Saturday, July 26, 2014

This is YOUR House Kansas City - Toronto lacks guts and skill and finish-TFC 1 SportingKC 2

Sporting Kansas City visited Toronto last night and it was a rare home game missed for me. I watched it on TSN. I had spent the day at the Hillside Music Festival just north of Guelph at it was just too much of geographical challenge to get from Wellington County to lakeside Toronto in time.
TFC went into halftime with a 1-0 lead. This was a lead that could have been greater had the ref made  a call on the taking down of Gilberto by Collin in a "last man back" situation. Toronto, both Oduro and Hagglund, hit the post. The ref, Mr. Uncle, had  been happier showing yellow cards to the home team than the visitors.
I am not sure if Ted Uncle is the name of a ref or a horrifying relative.
Then the second half began as one feared, Kansas City taking advantage of Toronto confusion and Zusi scoring to bring the game level. Toronto managed to get a better grip on the game, but playing without Jermaine Defoe (accumulation of yellow cards) meant that scoring was always going to be a challenge. Oduro created some action down the wing, but Moore and Jackson could not add some finish.
Then Oduro breaks down the wing and is pulled from behind. SKC sees yellow and you get the feeling that nothing short of gunfire is going to inspire this ref to clamp down on Kansas City. Then Gilberto gets wiped out and no call is made.

FINALLY in minute 75 a Kansas City player gets a red card - Besler for his 457th foul. Rather than Toronto taking advantage of KC down to 10 men, they subbed on Jacob Peterson (former Toronto FC player) who scored the go ahead goal for SKC.

I do feel that Nelsen takes too long to make substitutions. The first TFC change came after KC had completed their three. It is clear that Nelsen has more faith in Jackson than perhaps he should.


The fact is that Kansas City gets away with this, they have a combo of skill and playing on the edge. Toronto FC does not have the desire or the skill to compete.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent blog post, if what you were going for was a whiny piece by a disgruntled fan. They didn't get cards because they went down far too easily, Oduro especially. Toronto should be embarrassed. Diving all over...