Toronto FC’s 2024 season came to an end on Saturday afternoon with a 1-0 loss to Inter Miami CF.
Throughout the 90 minutes Toronto were on the front foot, but could not find a way to turn decent looks into an advantage on the scoreboard. Miami, in their one real moment of danger, did not make the same mistake with Leo Campagna collecting and volleying in a Luis Suárez cross in the 93rd minute to take all three points.
“To start [I want to] thank the fans who have been right behind us this season,” said John Herdman post-match. “There’s a group that show up week-in, week-out. They brought the energy, we needed that energy, we just weren't able to deliver.”
“We defended really well today,” he continued. “That was a pretty impressive performance against what is a talented team. Regardless of who they start with, that's a tough Miami team to play against, but you can't hide it. We’re not as ruthless or as clinical as other teams. We see Miami get that one big opportunity and it's taken.”
“We knew it was going to be a mountain to climb this season and we've climbed,” Herdman reflected. “We've had some performances that weren't at the standard and that's for us to reflect on, but we've had some performances that we can be really proud of. There's been some moments – the derby wins, Leagues Cup progression, beating [CF] Pachuca, being in the top four for the first parts of the season – all of those things were great steps, but it just hasn't been good enough in this last four months.”
“We'll have to look hard at ourselves,” he closed. “We were in a playoff fight, but I don't think we had enough punch in that fight.”
It’s been the same story many times this season: TFC play well, are unable to convert the moments where the balance tips in their favour into goals and that leaves the door open for the opposition.
“Very disappointing,” summarized Derrick Etienne Jr. “I would have to go back and look at it, but we did a lot of things right, kept them at bay for large parts of the game, and unfortunately we weren't able to get that goal to reward ourselves.”
“Guys are frustrated. We went out there, tried to go after the game and get a result,” he continued. “In many ways we were close, but, yeah, we didn't succeed today.”
Miami’s stars – Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Suárez, and Jordi Alba – began the match on the bench, but all but Alba were introduced in the second half.
That presence was in the air all match long.
“It's tough, eh?” remarked Herdman. “You're in a game like that and you're expecting the last 30 minutes to feel like it's a pressure cooker and it felt like a circus. When you bring the best player that's ever walked the earth, what do you expect?”
“It's a gift for the fans, the people of Toronto, to be able to see that man in the flesh, so I understand it – coming from the northeast of England, I can't comprehend it, but I understand it,” he joked. “It was a wild night. We could have came away maybe with a point, not sure if that would have helped us, we had to go for it. We did alright against Messi. The lads managed Busquets, Suárez, Messi, and it wasn't until we started to commit numbers looking for a goal that we looked vulnerable.”
Toronto were still mathematically alive following the final whistle. It was going to be a nervy night of keeping an eye on the out of town scoreboards to see if results fell their way.
“The competitor in me doesn't want to watch those games, but I'm going to be glued in,” said Etienne. “It's going to be difficult. I know I'm going to be screaming, might get some noise complaints.”
“Hopefully some teams can take care of it, I’ll hit up a couple of guys and say, ‘Hey, better not mess around today,’” he added. “Yeah, it's tough, but it's the reality we're in right now.”
D.C. United took a third-minute lead in their match against the New England Revolution and saw it out, bumping TFC out of the running.
Herdman felt it was coming.
“No,” he replied, asked if he held out any hope. “We had to win tonight.”
Spared the two week wait until the final round of the regular season on October 19, Toronto can now shift focus to the post-mortem.
“We've got to be honest and reflect,” laid out Herdman, who spoke with fans in the south end following the final whistle. “I told them what the fans were telling us. The fans were saying, ‘We've got your back.’ The performance wasn't as strong in different parts of the season, but they can see there's a fight in there.”
“There's something different, but at the same time, that it wasn't good enough, from me, from others that have came into the club and tried to turn this around,” he continued. “This is the first project we have not turned around in our first season. That's going to require high-level honesty from all staff. People who have been here for ten, 15 years, people who have been here for four years, people who have been here for only a year, there's just got to be honesty now around all aspects of what we can do to learn, to grow, to improve.”
“I know the fans don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear those words of ‘we lose and learn,’ they want to see action,” Herdman recognized. “For me, it's a case of evaluating, re-evaluating everything that we have done this year.”
For a moment now the thought will be on what could have been, but soon enough that focus will shift to what lies ahead. For TFC 2024 is over, but the work towards 2025 begins now.
“We had the group to get in the playoffs,” closed Etienne. “We've shown in many games that we could be a dangerous team to play against, but we fell short in aspects of the game that we just can't. As you saw today, good teams will punish us when we don't take our chances and we leave ourselves open at the back.”
