Toronto FC defeated the Chicago Fire 1-0 in preseason action on Saturday afternoon at St. David’s Performance Center in Austin, Texas.
Newcomer Jesús Jiménez scored the game’s only goal around the 55-minute mark, turning sharply in the box after Alejandro Pozuelo touched the ball towards him.
The goal capped off a tidy passage of interplay from the Reds begun by Pozuelo himself finding Jayden Nelson surging into the left-side of the area. He pushed the ball to Jacob Shaffelburg, attacking the wide space, and his cut-back into the heart of the box was pushed into Jiménez’ radius by Pozuelo.
“Difficult conditions, but I thought the players handled it really well,” said Bob Bradley post-match. “In all parts of the game, there were moments of really good football.”
“We emphasized, on a windy, tough day, play on the ground, play quickly, so I thought that part was good,” he continued. “And then when you’re connecting passes and you move up, the opportunity that you have as soon as you lose it to go right after the ball and counter press, many good situations like that.”
The win was Toronto’s third-straight in preseason action.
“I think it was really good for where we're at in preseason,” said Jonathan Osorio. “Very positive performance by everybody in pretty difficult conditions. We found a way to really try to play and be positive in the way we moved the ball up the field and looked for chances. It was really solid from everyone.”
A weather delay split up the flow of the first half – a mix of hail and lightning in the area forcing a 30-minute pause – but TFC were able to push the fitness of the first group of players to an hour.
“Yeah, it was weird,” admitted Bradley. “25 minutes and then a break and then back on for 35, but I thought that that group played 60 good minutes. The first 45 was against the wind and then you turned around, they handled both situations really well, created some good actions and scored a good goal.”
Austin FC’s hospitality has been wonderful, making their training ground available to Toronto, but the weather on the day was less than ideal. The officials consulted both coaches shortly before pausing the action to consider whether play should be halted due to the hail alone.
“Not the hail, I mean the cold and the wind yes, but not the hail,” replied Osorio, asked if he had ever experienced something like that before. “That was something new for most of us.”
Both teams had half-chances through the opening 45: Deandre Kerr got into the box after some good interplay by Michael Bradley and Pozuelo but could not pull the trigger and Kacper Przybylko hit the post with a slow roller after Alex Bono made a pair of sharp saves.
It took that lovely, incisive attacking interplay to force a breakthrough; it was Jiménez's first goal for Toronto.
“Just the quality of the passing, the timing,” noted Bradley of the game-winner. “Jesús has real composure when he gets those type of chances, so nice to see him get his first goal.”
After wholesale changes were made around the hour-mark, off-season goalkeeper addition Greg Ranjitsingh made a pair of sharp leg saves to deny Chicago’s 17-year-old Colombian forward Jhon Jáder Durán, who twice got behind the Toronto back-line.
All told, another solid preseason outing.
Toronto have two more training matches before the MLS regular season kicks off on February 26 against FC Dallas. They will face the Houston Dynamo next Wednesday before wrapping up preseason against Sporting KC the following Saturday.
“Today was a really good step forward for all of us,” closed Osorio. “The way we played and the personality we showed on a day when it would have been really easy to let it get to us and we didn’t. Overall it was very good.”
