TORONTO—It might have been a historic season, but Toronto FC weren’t doing much celebrating at the conclusion of their 2015 MLS campaign.
TFC earned a playoff berth for the first time in their nine-year history, only to see the journey end dismally, falling 3-0 – to rivals Montreal Impact – in the Knockout Round of the 2015 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.
“Nobody is happy with going out in the first round. Not even close,” said captain Michael Bradley, at the team’s end-of-season press conference. “It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. That's not something that's going away any time quickly. It's important that we're able to use that frustration, that anger, and find the right ways to move ourselves forward.”
It was a year that opened with the challenge of seven straight road games, as ongoing renovations to BMO Field were completed. Toronto then surged in the Eastern Conference with a strong run through May and June. A slump in July and half of August – during which they won just two of eight matches – proved costly, leaving them in the sixth in the East. That and final playoff spot and a postseason road game.
Audi MLS Golden Boot winner Sebastian Giovinco (22 goals, 16 assists) said through a translator that the club is in need of changes.
“[We're] not ready, not as competitive as other teams,” Giovinco said. “[We] need to improve, to try to get to the final, and win the league.”
As evidence, the Italian international points to the final defeat:
“After 30 minutes, the game was over,” Giovinco said. “That's sad because the city, the club, had been waiting nine years. [We] didn't have a real chance to play the game [before it] was over. There was nothing [we] could do after that; that's not good. … The way [we] played was like [we] weren't playing. Everything was wrong.”
Head coach Greg Vanney said many of the weaknesses the team struggled with during the course of the season – namely the defense – were exposed in the loss to Montreal. He said the technical staff will analyze the match and adjust accordingly.
“It was a microcosm of our season,” Vanney said. “Defensively, mistakes led to us being on the wrong side of the game and chasing. We never gave ourselves a chance, that's the disappointing part. We're better than that and we didn't get it done.”
- Get more TFC news at TorontoFC.ca
It was an opinion echoed by club president Bill Manning, who found the result “embarrassing” and said the club appeared “overwhelmed.” General manager Tim Bezbatchenko said the team was never satisfied with merely making the playoffs.
“We need to sit down with the coaches, ask questions: Why did we come out flat?” Bezbatchenko said. “We need to learn, so when we are in this moment again, we go back to this debrief and say we're going to do things differently and this is how.”
But therein lies reason for optimism, he said, with their first playoff match serving as a learning experience.
“There's institutional knowledge that you learn in these key moments that you can't anticipate, no matter how ready you think you are,” Bezbatchenko said. “We'll be analyzing heavily over the next weeks and months.”
“The good news is that we have a solid core and a good foundation to build on. We don't have to worry about this idea that we've never made the playoffs before. That is gone, we've exorcised those demons.”
