Toronto FC’s busy July schedule kicks off midweek with the visit of Orlando City SC to BMO Field.
The club will be bolstered by the return of two members of the leadership group. Sean Johnson, with the USA’s group stage exit from Copa América, is back in town.
“[Johnson] is travelling back today,” said John Herdman on Tuesday. “I’m gutted for him, the circumstances, I don't think anyone wanted this for Sean, but he'll arrive in, we'll go through the usual reentry, and if he passes everything, and he's in the right mental-emotional state, he should be back.”
“He's one of our key leaders,” he added. “That's a big piece coming back in the door.”
And Shane O’Neill subbed in at the 90th minute of TFC’s 2-1 loss in Atlanta on Saturday.
“He's a big influence,” said Herdman of the defender. “He knows he's one of the elders in the team, he knows he's got the veteran experience in MLS, and he made a commitment at the beginning of the year to use all of that to help us be a new team this year.”
“We've missed him,” he continued. “Just watching him in training again today, he brings quality on the ball and he brings a wiliness in his defending. We're really excited to have him back. That's one of the leaders coming back, Sean coming back, that's two, add in Lolo [Lorenzo Insigne] and Fede [Federico Bernardeschi], we end up with four leaders in the squad.”
O’Neill has not been available since leaving the match in Vancouver at half-time on April 6.
“This was probably the longest injury,” reflected the defender. “The mindset changes a little bit when you're out that long. You're able to really work on the body as a whole and the competitive every day aspect of what we do is removed, so you feel like you're living a different lifestyle in some ways. As you return, you have to get that back up and going.”
“It's good feeling,” O’Neill said of getting back out on the pitch on the weekend. “Obviously, the way the game ended was a little bit insane, hectic, but it was good to be back out there. You just want to be able to help the team affect winning, getting that feeling back will be pretty nice.”
Having watched from the sidelines over the last three months, O’Neill has had a unique perspective on Toronto’s season.
“The first good chunk of time that I was out, we were playing really well – we looked so cohesive and we were so tough to break down,” he recalled. “There's only been, off the top of my head – Kansas City at home, Vancouver on the road and New York, but every other game I feel like we've looked the better team for large portions.”
“You look at that road trip to Philly and D.C., you could say we were the better team in both of those games and unfortunately didn't come away with the wins,” O’Neill pointed out. “We had a little blip, but if we can keep establishing what we did in Atlanta – that would have been a nice point, but obviously it didn't work out that way – the performance was a lot to build upon.”
“A lot of the performances for large portions of the game have been really solid,” he added. “There's a lot of cohesion and now we just need to get the results.”
Locked in the back-and-forth of the match, the throes of results, it is easy to get caught up in the emotional swings of victory and defeat. Herdman grounds himself in the numbers.
“Statistically, we're right there,” he said. “You can't hide from the stats.”
“If I look at the game we won 1-0 in New England, the stats would tell you we should have lost that game – coming out we all knew we were lucky, but the last five games: Philadelphia, that was a really solid performance, the xG would suggest we could have won that game. The game against the D.C. we should have won that game. The game against Chicago, we didn't deserve to win that. And the game against Nashville, we should have won that game,” Herdman listed. “We always try to keep the facts,”
“The facts will tell you one thing and then your emotions will tell you something different,” he balanced. “You come back to the clarity of the facts and that keeps the boys on track. We're right there – we are right there. It's going to turn.”
May and June were difficult months. Toronto collected two wins and two draws from 11 MLS matches and were clawed from the top of the Eastern Conference back into the muddy middle.
July will be a big month.
Five league matches to position oneself for the final run into the MLS Cup Playoffs when action resumes at the end of August, the Leagues Cup kicks off at the end of the month, and next Wednesday will see the first leg of Toronto’s semifinal series against Forge FC in the Canadian Championship.
Toronto will face Columbus this weekend, head to Hamilton next midweek, before hosting the Philadelphia Union the following Saturday and heading into the Leagues Cup pause with away dates at Inter Miami CF and finally CF Montreal on July 20.
First, Orlando.
TFC won the previous meeting 2-1 at Orlando in April, with Tyrese Spicer and Prince Owusu scoring in the final minutes of a solid road outing after Duncan McGuire gave the hosts a lead. Orlando will be eager to return the favour.
Óscar Pareja’s side come to town winless in four on the road, smarting from a 4-2 loss at NYCFC on Friday.
“Óscar does a good job with that team,” said Herdman. “He's got great balance, from the types of attacking players he's got – McGuire, who can get in behind and is a proper old fashioned English centre-forward and then you've got the pocket players underneath in [Facundo] Torres, [Martin] Ojeda. And then you've got speed out wide with [Iván] Angulo; [Wilder] Cartagena’s got that defensive bite in the middle.”
“He's got a lot of balance throughout his team and he's been with them so long he knows how to get the best out of his players,” he continued. “Similar to us, he's been dealing with some injuries and players that have been away, but from what I can see he’s got his full guns ready to blaze against Toronto.”
McGuire leads the side with seven goals, while Nicolás Lodeiro has chipped in with the same number of assists.
“What we've been trying to figure out is will [Óscar] look at that back five structure that served him well for a few games, or will he continue committing with his back four?” wondered Herdman. “We’re waiting to see.”
“We've been preparing for both, but if I know Óscar he'll always have something ready for you for game day. It'll be a tough match, but this is what we need,” he closed. “We need a game where our best have to be at their best to win a football match and you do against this Orlando team.”
