TORONTO – MLS action returns to BMO Field on Tuesday night.

With the Portland Timbers having lifted the trophy at the conclusion of the MLS is Back Tournament in Orlando, Florida, Toronto FC are now braced for the resumption of the regular season when the Vancouver Whitecaps come to town.

In a year that has been anything but normal, a run of matches against only Canadian opposition, albeit without fans in attendance, is a welcome semblance of the familiar.

Despite the obstacles, TFC are ready to embrace what lies ahead.

“It's been a challenging year,” began Greg Vanney on a Zoom call on Monday. “Between the ups and downs, the starts, the stops, trying to get guys fit, and then as you start to make that progress you have a break.”

“Those things have been challenges,” he admitted. “The group is excited to get playing again and to actually play a game in our stadium. It's obviously been a long time.”

Toronto’s last match at BMO Field was on March 7, a 1-0 win over NYCFC, an eon ago, or so it seems.

Since then, a trio of group stage results – draws against D.C. United and the New England Revolution either side of a win over the Montreal Impact – as well as defeat by that same NYCFC side, has been all the action TFC and their fans have had to savour.

Then came another 14-day quarantine upon returning to Canada and the continued uncertainty of what the regular season would look like, but now a tasty morsel lies ahead. Everyone is ready, looking forward to a series of important matches.

“It took one day to get them turning around [after quarantine] and then I was really pleased with where we were fitness wise,” highlighted Vanney. “We put in four really tough days to start off, gave them a day to recover and then built into this week and the preparation to Vancouver.”

“The intensity level has been really high, the sharpness level has been good,” he added. “I feel like we've made some strides.”

The captain spoke for the group: “First and foremost, we're really excited,” smiled Michael Bradley.

“It's the most normal stretch that we’ve had in a long time,” he continued. “When you think about the last week or 10 days and look ahead to what the next four or five weeks are going to look like, in terms of training every day at our facility, playing home games at BMO, some normal away trips... that's exciting.”

“When you think about what the last five or six months have been, any semblance of normal is exciting,” he added. “We're really looking forward to getting back to BMO, getting going with games.

Little has been ideal, but now is not the time to focus on the imperfections.

“It's a year where, if you want, you could find something to complain about every single day,” Bradley said. “You could find an excuse, you could find something that's not perfect, there will always be something.”

“We've talked a lot as a group about the idea that we’ve just got to get on with things and we have to have a mentality that says, whatever is going on, when we have our chance to step on the field, we're going to go for it,” he relayed. “We're going to play, we're going to compete, we're going to be as committed and as relentless as possible to do what we always do: step on the field and win games.”

Toronto will play Vancouver twice at home, on Tuesday and Friday, before departing for an away date at Montreal next Friday. The Impact come to BMO Field on September 1 with TFC heading to British Columbia on September 5 and Quebec once more on September 9.

In the midst of a hectic spell, the focus is simple.

“We’re trying to take points,” leveled Vanney. “It’s been strange. MLS is Back felt like a tournament, [but] in the background there's the league table that very few people were talking about because they were just focusing on the tournament.”

“We were keeping an eye on that [table]. We're in second place right now,” he continued. “In the regular season games we haven't played from behind at all, but we've managed to drop four points from leading situations that we would want to close out, that would have put us in a slightly better position.”

“That's one of the things that we're focusing on during this stretch,” he added. “While in the backdrop is the Canadian Championship final.”

The Canadian Soccer Association announced that the team that collects the most points in this six-game sprint will represent MLS in this year’s Voyageurs Cup Final and a chance to earn the right to represent the country in the Concacaf Champions League.

Vanney added some additional priorities: “Continue to bring some players along and continue to work on our whole team through a process of getting to the ‘best version of us’ as the season continues to progress.”

“At some point, as we keep ourselves in a playoff spot, there's going to be a final run again,” he reminded. “Even though it's been not consistent, we're trying to consistently build through it.”

“Take points,” he repeated. “If we take points, we put ourselves in the [Voyageurs Cup] Final. If we take points, we put ourselves in a better position in the overall standings.”

As to their approach, the old motto resurfaces.

“One game at a time,” anticipated Bradley. “Especially for us to start with two home games, we want to step on the field and be aggressive and try to play our football and try to attack and score goals, and be really relentless in the way that we go about it.”

In a normal year, with the hottest part of the summer grind behind, this would be the time where the playoff race is heating up and teams would be rounding into the form that would see them through to the MLS Cup Playoffs.

This is not normal, but it does have that feeling all the same.

“It certainly has that feel,” concurred Bradley. “Obviously, we've only played five league matches up until now, but there's no doubt that once these games start everybody is going to feel that sense of urgency.”

“In a season that... who knows how exactly it's going to play out? Is every team going to play the exact same number of games? How many games are there actually going to be in terms of a regular season? What's it all going to look like? Are the playoffs being played at home stadiums? Is it another bubble? There's a zillion questions,” he continued. “And so all that you really have is what's in front of you in that moment and you’ve got to enjoy that and value that at the absolute highest level and make sure that you step on the field every single game trying to win, trying to take points.”

“We feel good about the points that we've taken through five games,” Bradley closed. “But we're a team that whenever that Supporters’ Shield is being passed out we want to be there. You've got to take care of business every single time you step on the field.”