Toronto FC were not so long ago Major League Soccer’s favourite punchline. Both on and off the field, they were the epitome of how not to run a franchise. The owners and numerous head coaches were as bad as the players, but perhaps most tragically they were a club characterised by their fragility.
Whatever the opposite of clutch is, that’s what Toronto were, taking eight years to make the MLS play-offs for the first time. Their floundering became amusing to some, tedious to many.
But something changed at BMO Field. Toronto will play their second successive MLS Cup final on Saturday, having stormed to the Supporters’ Shield as, by far and away, the best side in the league. Their points tally was the highest ever recorded over the course of a regular season, but most impressively, they have managed to maintain that momentum into the play-offs, conceding just once on their run to the final.
Most will highlight the watershed signing of Sebastian Giovinco, and with good reason. The former Juventus playmaker has been nothing short of a revelation since joining Toronto FC in January 2015, setting a new benchmark for big money, big name Designated Players. The addition of Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley and Victor Vazquez have also proved significant, with the hiring of Greg Vanney as head coach in August 2014 a pivotal moment, too.
But Toronto’s rise is down to more than just the team they have put together on paper. There has been a fundamental shift in mentality at BMO Field. The fragile, vulnerable Toronto of years gone by is now a thing of the past. The punchline once uttered by so many no longer rings so funny. Under Vanney, TFC have become the team, and the club, they always had the potential to be.
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This is illustrated by the way Vanney and his side have shouldered the expectation placed on them this season. Toronto were many people’s MLS Cup favourites before the 2017 season had even kicked off, yet they have thrived under such pressure. That is the sign of a team comfortable in their own superiority. Comfortable with the predictions being made of their, as many see it, inevitable success.
Vanney must take credit for instilling this ethos, but 43-year-old has also made tactical changes to harness the quality of his team. Much has been made of Toronto’s switch to a 3-5-2 formation made towards the end of last season, with Vanney admitting Antonio Conte, the Chelsea manager, to be a source of inspiration in his implementation of the shape.
Toronto are not the only ones in MLS to have flexed their tactical muscle this season, with the Columbus Crew also adopting 3-5-2 at times and the New York Red Bulls even playing in a 3-3-3-1 formation, but the Canadians look the most comfortable in their shape. It ekes the best from their undeniably talented group.
“One of the reasons we went to 3-5-2 is because it enabled us to get our wing-backs higher up the field faster which then would pull the full-backs who were sitting on top of our two forwards and the centre-backs … it would force them to have to respect the width of the field because our wing-backs would take higher positions,” Vanney explained earlier in the week. “The goal of that was to bring pressure off Seba and Jozy to get numbers off of them so that they could have a little more space to work.”
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It’s a tactical shift that has ultimately seen Toronto win the Supporters’ Shield and two Canadian Championships, also making it to MLS Cup finals in back-to-back seasons, over the past 18 months. Now, Vanney is charged with delivering the club’s first championship triumph. They have been here before and that experience should serve them well, although the team they will face on Saturday shared the same experience 12 months ago, the only difference being that the Seattle Sounders won (5-4 on penalties after a dire goalless draw in regular time).
But Toronto FC are better than they were last time. They have improved over the course of 2017, showing a willingness to progress and develop almost as soon as they’d suffered defeat in last year’s MLS Cup game. “To be completely honest, I think we can use a little bit of a more creative player,” Altidore reasoned after the 2016 loss to Seattle. “I think we’re a very good team. But if we have another piece that is creative, whether it be a winger or a creative player that can kind of, on his own, help us decide games as well, [that] would be great.”
And so Vazquez was signed to be that creative figure, giving Toronto FC the extra dimension in the final third that Altidore spoke about.
There is a clear-headedness to everything TFC have done in recent years, which is in stark contrast to the scattergun, scatterbrain approach of the past. That is illustrated by the strength of their 2017 campaign to date. Of course, it must culminate in victory against the Sounders this weekend for that strength to be ratified, but this is a club, and a team, that have made a serene art form of performing to expectations.
On Saturday, they are expected to win, just as they have done all year. That’ll sit just fine with them.