Arsenalist

The best game to watch all season. Going into this one we’d been whipped by Kansas City twice already and were looking to avoid a hatrick. Four changes to the team that got smoked by New England: Dunivant and Samuels make their TFC debut while Pozniak returns to the starting eleven. Sam Reynolds makes his MLS debut with Greg Sutton injured and Srdjan Djekanovic riding the pine. The break we catch is Eddie Johnson being on Copa America duty so there’s nobody to mutilate and abuse our back four, at least not until the second half when Yura Movsisyan entered the game armed with a BFG 9000.

I didn’t even flinch when in the 18th minute we succumbed to a counter-attack born of lazy pedestrian defending after a corner. It’s inexcusable how bad that defensive sequence was, newly arrived Dunivant and the rest of his mates were surprised that KC dared to counter-attack after a cleared corner. Michael Harrington had enough space and time to measure his shot and snuck one past an outstretched Sam Reynolds. The goalie was in a good position, the shot was just too accurate. Now down a goal on the road to a team that’s kicked your ass twice already is quite demoralizing but Toronto FC didn’t show any signs of relapsing and continued what they do on offense. Go through Robinson -> O’Brien -> Dichio -> Cunningham and see where things lead. Despite conceding it was us who were getting the more value out of their possession.

Kansas City was not dominating the game and we were getting our chances. Jeff Cunningham should’ve scored in the 27th, Kevin Hartman was in no mans land after two KC defenders had fallen when Cunningham hit it too high after a good effort in getting to the goal. Cunningham should’ve scored in the 37th again, Dichio found Cunningham wide open after a give ‘n go and Cunningham struck it to the only place where the goalie could save it, bad bad miss. Hartman did well but Cunningham knows he should’ve scored. There’s only so many chances you get in a game and if you waste them it becomes pretty easy to assign blame. It’s frustrating how good he is in creating the shot opportunity and how inaccurate he has been when applying the finish. Every time he misses you start to curse him but then you realize that he’s almost singlehandedly created that chance, and that’s when he gets the reprieve.

In the 46th minute we tie it up after a Classic Toronto FC Goal and by that I mean something created by O’Brien and finished off by Dichio. Kansas City came out a little sluggish and paid the price, just like we did earlier. Yura Movsisyan was introduced in the second half and he proceeded to terrorize us with shots from every possible position on the pitch, it was thanks to Sam Reynolds who denied Movsisyan numerous times, sometimes at close range that we owe this point. His save on the close-range header by Ryan Pore was the finishing touch of a fine TFC debut.   Our defense leaves a lot to be desired, KC was going East-West at will and Movsisyan was blistering shots left and right.  We get beat too easily and are in recovery-mode too often, mostly because we are vulnerable to pace.  MoJo needs to fix this.

Ronnie O’Brien is the man responsible for holding us together on offense, it all starts with him and his midfield runs which are usually followed by a cross that has a chance of being controlled. I can’t say enough about him and how much he means to this team. Another solid game by ROB where he had a chance to score on a sinking shot from far out but it was always going to be tough. When Andy Boyens (excellent, mostly mistake-free game) was shown his second yellow card with 15 minutes left, KC switched to a 4-3-3 and were looking to score, Mo subbed off Dichio and Samuels for Reda and Welsh. The fresh legs paid off as KC’s onslaught in the final minute was held off. Despite being down to ten men TFC attacked the goal knowing that KC was committing enough men forward to open up a counter-attack possibility.

Let’s talk about the new players:

Todd Dunivant: Early on he was brutal, KC was singling him out in their attacks and he was responding by getting caught out of position or with this back to the ball. As the game went on, especially in the second half, he had more of an offensive impact and came forward a number of times to provide the midfield with some cushion. The man is the best throw-taker on the team, most humans can’t kick that far. It’ll take some time before he learns how to play with this squad, you can’t really evaluate him based on one game but I see what Mo Johnston saw in him - a physical defender with a knack for going forward.

Collin Samuels: This man loves to slide-tackle even when not necessary, we saw flashes of his strength on offense but mostly he was in a defensive position where he found himself constantly in the middle of tackles. A couple mistimed tackles, a few nice turns in the second half but mostly a workman like performance that showed he was trying 100%. He’ll come around and this team will benefit from his pit-bull tenacity. He did an excellent job of containing Carlos Marinelli who killed us in the previous meetings.

Arrowhead stadium looked empty, the announced attendance was 9,485 which isn’t that bad but the stadium is so big that even if there were 20,000 people there it still would’ve looked empty. Thank God for BMO field. We were getting the Kansas City feed where they have a habit of not showing the offside player on the replay, just the pass. North American soccer production, it’s getting better but not there yet.

Man of The Match: Sam Reynolds for making huge saves down the stretch and for being in excellent positions on freekicks and hard shot attempts.  Give some credit to Movsisyan for his attack on the TFC defense which was as lucky as it was good in conceding only one goal.

Chicago is next on Wednesday, July 4th.