Impotent Metro blanked in Toronto, 2:0
May 17, 2014
Last week's defeat, as disheartening as it was, at least provided us with some positives. Metro bravely thought back from a three-goal deficit and were unlucky to tie it late. One would be hard-pressed to find anything of value to take away from this match. Playing a theoretically inferior Toronto team, Metro made defensive mistakes, couldn't create any offense, and lost 2:0. The four-game loss-less streak is now a distant memory.
The departures of Roy Miller and Tim Cahill to World Cup camps meant that Bobby Convey and Jonny Steele were inserted into the lineup. Kosuke Kimura, coming off a horror show vs Chicago, was kept in... and that didn't turn out to be a smart decision.
12 minutes in, with Metro trying to attack, Lloyd Sam was stopped in his tracks and passed back to Kimura. The right back, standing at the midfield line, sent a slow-rolling ball to Dax McCarty, which Toronto pounced on and went the other way. Jermaine Defoe overpowered the always-whining Armando, and sent a powerful blast past Luis Robles. Kimura didn't last much longer, as he was taken off at the half for Chris Duvall, making his professional debut.
That's alright, we said. Still a lot of time left to get one back. Oh, how wrong we were. For Metro couldn't string two passes together, and Bradley Wright-Phillips, the man with eight goals in four games... Oh, Bradley Wright-Phillips!
Metro did get a good offensive run going midway through the second half, and Titi Henry sent a ball across the goalmouth that was tipped away by Joe Bendik. With the Toronto keeper lying on the ground, Wright-Phillips had an empty net to shoot at... and badly missed high. Oh, Bradley Wright-Phillips!
A few minutes later, Metro was unlucky not to get a penalty kick awarded, after a Toronto defender clearly handled the ball in the box. And then, just like that, the offense died. Toronto decided to stay back and wait for counter attacks, which suited them just fine. In fact, they could have had a second when Jamison Olave cleared the ball off a line.
Instead, the second came five minutes into injury time after Luis Robles left the nets to handle a long goal kick. He ran into Duvall, the ball landed with Luke Moore, who tapped it in to make it 2:0.
Well, there is still a lot of season left. That's as good as a takeaway as we'll get from this...
Lineup: Robles, Convey, Olave, Armando, Kimura, McCarty, Steele, Alexander, Sam, Wright-Phillips, Henry. Subs: Duvall, Bover.
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