Nothing sweetens like victory.

Toronto FC were smiling after Wednesday night’s 2-0 win over the defending MLS Cup Champion Columbus SC.

That feeling carried into Thursday’s press conferences ahead of Saturday’s trip to New York City for a clash with NYCFC.

“I’m not going to lie to you, guys were excited, especially coming off a few frustrating results,” said Alex Bono. “To come out and perform like that, it felt right, you got that little chill down your spine – this is the way it's supposed to be. And you could feel it as soon as you walked in from on the field.”

“The special thing about this group is we're playing in a stadium with only families and our teammates who weren’t on the game-day roster around. You can hear everyone. I can hear Poz [Alejandro Pozuelo] up in the stands, screaming his head off, going crazy,” he continued. “That says something about this group. Through it all, through everything that has happened we've stuck together. We're becoming even more and more of a tight knit team. It's special.”

“Everyone's excited, everyone had that feeling of, ‘Okay, that's the kick-starter, right there,’” the goalkeeper added. “So we'll look to build off that on the weekend and for the rest of the season now.”

There is precious little time to savour the emotion, as a particularly frenetic period of four matches in some 11 days comes to an end this weekend.

New additions in place and guys getting healthy, Chris Armas has some decision to make when constructing his lineup.

“We’re four games in, there’s 30 games, there's a lot left. You can derail your season at times, if you're irresponsible by pushing guys that aren't ready to be pushed,” said the TFC coach. “When you start to get guys back, when you start to get players signed and added, healthy, you gain more comfort to rotate.”

“There's always the balance, momentum and riding guys, and knowing that some of the players, like a Nick DeLeon for example, as he's getting runs he's getting fitter and sharper,” Armas continued. “We’re going to rotate some guys because we're getting deeper by the day.”

Yeferson Soteldo has his first two appearances under his belt, growing steadily from one to the next, Kemar Lawrence made his debut midweek, and another recent addition will be making his before too long.

30-year-old forward Dom Dwyer, who arrives with tons of MLS experience, is in contention to play a role.

“I would anticipate him being available for the weekend,” revealed Armas. “With Dom’s situation, it's balancing out wanting to have him available, but if you put him out there, is he ready for those minutes?”

“You have to act responsibly,” he weighed. “After watching Dom train for last few days, and today, specifically, he's healthy, he's sharp, I would anticipate him being an option.”

This weekend’s opponents come into the match in equally good spirits.

Since an opening day defeat away to D.C. United, NYCFC are riding a three-game unbeaten run that began with a 5-0 dismantling of FC Cincinnati at Yankee Stadium.  Ronny Deila’s side then defeated the Philadelphia Union 2-0 on the road before drawing 1-1 away to Orlando City SC last weekend in a hard-fought contest.

“They're off to a really good start. And they'll be well rested,” noted Armas. “We've seen them [among the top teams in the league] now for a few years, a fairly new coach in Ronny. They're playing with some intensity and organization, they are dangerous with the ball, they attack with central players and guys that are always dangerous – [Valentin] Castellanos, [Maxi] Moralez, [Jesus] Media – and they have the width at all moments, whether it’s [Anton] Tinnerholm or five men in the back.”

“It's one of these opponents that you read them on paper, but it's much more difficult when you play against them,” he cautioned. “A good start, they've gotten some goals on set-pieces, they're dangerous, and they're defending well as well.”

With nine goals scored through four matches, they lead the Eastern Conference in that regard. Seven of those have been tallied by two players: Castellanos with four goals and Medina with three.

“They've got some really, really talented players in that team,” reminded Bono. “It's obviously going to be a tough game, as every game is in this league, and we're going to approach it as such.”

“I'll be doing a lot of film on their attacking guys and what they like to do with the ball. They’ve got guys who can really play and get to the end of things, guys who can play out wide,” he explained. “For me, it’s about studying the opposition and making sure I'm ready for anything that might come my way.”

Add in the reduced space on the postage stamp pitch and games at NYCFC have a history of being wild, back-and-forth affairs: 24 goals have been scored in the seven all-time regular season matches at NYCFC.

“In Yankee Stadium, when the dimensions are tight, length and width, things are coming quicker – throw-ins, corner kicks, every set-piece, every foul past midfield is closer to your box,” levelled Armas. “We will understand the challenges and some of the things you have to be aware of on one end of the field, but we also know that, if we're pressing and we want to be aggressive or some of our shifting and dealing with wide areas, that becomes a little bit more exaggerated too.”

“On the day the reminder that I've always told my team is that things are just coming quicker. So the alertness, the focus and ability to be tuned in on every play, that everything is exaggerated,” he stressed. “We'll set our team up so that we can use this to our advantage.”

A win is nice, but two is even better.

“When you have a new coach come in, you're tweaking your system a little bit, there's always going to need to be a little bit of a grace period,” suggested Bono. “Preseason wasn't that long, we dealt with a two-week quarantine, and we had some good performances in Champions League. We saw success early in the new system and how it could help us.”

“We had some difficult moments early in the season, but [Wednesday] night was a lot closer to the way we want to play,” he continued. “We want to control the game and our style really shone through. We can keep the ball really well, we have guys that can hurt other teams in behind, making aggressive runs in behind, and we can hurt teams without the ball. And that's we want, that trifecta of abilities, of different skills, different tools that we can use against any team.”

“There's going to be a transition period where it's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows,” Bono reminded. “I know that there was a lot of tension and frustration on the outside, but inside we tried to block all that out and trust in the process and know that there's bright days ahead of this team.”