First playoff berth in franchise history a must to avoid another season of failure
TORONTO, Ont. - A thrilling comeback victory at home against the Portland Timbers - only the second time in club history the Reds came back from a two-goal deficit to win - momentarily raised the collective hopes and expectations of Toronto FC fans.
Could this finally be the year that Toronto ends their abysmal seven-year playoff drought?
The Reds entered their match against the Houston Dynamo in fine form, winners of back-to-back contests against the Timbers and the Chicago Fire after going winless in their previous six contests.
However, heartbreak (yet again) struck at BMO Field this week, as Toronto squandered a golden opportunity to get themselves back into the playoff race in earnest by losing to the 10-man Dynamo squad 1-0. Highlighting Toronto’s disappointment on that rain-soaked evening was a missed penalty from Jermain Defoe, who started his first game since back from injury.
The million dollar question remains: is a late-season surge from a team fighting through adversity and struggling to find its identity enough to consider the 2014 season a success if the club falls short of the playoffs?
In a word, no.
Think back to the Red’s press conference on January 13th of this year, when MLSE President and CEO Tim Leiweke announced to Toronto fans the signings of England’s Defoe and American International Michael Bradley for a club-record sum of $100 million dollars.
‘It’s a bloody big deal’, we were told on multiple occasions, and boy was it. The $100 million dollar transfer fee doled out for Defoe and Bradley was only $20 million dollars less than Forbes’ valuation for the entire franchise.
Two Brazilian signings in the coming months would follow in striker Gilberto and keeper Julio Cesar, not to mention the (second) homecoming for Toronto native Dwayne De Rosario. Safe to say, expectations were sky-high in the city, as many supporters pondered the possibility of a Major League Soccer Championship and assumed the playoffs were a mere formality.
For Toronto FC to save face and not have their season defined as an utter failure, the playoffs (at minimum) remain a must for a club that Leiweke assured us was “finally getting things right” at that press conference just nine short months ago.
Since their inception in 2006, Toronto FC have seen a steady decline in season tickets and attendance at BMO Field, due in large part to the club’s mismanagement and seemingly never-ending parade of new coaches, players and systems. In eight seasons, the club has had nine different head coaches and zero playoff berths.
Once referred to as the “model franchise in the MLS” by league commissioner Don Garber, TFC saw its attendance figures decline steadily the last couple of years after selling out their first three seasons, eventually culminating in a fan protest that led to lowered ticket prices for 2013.
The last two years in particular saw TFC’s overall attendance dip to slightly over 18,000 per match (from well over 20,000 in previous seasons). In 2012, the club’s average attendance dropped to tenth in the league, after being no lower than third in each season since year one.
Safe to say, fan apathy and frustration have been an ongoing problem and challenge, and supporters are hardly interested in yet another rebuild and change in philosophy.
That means it is imperative for the club to win, and win now. Not making the playoffs after bringing in the likes of Defoe, Bradley, Gilberto and De Rosario would be a failure of epic proportions, even by TFC’s marginal standards. One could reasonably argue that never has a playoff berth and some level of success been more important for the club’s long-term health and stability than right now.
Optimists will point out that the team has grown and overcome some of their early issues, fighting through another coaching change, injuries to their best players for extended stretches (Defoe, Bradley and captain Steven Caldwell) and some dubious officiating decisions (see the late game-winning TFC goal that was denied against the Fire on September 13th, as an example). They might suggest that a “successful” season is about more than just making the playoffs, more than just wins and losses.
Respectfully, that is hogwash.
For starters, all clubs go through these issues at some point – coaching changes, injuries and questionable calls – but not all clubs go their first seven (and possibly eight) seasons without a playoff appearance.
To put TFC’s futility in perspective, both the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Montreal Impact made the playoffs in their second seasons in the MLS. Not only does Toronto have the longest current playoff drought, they also have the dubious distinction of being the only club to have never qualified for the playoffs in the league’s history.
In Toronto, we are well past the point of moral victories, past the point of “trying hard” and “growing as a team”. It’s time for the club’s supporters to see some results.
If all other clubs can figure it out, why can’t Toronto?
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