TFC's de Guzman sees first MLS action

Toronto FC fall to Galaxy in Canadian international's MLS debut

TFC was not without its chances on Saturday evening, but failed to capitalize at the offensive end of the field.

"We lacked a bit of penetration in the final third," said TFC head coach Chris Cummins. "I don't think we lost the game through a lack of effort. Giving the early goal away obviously hurt us and then, to be fair to LA, they dropped off and they were hard to break down."

Toronto's best chances of the match came just after halftime. They came closest to breaking through when Ali Gerba chipped over the head of Donovan Ricketts but hit the crossbar in the 48th minute.

"We had a good go after halftime," Cummins said. "There was a 10- or 15-minute spell there where we really took the game to them and we hit the bar and maybe if that goes in it's a different game."

Saturday night saw the first MLS minutes for new signing Julian de Guzman. The Canadian international joined the team on Sept. 11, but was unable to make his debut against Colorado last Saturday because his international transfer certificate hadn't cleared.

"Julian is a good player," said Cummins. "He's going to be an asset to the league and an asset to the club. He was excellent tonight. He went in and got the ball, he showed that quality that he's got, he joined in when he had to, he receives it when he's under pressure, and he's going to be a fantastic signing for the club."

De Guzman was paired in central midfield with Canadian national teammate Dwayne De Rosario. He was active all evening and came close to notching his first goal in the 54th minute when he blasted a shot that sailed inches over the crossbar.

"Overall, I felt comfortable with the boys," said de Guzman. "I'm not in my tip-top form. The last game I had was a couple months ago with the national team. I felt all right throughout the game, but close to the end I started to cramp up."

While pleased to make his first start, de Guzman knows that he and TFC can do better than their performance Saturday.

"I'm pretty disappointed with the result," he said of the match. "LA's not an easy team to beat, but we had our opportunity to get back into the game, and we weren't capitalize on the opportunities we had. There were some positives to the game, but at the end we weren't able to get the result."

Saturday's match also saw De Guzman facing David Beckham for the first time since the two clashed in Spain's La Liga when De Guzman was playing with Deportivo La Coruña and Beckham was in Madrid.

"It's always a good challenge to play against world-class players such as Beckham," said de Guzman. "He brings a lot to the team. It's a good experience to play against him."

Toronto now goes to Chicago in desperate need of points if the Reds are going to remain within contact of the teams ahead of them in the playoff race.

"It's do-or-die in the game against Chicago," said de Guzman. "We have a week to go over our mistakes. I think it's enough time to get the boys ready again for this game against Chicago."

Cummins highlighted the team's need for consistency as they face their final four games of the regular season.

"We need to be consistent," he said. "We do believe that there's a [points] total that we need to reach and we've now got four games to do that. We're obviously disappointed to lose the game today, but we need to pick ourselves up, and go to Chicago next week and try to get something out of the game."

Jeffrey King is a contributor to MLSnet.com

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