The Ugly Duckling: Fire-Toronto match reaction

“You can’t expect more than you put in front of the camera,” my mom used to tell me on picture day – and the picture of this season is like a 13-year-old’s school photo: Halfway between this and that, awkward, promising but slightly embarrassing. The result is the result is the result. The table doesn’t lie. We’re in 11th place with 9 games left. We’re behind Seattle, San Jose, Toronto, three teams that didn’t exist the last time the Fire won the Supporter’s Shield.

There are plenty of positives to take away from this match, but none I can declare without reservation. The positives I see are the kind of observations a scout makes – signs of improvement, evidence of growth – none of which mean anything to a team with a championship in its sights. Investing in them emotionally requires one to admit that it’s just not gonna happen this season … and that’s a bridge I’m still not ready to cross. (It could happen! We have a solid nucleus!) (Am I trying to convince myself here?)

Say this: We could have walked out with nothing. Entering the 85th minute scoreless was worse in prospect than the actual play turned out. No one switched off and forgot to mark DeGuzman or whatever. But for Ljungberg’s worst one-on-one maybe ever, we win this game and we’re good to go, getting the pieces together at just the right time. It still could happen.

Castillo played the full 90 for the first time, and for the first time looked the part. After Freddie faded and headed for the bench, Castillo had the trequartista role all to himself for the final 15 minutes. Nery’s first touch and ability on the dribble are skills defenders in this league aren’t used to seeing. I was surprised by his work rate; he often dropped deep to help in possession when the rhythm wasn’t there in the early stages, and provided a consistent push defensively when Toronto would attempt to play out of the back.

All that said, we’ve snatched a massive two of the first six points available in September. No one’s happy and no one should be. Nine games left now, nine games left and no closer to the top eight than two weeks ago. Is it time to push for the result? Or is it time to scout for the future? Reply hazy, try again later. C’mon boys – let’s translate all that lovely into some freakin’ points.

Category: Team News