A win in their match against the Philadelphia Union on Saturday and the Reds could secure their first playoff berth in the eight years since the club’s inception.
Don’t expect more wild celebrations in the city if Toronto FC clinches a franchise-milestone spot in the post-season this fall.
A win in their match against the Philadelphia Union on Saturday and the Reds could secure their first playoff berth in the eight years since the club’s inception. All they would need is for rival Montreal Impact to take at least two points off Orlando City SC in the day’s later match. If TFC ties, the team would still finalize a spot in the post-season if Montreal beats Orlando.
It’s the Reds’ first chance at clinching this season.
But even if everything works in the team’s favour, in turn etching this cohort of names into club history, its players will leave the champagne showers to the Blue Jays.
“We’re not in the playoffs yet . . . if we do get into the playoffs (Saturday) things aren’t done,” a typically focused Michael Bradley said adamantly following training Friday.
“It’s not why any of us are here, just to say that we got into the playoffs.”
Sure, the team will be proud and excited if a playoff spot becomes a sure thing, Bradley admitted, but the Reds haven’t won anything yet.
“We’re very confident about the group that we have and about being able to finish this first part of the job and get ourselves in (the playoffs), but at that point its just one step along the way,” the captain said. “It’s important the concentration and the commitment doesn’t waiver one bit. Actually, it has to go up.”
And while the Union sits four spots behind Toronto in the Eastern Conference going into Saturday’s game, Bradley expects a challenging match given Philadelphia’s playoff hopes, as slim as they may be, have yet to be officially extinguished.
“Their season’s on the line, so we expect that whoever steps on the field for them will do so ready to give everything until that final whistle blows and until there’s mathematically no chance for them to still get in.”
Toronto is going for their third straight home victory and third win of the season against the Union, who lost to Sporting Kansas City on penalties in the final of the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday night
Saturday’s match is the closest Toronto has to a sure-thing in its remaining four games. Next up, the Reds host the second-place New York Red Bulls, then the third-place Columbus Crew before travelling to Montreal to face an Impact side bolstered by striker Didier Drogba in the final game of the season Oct. 25.
Reds coach Greg Vanney expects a similar game to Toronto’s last two matches against the Colorado Rapids and Chicago Fire. In both those games, the home side had to be alert on the transition, shielding itself from dangerous counter attacks.
Toronto did so handily against the Rapids, but conceded a goal within a minute of kickoff against the Fire. The Reds rallied to secure three points for Toronto last week, but the comeback was another first of the season.
Starting well Saturday is a must, Vanney said.
“It’s not about getting, necessarily, a goal in the first five minutes. It’s about about getting ourselves into the game, into a good rhythm before we give up anything.”
Vanney said it’s up to Toronto, nearly injury-free and achieving some consistency having started the same 11 players for the past two weeks, to take advantage of the Union’s desperation on their way to an “important” result.
“The longer the game goes and the harder the game is for them, the less they have to play for in the end.”
Like Bradley, Vanney doesn’t have any bubbly on ice. But with three points in hand he expects Toronto’s coaching staff will watch Montreal play Orlando with added interest Saturday night.
“Obviously there’s a little more attention to that this weekend with all the possibilities that are out there.”
Warrior coming over the hill: Chris Wondolowski inspires native Americans and puts fear in opposing goalkeepers
In the small but growing kids’ soccer leagues of the Kiowa tribe of southwest Oklahoma, the young boys don’t dream of being a Messi or a Ronaldo.
They want to be the next Bau Daigh, which translates to “warrior coming over the hill.” If that name isn’t familiar, try Chris Wondolowski, the 32-year-old Major League Soccer forward, whose San Jose Earthquakes host the Vancouver Whitecaps tonight at Avaya Stadium.
Bau Daigh is the Kiowa name bestowed on the Danville, Calif., native and tattooed down his right rib cage. His mom, Janis, is part Kiowa, part Cherokee, and often brought Chris and his brother back to the reserve as kids to soak up a culture and a heritage that is a big part of Wondolowski’s identity.
The game’s roots in the United States can be traced back to at least a century before Scottish, English and German immigrants introduced modern football in the late 1800s.
Native tribes in what is now the New England area contested games of Pauschguakohowog, literally meaning “kicking ball sport,” on fields and beaches nearly a mile long with as many as 500 players a side. It was as much warfare as anything else — broken legs and other serious injuries were not uncommon — and games would last days.
But soccer never had much of a foothold among the Kiowa. Few played the game, fewer still ever watched it on television. That started to change when the late-blooming Wondolowski tied an MLS single-season record in 2012 with 27 goals.
When he became the first native American to play on the U.S. national team at a World Cup in 2014, his hero status was cemented. Viewing parties were set up to watch the U.S. play. The Kiowa youth sports club now hands out yearly Wondo Excellence awards.
Wondolowski is an ambassador for Nike’s N7 program, which aims to bring sports to native American communities. And he helps out with projects like Street Soccer USA, which uses the game to help special needs and homeless youth and young adults in recovery.
He says working on projects like those and seeing the growth of youth soccer among the Kiowa drives him to do more.
