Toronto FC look to exact revenge against the Seattle Sounders in Saturday’s MLS Cup Final rematch. Here’s what to expect.
For the third time in MLS history, the Cup Final will be a rematch. In 2006 and 2007, the Dom Kinnear Houston Dynamo defeated Taylor Twellman’s New England Revolution, MLS’ answer to the early ‘90s Buffalo Bills. The Dynamo would go on to lose the final two years in a row to the Beckham-Donovan-Keane LA Galaxy in 2011 and 2012. This season, the defending champ Seattle Sounders travel to BMO Field to face Toronto FC almost a year to the day after Roman Torres converted the game-winning penalty to give the Sounders the victory over TFC.
The showdown takes place on Dec. 9 at 4:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, Unimas and TSN in Toronto again.
What to expect from Toronto FC
Here’s what I wrote in my preview from last year:
Giovinco — a traditional second forward — acts as the attacking playmaker. In addition to being one of the main goalscorers for TFC, he plays off the hold-up play of his partner Jozy Altidore and drops into the space between the opposing backline and the midfield to take possession and find runs from teammates.
That, of course, refers to Sebastian Giovinco, who last week was named to the league best XI after scoring 16 goals and assisting six in 25 starts. (He had 17 and 15 last year — 2017 was a down year). He continues to be an attacking playmaker for TFC, but he’s no longer the attacking playmaker.
That role now belongs to Victor Vazquez. The Spaniard, who just missed out on the Newcomer of the Year award, is the No. 10 for a team that last year neglected that position. Now, rather than rely on the Giovinco-Jozy Altidore striking partnership, they let Vazquez distribute in the attacking third and free the forwards to do whatever they need to do to create space.
The result was the best regular season in MLS history.
A continuity from last year’s run is the attacking press, centered around Giovinco and Altidore. Often, the best players on the field are also the most effective at pressing, and that’s true in the case of Toronto’s strikers, who lead a system that discourages deep central buildups and works at creating opportunities in transition. This initial force is backed up by an athletic 3-4 line of the center-backs and followed by the wing-backs and central midfielders, which covers the area from touchline to touchline.
With Giovinco and Altidore hounding deep distributors and an organized cast condensing channels behind them, it becomes difficult to beat TFC in any of the basic soccer attacking strategies: you can’t build from the back or create passing sequences without being able to be patient and find any midfield gaps; you can’t go route one with three trees at the back; and you can’t sit deep and attack on the counter because Seba, