Toronto FC lost 2-1 to Nashville SC on Wednesday night.
Alonso Coello gave TFC a first half lead, placing a cut-back from Federico Bernardeschi into the Nashville net in the 34th minute, but Sam Surridge scored twice for the visitors in the final 25 minutes to overturn the result.
It was a night where Toronto rued the opportunities not taken when they were in the ascendancy.
“We have to be more clinical,” said John Herdman post-match. “We talked about, after the D.C. [United] game, just that killer goal, that goal that kills an opponent and we just couldn't find it. When you play a team like Nashville with the quality of [Hany] Mukhtar, Surridge, you just know that they're going to get chances.”
“They always get chances, so you've got to be ready to kill that game off, but also defend properly and manage the moments,” he continued. “Again [there were] moments tonight where the ball could be put into Row Z and the game and the moment is managed, the danger is managed, but we're in this mentality that we've got to keep the ball, we've got to do something special, we've got to use that moment to attack and that's what's costing us. We’re just not managing the moments in that last 30 minutes of games.”
On the heels of a disappointing defeat at home against the Chicago Fire on Saturday, Toronto responded with a good start midweek.
“We came strong in the first half, showed the kind of team that we are and the kind of team that we're supposed to be every single game that we play, especially at home,” said Coello. “We deserved more in that first half.”
“When you deserve, you have to be clinical and earn it and we didn't. It paid us back in the second half,” he lamented. “We weren't able to close the game out and we allowed them to start to take control of the game and, at the end, take the game.”
Alonso gave the side the lead, arriving at the top of the box to receive a ball from Bernardeschi before picking his spot and placing his shot perfectly.
If one makes that run, makes oneself available, good things happen.
“Sometimes he shoots too,” smiled Coello, asked if he knew Bernardeschi would pick him out. “But you have to give him as many options as possible.”
“You know when he gets the ball, the other team puts a lot of focus on him, double, triple team him,” he continued. “I’ve been around there a few times during the season and finally today I got the chance to get the ball and score a goal, which obviously felt nice, but it’s not something I can enjoy right now after the result.”
Herdman had challenged the side after the weekend defeat to show ‘the real us’ in the next outing. Arriving at the stadium as a unit, Toronto did just that through the opening hour.
“For 60-odd minutes the crowd could see our identity at home, they could see who we were, that we had good control,” said Herdman. “The first 15 [minutes] we knew it was going to be a bit of a battle royale with Nashville. We were able to get that rhythm, [we] just needed to put the game out of sight. On a different night we've seen that, against Dallas or Montreal we were able to go for the jugular, and tonight we didn't.”
From the opening minutes when Bernardeschi and Prince Owusu combined nicely to craft a half-chance, Toronto were dangerous.
Lorenzo Insigne pounced on a long ball, but his first-time finish rose just over the bar. Owusu had a header off the post from an Insigne ball and then couldn’t keep his redirect from a Matty Longstaff square ball on frame, and Bernardeschi slipped at the spot after Toronto won a penalty kick.
But Nashville were allowed to hang around and with a pair of substitutes at half-time started to find more joy in the game leading to Mukhtar spotting Surridge in space on the left in the 65th minute and one of those subs, Tyler Boyd, setting up the game-winner in the final minute of regulation.
“We drop our intensity in that second half, we sag a bit too deep and we're not able to get the pressure on their build the way that we were in the first half,” identified Herdman. “Some of that's the makeup of our squad, some of its around the output that they put in in the first half and not being able to sustain that, and then when you bring certain players off, like a Lorenzo, who was gassed coming off the back of 90-plus, you can't replace that quality, you just can't.”
“We’ve just got to stop making excuses in that last 30 minutes,” he underlined. “For us as a coaching staff as well, we’ve got to look hard at ourselves – tactically, the type of subs we're making, being able to shift into a different way of thinking and playing to manage us through periods of time.”
“I was proud of about 55-60 minutes tonight, but that last 30 we just wobble and we look unsure, we look timid,” Herdman pressed. “We look like we can score, but when we look like we can score we look like they're going to score the other way very quickly.”
“A couple of square pegs in round holes, but Derrick Etienne [Jr.] did well at wing-back, he’s not played there in his career. Matty Longstaff playing in that higher attacking mid role, he's put a shift there every game. Alonso scoring his first goal, did a great job to control the play and show his bravery tonight. And Deybi, first 55-60 minutes, was an absolute destroyer. He dealt with Mukhtar,” he listed. “The story of this last 35 minutes, we've got to figure some stuff out because the stats don’t lie. We’re dreadful in the last 30 minutes of games.”
For Alonso, there’s “a lot of factors” that play a role in that.
“It's on us as starters to close out the game whenever we can – we feel like we're dominating and getting chances and maybe get a little too casual around the final third when in reality we can probably make it simpler and punish them earlier,” he explained. “And then players coming in making an impact a little bit more than we are as a team. The way [Nashville] made changes and the players coming in for them, they did that. You could feel a difference in their intensity and their hunger that we weren't able to find in that second half.”
The busy week continues as focus now shifts to Saturday’s match against the New York Red Bulls at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey.
The nine-match MLS stretch that leads into the Leagues Cup break at the end of July is crucially important. Two losses is not the start Toronto wanted as they returned from an early summer break.
The response from Saturday to Wednesday was better, but not enough. There was a long conversation on the field after the final whistle as the team huddled together to dissect the defeat.
“Whenever you are in this situation you have to look at yourself,” Coello shared of that dialogue. “You have to get back together, look at each other’s eyes and tell the truth, be honest. We're in a situation that we don't want to be, so we have to do whatever it takes for us to get back on the track that we were a month-and-a-half ago.”
“People express the way they feel about it, the way they think that it can be solved,” he closed. “You have to let everyone say whatever is in their mind, take the positives and negatives, and build from there.”
