What/When The defending MLS champion Toronto FC (0-0-1) will pay a visit to Olympic Stadium in Montréal, Québec to take on the Montréal Impact (0-0-2) on Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 3:00 pm EDT. TV/Video This match will be shown live on CTV (http://www.ctv.ca/, English) and TVA Sports (http://www.tvasports.ca/, French) in Canada, 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; CKGM AM 690 (http:///www.tsn.ca/montreal/, English) and CHMP FM 98.5 (http://www.985fm.ca/, French) in Montréal.
I have a bad feeling we could have a hangover game after our mid-week result and with a Impact side who are looking to kick start their season after 2 losses. I think prob see Vazquez and Halser back in the starting XI and Auro/Morgan playing LB assume Morrow is still out injured. ----------------------Bono--------------- VdW---Hagglund-----Moor----Auro ------------------Bradley---------------- ------Hasler---------------Osorio----- -----------------Vazquez--------------- -----------Seba----------Altidore------ Subs: Irwin, Zavaleta, Morgan, Delgado, Aketxe, Hamlton, Ricketts
Is it too much to say that we're the underdogs today because it sure does seem like it. I think we'll see a somewhat rotated squad today with both Altidore and Vazquez on the bench to start the game. Should TFC win today, we'd be breaking a run that dates back years: All-Time TFC are 0-4 in MLS play while alive in CCL knockout stage.— Martyn Bailey (@martyn_bailey) March 17, 2018 Or TFC are winless in last 11 MLS matches following a CCL match (0-9-2) and have lost the last 8 such matches— Martyn Bailey (@martyn_bailey) March 17, 2018
Naturally, I'm disappointed but not surprised with the result. Vanney's got a tough balancing act - either play the starters who have more chemistry between them but are fatigued or rotate a bunch of guys in who are fresh but are unfamiliar with each other. As we get deeper in the year, I'd expect him to be less hesitant to play rotated squads. We missed Vazquez's ability to switch play with one pass. It took forever for our guys to move the ball around. Fatigue probably had an impact on our decision making. Don't want to be too harsh on Morgan as he hasn't started a game in nine months however, he looked like he didn't know what to do out there. Auro or Morrow would've been much more aggressive in getting forward and getting back. I think the biggest mistake the team made was to commit too many players forward and not enough of those players were willing to make runs/take risks off the ball. Piatti, Vargas and Taider had many 3 v 3 and 3 v 2 opportunities because of how many players went forward. To his credit, I think Vanney picked up on the fact that we were flat and made changes early. It could be argued though that we should've gone with Osorio, Bradley, and Hasler in midfield and played more defensively to start the game.
I thought it was decent performance we controlled possession but like mention above we never really made any runs or tried to break their defense. We seem content knocking the ball around and hoping Impact made a mistake. I was disappointed with the right side attack of VdW and Aketxe who offer nothing attacking wise who tend to pass sideways or in Aketxe case long crosses.
How can they look so good against Tigres and so lifeless against Montreal? I know the CCL is the bigger priority right now, but it looked like night and day.