Toronto FC suffered their first preseason loss on Wednesday afternoon at the hands of their league rivals, the Columbus Crew.
Three take-aways from Wednesday afternoon:
New Players:
Wednesday marked the first time Toronto FC's Brazilian trio stepped on the field for their new club. Gilberto, Jackson, and Julio Cesar all featured in Ryan Nelsen’s starting eleven and while the result was not what they were looking for, it did serve as a great opportunity to gel with the first team.
65 Minutes for Osorio & Bradley:
It is starting to look like Ryan Nelsen has found his central midfield pairing. Since preseason has begun, Jonathan Osorio has been playing beside Michael Bradley in the centre of the park, and it has started to come together. The pair looked sharp for most of the game, and really controlled the park.
Losing Is Good?
Obviously everyone wants to win games, but sometimes losing is a good thing. Winning games can occasionally lead to a manager overlooking a team’s weakness and then pay for it when that problem is finally exposed, where as losing a preseason game could expose a weakness early on and the staff can solve the problem before it is too late. Toronto FC have added a lot of new parts to their starting eleven and the feeling out process is going to take much longer than a few preseason games.
Scoring Summary
CLB – Higuaín 10’
CLB – Josh Williams 12’
TFC – Slogic (OG) 14’
CLB – Adam Bedell 61’
Misconduct Summary
Lineups
Toronto FC – Julio Cesar; Nick Hagglund (Chris Mannella* 77’), Steven Caldwell © (Gale Agbossoumonde 45’), Doneil Henry (Ryan Richter 65’), Justin Morrow (Ashton Morgan 65’); Jackson (Reggie Lame 45’), Michael Bradley (Jeremy Hall 65’), Jonathan Osorio (Kyle Bekker 65’), Alvaro Rey (Manuel Aparicio 65’); Dwayne De Rosario (Kene Eze 75’), Gilberto (Andrew Wiedeman 45’)
*- Academy Player
Columbus Crew – Matt Lampson; Josh Williams (Chad Barson 45’), Slogic (Kevan George 45’), Tyson Wahl (Michael Parkhurst 45’), Waylon Francis(Ben Sweat 45’); Wil Trapp (Fifi Baiden 45’), Tony Tchani (Agustin Viana 45’), Hector Jimenez (Dominic Oduno 45’); Federico Higuaín (Ben Speas 45’), Justin Meram (Bernardo Anor 45’); Jairo Arrieta (Adam Bedell 45’).
