hernia on July 4 that kept the striker out of action for seven games and nearly ended his season. Dichio was also seeing his time limited by a hip flexor and a recurring back problem caused by the stress of playing non-stop soccer since September 2006.
It was during an exhibition game that the fitness situation became critical. The Reds welcomed English Premiership side Aston Villa to Toronto on July 25 for TFC's first match at BMO Field since the U-20 Cup, but the result was anything but friendly for the home side. The match was TFC's sixth in 25 days, and the club was drained.
"That was a bad game for us, really," Dichio said. "We had a game on the Sunday before and then [Villa] on the Wednesday. If you asked most of the boys, we wanted to play Premiership opposition. Our bodies might have been telling us differently but we wanted to be out there. We picked up some nagging injuries there and some long-term injuries. That's when we went on our little sink of a run."
Toronto lost to Villa 4-2, but lost much more in the process. O'Brien suffered a knee injury that ended his season -- a crippling blow to a club that hadn't yet scored without the Irish midfielder on the field. Wynne strained a hamstring that sidelined him for the next three games. The battered Dichio played 48 minutes, aggravating his back and then suffered his hip flexor injury in Toronto's next match.
This match effectively marked the end of Toronto's run of quality soccer. Johnston said he regretted his decision to play so many key players in a friendly.
"I felt we turned the corner, and then came the Aston Villa game," Johnston said. "I thought we played very well [against Villa] and then it spiraled from there. Dichio, O'Brien, Marvell Wynne all went down in that game."
The injury-riddled Reds hadn't won in three league games before the Villa match, and the winless streak extended for nine matches afterwards for a record of 0-8-4 from July 7 to Oct. 4. The goalkeeping situation had finally been stabilized with the signing of Canadian 'keeper Kenny Stamatopoulos from Finnish side Tromso, but TFC found themselves struggling to even fill a full lineup, let alone score a goal or record a victory.
"It's hard to win games when you're missing key guys," Edu said. "Injuries are part of the game, so you've got to just learn to play through it and deal with it. So we have to build depth [for next year]. It doesn't matter who's on the field, you've got to go into that game confident and looking for a positive result."
The most frustrating aspect of the goalless and winless droughts for Toronto was that the team, at times, played excellent soccer. The Reds dominated the Galaxy on August 5 in what was supposed to be David Beckham's first MLS game (he sat out due to an ankle injury), but the result was a scoreless draw.
Toronto played well but came up short in a trio of losses to Chivas USA, D.C. United and FC Dallas, and then their struggles reached the point of absurdity at home on Sept. 15 against Real Salt Lake. Despite outshooting Real 24-5 (including 12-1 in shots on goal) and playing with an extra man for more than half the match, Toronto still couldn't manage to score in yet another 0-0 draw.
It was hard to find positives during such a dire stretch, but there were a few bright spots for TFC during this period. The injuries created a lot of playing time for 20-year-old striker Andrea Lombardo, and the Toronto native showed some potential as a future contributor in the league. Cunningham returned to the field after the team was able to get his hernia surgery pushed up to early September. The release of ineffective Andy Welsh in early September led to more starts for Pozniak, who did his best to fill O'Brien's playmaking void in the midfield.
One positive figure throughout the entire year was Brennan. The captain had shown his commitment by playing out of position nearly all season playing on the back line instead of his preferred left midfield spot. Brennan was also gritting through injuries of his own, including fractured ribs and a broken left wrist. Still, didn't miss a minute of action until a knee injury finally ended his season with three games left on the schedule.
It was a redemptive season for Brennan, who had been plagued with injuries the previous several years while playing for Southampton and Norwich City of the English Football League. The captain was ecstatic at the chance to play high-level soccer in his homeland, and to be part of a process that he hoped would grow the sport in Canada.
"It's past time we did have a professional team here," Brennan said. "It will be more beneficial for young kids playing in the country, and to give them something to shoot for playing here in the country. Hopefully if Montreal and Vancouver get MLS teams it's just going to be better for Canadian soccer."
