MLS, Conference Finals Review
Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
After two engrossing first legs to the MLS Conference Final ties, the second legs for both the Seattle-Colorado and Montreal-Toronto series had a lot of promise. And both certainly lived up to their respective promises, especially the second leg in Toronto. With MLS Cup 2016 now set, let’s first look back on how the Sounders and Reds advanced before touching briefly upon the big game at hand.
Sounders get Just Enough, Rapids Don’t: The second leg in Colorado would always be about whether the Rapids had enough punch going forward to overcome their defensive lapses in leg one, and although they controlled play for a large chunk of the game, they didn’t have enough to not only break Seattle down, but control play for long enough to really threaten the Sounders. When Jordan Morris broke through with a bit of a dirty goal, it turned out to be the end for the Rapids magic carpet ride. It’s worth remembering that Clint Dempsey hasn’t played since late September, and the Sounders seemingly haven’t missed a beat. Colorado has the players to break down teams but they didn’t show that ability often enough in this series, or often enough consistently all season. When their defense put them in trouble, they didn’t often have enough to overcome that. While their season was still incredibly impressive for a team predicted to be one of the league’s worst, Pablo Mastroeni needs to find a way to get his team more goals while not losing their defensive stoutness that defined them this year. And for Seattle, the most amazing turnaround mid-season in league history will continue on to Toronto to play Toronto FC, whose own story is quite magical.
Toronto FC Lights up the Impact: Montreal scored the first three goals of the tie at Olympic Stadium, followed by Toronto FC scoring the next two, which gave themselves a lifeline heading home. We all thought there was a chance this tie had something special left in it, but what we actually got was one of the most compelling, enthralling and exciting playoff games in MLS history. While it certainly wasn’t a game of high quality, it didn’t matter because of how the pendulum swung back and forth all night between the two teams. Montreal’s counterattack was still lethal, Toronto FC exploited Montreal’s stunning weaknesses on set pieces, and in the end used their home field and brute force to push the tie to extra time, and score two quick goals in the first period of extra time to outlast the Impact.
Jozy Altidore’s performances this postseason are some of the best in his entire career, not just in Toronto, and even when Sebastian Giovinco had to be subbed out, his form and presence kept TFC flowing forward. His physicality was something Mauro Biello’s team had no answer for no matter what they tried. Greg Vanney’s team also showed great resilience when Montreal not only scored first, but leveled the game at 2-2 before the end of the first half. They are still quite open defensively, despite their new found fondness of the 3-5-2 formation, which could pose problems in the big game.
One last shoutout should go to the groundscrew at BMO Field, who not only turned over the pitch beautifully after the Grey Cup on Sunday, but kept it bouncy and full even during a driving rainstorm. As the weather is certainly going to play a role on December 10th, they are going to have a job to do once again.
A Quick MLS Cup Preview: A more complete preview of MLS Cup 2016 is coming next week, but here are a few questions to ponder about the game until that is written:
1) Can Jozy Altidore bully Roman Torres and Chad Marshall?
2) How will the Sounders try to exploit the available space in behind TFC’s 3-5-2 formation?
3) How does Seattle plan to defend Sebastian Giovinco?
4) What team is better at finishing?
Those are just a few questions to let sift in your mind as MLS Cup 2016 edges ever closer. But if it gets anywhere near the drama of the rest of the playoffs, we’re in for quite a treat.