What/When Toronto FC will pay a visit to MAPFRE Stadium in Columbus, Ohio to take on the Columbus Crew in the first leg of the MLS Eastern Conference final on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 8:00 pm EDT. TV/Video This match will be shown live on TSN (http://www.tsn.ca/, English) and TVA Sports (http://www.tvasports.ca/, French) in Canada, ESPN (http://espn.go.com/, English) in the U.S., MLS Direct Kick and MLS Live (http://live.mlssoccer.com/, U.S. only). Radio/Audio CHUM AM 1050 (http://www.tsn.ca/radio/toronto-1050, English) in Toronto; WWCD FM 102.5 (http://www.cd1025.com/, English) and WVKO FM 103.1 (http://lamega1031.com/, Spanish) in Columbus.
It's official - Altidore is out for this one. Unsurprisingly, TFC's appeal of the Altidore red card was denied. http://www.tsn.ca/altidore-s-suspension-appeal-denied-will-miss-first-leg-of-east-final-1.916312 That means both Giovinco AND Altidore won't play. If there was a time for someone to step up here, this is it.
Unsurprisingly but a little disappointingly considering the New York players should never have been where they were. A better finding might have been to downgrade Altidore's sanction to a yellow card. It would have been his second and would still keep him out of the upcoming match but would have acknowledged New York's behaviour as more inappropriate than Altidore's. I'd prefer to see Giovinco and Altidore in the lineup, of course, but this team has shown it can play and win without them. And you know they're going to be extra fired up for the return leg.
The combined behaviour of Altidore and Kljestan is enough to make me happy that the US is going to miss the World Cup.
HT: Nothing to separate the sides through 45#TFCLive | #CLBvTOR pic.twitter.com/tODt9VdDU2— Toronto FC (@TorontoFC) November 22, 2017
In the end, TFC hangs on for nil nil and next week sets up like this: another nil nil and it goes to extra time any other draw Columbus advances any win and the winning team advances
Crew had their chances to win. Bono made another huge stop and we got lucky on a few occasions. This is the longest TFC has gone without a goal all year and today not even a shot on target but really Ricketts was on an island all by himself. Everything to play for in the return. Crew will be without Artur. In other news Seattle has one leg in the final but really had multiple chances to ice the series.
As it always seems to go in sports, not as good or as bad as it could have been. I'd really have liked to have seen an away goal. That said, if you'd told me at the beginning of the season that we'd be in a position where all we need is a home win to get to the cup, I'd have taken it.
It was a good performance but not a great performance. Despite all the possession we had, we took zero shots on target. We had in total maybe two half chances to score and we were fortunate not to concede given the quality of Columbus' chances. It's all up to Altidore and Giovinco now to do what they're paid to do. They have to be difference makers as I don't see anyone else, with the exception of Vazquez, being able to give us some cutting edge.