“I’m extremely proud of that,” he said in a phone interview this week from San Jose. “My native heritage is who I am and if I can use that platform to influence even one or two young kids that means a lot.
“It’s what I enjoy and I get so much out of it, so I’m open to do more work,” added Wondolowski who was on the Kiowa reserve for three days in early December for a clinic and a celebration honouring him. “I think kids soccer on the reserve can grow exponentially in the coming years. There’s more work to do on it, but it’s a lot of fun.”
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It’s been a remarkable MLS season for goal-scoring newcomers.
The Atomic Ant, Italian Sebastian Giovinco, has popped 20 for Toronto FC, Spain’s all-time leader David Villa has scored 17 for New York City FC and 37-year-old Chelsea legend Didier Drogba has seven in six games after joining Montreal in August.
Canadian Cyle Larin has set a rookie record with 14 goals for Orlando City and Sierra Leone international Kei Kamara, back in the league after a 14-month stint in England, leads MLS with 22 goals after never scoring more than 11 in eight previous seasons in the league.
All have been hailed widely for their spectacular play and their production. Giovinco and Kamara are in a heated race for MVP. Along with the likes of Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Gio de Santos and Andrea Pirlo, they are the new, though mostly grizzled, faces of MLS.
Wondolowski, the league’s fifth-leading goal scorer in 2015, has been overshadowed. Perhaps it’s because his production is so routine. Quietly and efficiently, Wondolowski just keeps piling up goals. His 15 this season have moved him into a tie for fifth all-time with 108 — 36 behind the leader Landon Donovan.
In one respect, Wondolowski already has a more impressive record than Donovan and many of the MLS’s best. He is the only one of the top 30 career goal scorers who has tallied more goals on the road (55) than at home (53). The top three — Donovan, Jeff Cunningham and Jaime Moreno — scored 20, 20 and 33 more goals, respectively at home.
Of current players, Kamara’s split is 50-24 in favour of home, while the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Robbie Keane is 49-20.
“I was not aware of that,” a surprised Wondolowski said of the fact he’s scored more on the road than at home. “Why is that? I don’t know, it’s a good question. I’ve been on some very, very good road teams where the philosophy has been to go and play, to try to counter attack.
“When you have those tendencies it’s going to produce chances.”
Lightly regarded out of high school, where he was known more as a top middle-distance runner, Wondolowski wound up at the only school that wanted him for soccer — NCAA Division II Chico State.
He had a successful collegiate career, but officials at an MLS combine in the Bay Area told him not to return after the first day. He came back anyway, at the urging of his dad, a former University of California soccer player, and was one of the final selections of the 2005 draft by San Jose, 41st overall.
He played two games with the ’Quakes that season, then moved with the franchise to Houston. With the Dynamo, he scored four goals in 37 games over four seasons, spending the majority of that time with the reserve team.
San Jose reacquired Wondolowski in a 2009 trade and his career took off with an 18-goal season in 2010. He’s now one of only two players in MLS history to score in double digits in six consecutive seasons, with totals of 18, 16, 27, 11, 14 and 15 this year with three games remaining.
As the Whitecaps, against whom he’s scored nine goals, know so well, he does it almost stealth like. He’s not overly fast, nor will he dazzle anyone with spectacular dribbling. He simply has an uncanny ability to find open space in the box and to be in the right place at the right time.
He is also consumed with scoring goals.
“You see it every day after practice,” says Caps’ fullback Steven Beitashour, who played with Wondolowski in San Jose. “He’s always one of the last ones shooting and he just doesn’t get tried of it.
“Just trying to get better with the weird bouncing balls, the right foot, the left foot. Every little situation, he tries to make it game-like. It shows in all the goals he’s scored.”
Brad Davis, another former teammate, noted you can teach someone how to make runs, how to finish, how to pass. “But one thing you can’t teach someone to do is to want to score goals more than anything on this earth. Chris has that.”
In a fascinating piece he wrote for The Players Tribune website in August, Wondolowski went into precise detail about what it’s like to be a striker. He talked about his pre-game visualization while walking the field, how he envisions himself scoring off the run of play and off set pieces. And how he wipes from his memory the goals and every miss as soon as it’s happened so “the only thing that exists is the moment I’m in.”
He wrote about reading the trajectory of teammates’ crosses and how good depth perception is critical.
And he broke down how he plays “mental chess” and uses deception and manipulation — faking being “too gassed and being lazy” — to beat defenders and create a half-second of space to score.
Wondolowski says it was a fun exercise to write down what is now second nature.
But was he concerned he gave away too many secrets?
“Nah,” he said with a laugh. “People are always talking about your tendencies. If (defenders) haven’t figured me out now, then that’s on them.”
The Earthquakes won a Supporters’ Shield in 2012, but Wondolowski has never won an MLS Cup and his club is currently one point out of the playoff picture this season.
“Winning an MLS Cup is my main goal now,” he says, although he admits passing the now retired Donovan as the league’s all-time scoring leader would be a major accomplishment.
“I think I can get to the ripe old age of 35, which would be three more seasons, so that’s something that should be attainable for me. I still enjoy the practices, enjoy playing the game every week. It’s still a lot of fun.”
Bau Daigh, it seems, is still very much a warrior coming over the hill.
WHITECAPS AT SAN JOSE: THREE THEMES
- GET OFF THE SCHNEID: The Whitecaps desperately need to find their offensive mojo, having being shutout twice in the last four MLS games while going 1-3. But is San Jose the place to do it? The Caps have been blanked in three consecutive games in the California city, drawing 0-0 at old Buck Shaw Stadium in 2013 and 2014 and losing 1-0 to the Earthquakes at the new Avaya Stadium back in April. "We need to score more goals," head coach Carl Robinson said this week. "We started off (2015) not scoring enough goals, we went through mid-season scoring a lot of goals, now we need to get our focus back. Keep clean sheets and score goals."
- MORALES' MINUTES: The attack could use a fit Pedro Morales, their midfield maestro, especially with Nico Mezquida (hamstring) not available and Mauro Rosales on a run of tough form. Morales, limited to just 15 starts this season by calf and hamstring injuries, played 23 minutes off the bench against New York City FC last Saturday. But it's probably too much to ask him to go 90 minutes at this stage. So does Robinson start him and ride him as long as he can? Or is he better off starting Rosales and then squeezing 30 or 45 minutes good minutes out of Morales as a substitute? "We'll base the decision on who we think is the freshest and got the most to give," said Robinson.
- RETURN OF BEITA: The Caps will be delighted to have a healthy Steven Beitashour (knee) back to play right fullback against his old team. His replacement, mid-season signing Jordan Smith, showed some ability in attacking up the flank. But the Costan Rican struggled with his defensive awareness. He was burned on goals against by Seattle and NYCFC. "The last two games were definitely tough to watch and I'm excited to get back on the field," said Beitashour. "We know we have four games remaining to get ourselves good positioning for the playoffs. We'd like to get a home game for our crowd and we know that's going to be vital if we want to go far in the playoffs."
PLAYERS TO WATCH
- OCTAVIO RIVERO, Whitecaps: The first-year Uruguayan striker has been troubled by nagging foot and heal problems the last couple of weeks. He played just 21 minutes off the bench last Saturday when none of his three shot attempts hit the target. The Caps need Rivero to recapture the brilliant scoring touch he showed early in the season when he scored five times in six games. He's tallied just once from the run of play in his last 19 games, not nearly good enough from a designated player pulling down a salary of $890,000.
- ANIBAL GODOY, Earthquakes: With designated player Matias Perez Garcia serving a one-game suspension after picking up two yellow cards in the last game - the second for foolishly doffing his shirt after scoring in the 87th minute - Godoy will need to pick up the slack in midfield. The Quakes are 5-1-2 in the eight games the 25-year-old Panamanian has started since being signed on Aug. 8. "His ability on the ball, to really calm things down and pick the right pass has been very impressive," said San Jose head coach Dominic Kinnear. "He just seems comfortable out there."
Preview: Impact takes on Orlando City SC in Florida Saturday night
ORLANDO, Florida – The Montreal Impact takes on Orlando City SC this Saturday at 7:30pm (TVA Sports, CJAD 800) at the Citrus Bowl as the team keeps pushing for its playoff spot.
The Impact is holding on to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 42 points, while OCSC is nipping at its heels in seventh place with 38 points. The Bleu-blanc-noir could put the nail in Orlando’s coffin with a win, with four games remaining after Saturday’s tilt, but holding two games in hand on the Lions.
“A win on our end would put us in a good place for the playoffs, so we have to approach this game like we did the Champions League, like a final,” explained Patrice Bernier. “We have to go there with a warrior’s spirit, be at our best mentally and remain concentrated.”
Some additional challenges are expected for this weekend as Orlando is calling on its fans to fill the 45,000-seat Citrus Bowl, a stadium with a turf field.
“This is a game where two of the hottest teams in the league are facing each other,” added goalkeeper Evan Bush. It’s a team that is fighting for their lives, so whenever that is the case, it’s always a tough game, especially since they are also a team that has a lot of quality.”
IMFC is coming off of an important 2-0 win over D.C. United at home last weekend – a game in which striker Didier Drogba scored two goals, earning him AT&T Goal of the Week and Player of the Week honours in MLS. He was also named the Etihad Player of the Month after scoring seven goals and adding an assist in five games played in September.
Laurent Ciman and Andrés Romero return to the Impact’s lineup after serving a one-game suspension against D.C. United.
Orlando is also coming off of a huge 5-2 victory over the Eastern Conference’s top team in the New York Red Bulls last weekend, at Red Bull Arena, where striker Cyle Larin scored three goals, while Brazilian Kaka continues his good form.
“It’s a key game for us as they are just behind us in the standings and are playing well right now. We have to attack with balance and defend preventively,” said Impact head coach Mauro Biello. “Even when we have the ball, those who are not involved in the attack need to know where Kaka is. We need to be aware of him at all times.”
The Impact plays its next game on Wednesday, October 7, at 7:30pm EDT, against the New York Red Bulls (TVA Sports, CJAD 800). The Impact’s final home game is set for Sunday, October 25, at 5pm, against rivals Toronto FC at Stade Saputo.
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