Toronto FC lost 2-1 away to Inter Miami CF on Saturday night at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The home side opened the scoring in the 24th minute with a long-range strike from Jean Mota that skimmed off the palms of Alex Bono. Toronto responded near-immediately via Lorenzo Insigne, who smashed a low volley from distance into the bottom corner after a blocked shot fell into his path.
But Miami would reinstate their lead before half-time when Mota played a wide free-kick square to Alejandro Pozulo. He hung a ball up at the back-post where Damion Lowe nodded it into the middle for Ariel Lassiter to touch over.
For a second-straight match, TFC bossed large stretches of the second half only to be denied the desired goal.
“We gave up two very bad goals,” said Bob Bradley post-match. “We had to really chase the game and put so much into it. In the second half, we continued to try to find different ways to get into the box, create chances, but not sharp enough in some of those other moments.”
Lukas MacNaughton summed up the feeling in the dressing room: “We’re disappointed.”
“We played so well for the majority of the game,” he continued. “When you give away two disappointing goals against play and you have to come back and fight back against a team that's just sitting in their box, it’s tough.”
“They know how to play here, they held a good block. It’s tough when you have the ball, you’re putting pressure, they’re sitting deep,” MacNaughton added. “If we had kept it 0-0 and dominated the game, they’d have to step out, create spaces. We probably would have put a couple past them, but when they’re up, they’re able to just sit there. It’s hard to pick teams apart that are like that.”
That second Miami goal proved a back-breaker.
“After the first goal as a team, we responded well, Lorenzo scores a really good goal and then to give up the foul and the free-kick,” levelled Bradley. “It's not a good time to make that foul and then to give up that goal. We have to push really hard physically. It's tough when you play midweek and they don't, and then you travel here. It’s a hot Miami night, guys put a lot into it.”
Come the second half, Toronto pushed for a way back into the game.
“Keep playing how we’re playing, keep the ball in their half, stay high,” relayed MacNaughton of the half-time talk. “When they do get it, don't let them try and run and counter and get behind us, which I think we did a pretty good job of in the second half.”
But the required sharpness to break opponents down is still a work in progress.
“How many times did we create advantages and get around the box and we couldn't get the timing of the final play right, the ball, the touch, that kind of thing, that’s sharpness,” said Bradley. “I don't think that we've got everybody at their best level. We work towards that.”
“As a team, our ideas, how we want to play, in both games there's very good moments,” he continued. “This is still a game where we control a lot of the game, our ability to play from the back through the middle and get up into the attacking part of the field continues to go in a good direction, we didn't give up much in the way of chances tonight. But, as I said right up front, two bad goals makes it a situation where we just have to really chase the game for basically 90-plus minutes.”
The spectacular moments – the strike from Insigne on Saturday and the one from Domenico Criscito on Wednesday – are nice, but Bradley wants more.
“Lorenzo, when you get him into good positions, he's capable of scoring goals like that. There's no doubt that that's a really good goal, a special goal, that gets us back to 1-1, but the bar gets held high for these guys,” reminded the TFC coach. “Lorenzo would be the first one to look at some moments where he got the ball in good positions in the last two games and couldn't quite, at the end, make the next play that might get us a chance.”
“The same would be true of Fede [Bernardeschi], Ayo [Akinola] – they had some balls with advantages tonight and just couldn't get the timing or the final part of a play,” Bradley added. “We got forward and got into decent positions, but still if you look at the number of big chances we created out of those advantages, you would say no, it’s not enough.”
This busy stretch done, Toronto returns home for a week on the training pitch in anticipation of their next match on August 27 when they travel to face Charlotte FC.
Shake off this disappointment and focus on the next one.
“Game-by-game,” said MacNaughton. “Every game is big to get into the playoffs. Every game matters, every point matters.”
“As soon as a game is done, that game is done, we’re on to the next game,” he closed. “We’re not thinking four games ahead, we're thinking the next game. That's what the mentality is no matter the result.”