One negative streak came to an end on Sept. 22, when TFC finally ended its goal drought on a second-minute strike from backup midfielder Miguel Canizalez. The Reds saw their quick lead vanish in the second half of an eventual 2-1 loss to Columbus, and then had another half-time lead wasted a week later in a 4-1 loss to D.C. United.
With the winless streak at 12 games, the Reds were underdogs headed into their match with the playoff-bound New York Red Bulls on Oct. 4 at BMO Field. This time, however, TFC held onto an early lead and notched their first win in three months by beating New York 2-1.
The Reds had one last highlight for their home fans in the final match of the season. The New England Revolution had been Toronto's bogey team, handing the Reds 4-0 and 3-0 losses in their previous two matches, and once the Revs jumped out to a 2-0 lead after 58 minutes on October 20, it looked like another rout was on the way.
But Samuel scored in the 59th minute to cut the lead in half, and Toronto poured on the pressure in search of the tying goal. Two minutes into stoppage time, it looked as if the TFC comeback would come up short, but (who else?) Dichio stepped up with a side volley from outside the penalty area that found the back of the net. The man who had scored Toronto FC's first goal of 2007 had returned from a seven-game absence due to a foot injury to score their last goal of 2007, which ended as one of the finalists for MLS Goal of the Year honors.
"We were down 2-0 and fought back," Marshall said. "Just like we've been doing all year -- scrapping and scraping and doing whatever it takes to get a result. That was indicative of our whole year summed up in one game. Never give up, always fight to the end."
The draw allowed the Reds to end the season on a high, and it also gave the Toronto fans one last chance to salute their team. The 15th of 15 sellout crowds at BMO Field stayed until well after the final whistle to cheer the Reds, and some players even took a victory lap of the field.
For Mo Johnston -- a man used to high-pressure situations in Scotland with Rangers and Celtic, and in the MLS Cup with Kansas City -- the response was incredible considering TFC ended up at the bottom of the league table with 25 points.
"At the end of the [New England] game here, the standing ovation that the fans gave this team was unbelievable," Johnston said. "I'd love to see it in a playoff situation because I think this place would be so vibrant it would be unbelievable. I think we need to start giving them better players and more consistency in our play. What [the fans] showed me when we finished last was incredible."
This desire to give the Toronto fans a winner is fueling Johnston's preparation for 2008. The coach has a number of plans in mind for preseason training (including friendlies everywhere from Charleston to possibly Dubai or China), new acquisitions (Johnston predicted "six or seven" additions to the roster), hiring a full-time conditioning coach to help keep the team fit, starting up Toronto FC's own youth academy, and a scouting mission to South America.
Though he will be keeping busy this winter, Johnston's offseason will be less hectic than his last, when he had to form an entire roster from scratch. The coach will have one more powerful weapon in his arsenal as well. When Johnston is trying to attract players to Toronto, he can lure them with the promise of playing for what are already the most energetic fans in MLS.
And more supporters are expected in 2008. Ninety-five percent of last season's 14,000 season ticket orders were renewed, and thus the team announced that 2,000 more season tickets will be made available for the upcoming year. BMO Field might even be expanded in the coming years to accommodate even more fans. Toronto FC's total attendance of 301,947 and average crowd of 20,130 were good for third in MLS, behind D.C. United and the L.A. Galaxy, both of whom play in larger stadiums.
"Off the field we've broke all sorts of records and attracted new fans to the game of soccer," Dichio said. "It's been a total whirlwind of attracting Torontonians ... and people from outside the Toronto area. I've had letters from as far away as Winnipeg and places like that where they watch us on CBC. It's good we're extending the knowledge of the game out to those areas all around the country."
It is clear that a special relationship has developed between the city and its soccer club. Toronto has proved itself to be more than ready for Major League Soccer, and as 2008 approaches, other MLS clubs may need to ask themselves if they are ready for Toronto. With a fully-fit roster, added depth to ward off injuries and a lack of distractions like the Gold Cup or U-20 World Cup, TFC could be a dark horse to watch for next season.
"If you look at the season overall we feel it's been a success," Brennan said. "I've been fortunate to be the first one here before the rest of the guys and before the stadium was even built, so I've seen it all come together.
"It's been fantastic."
Mark Polishuk is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
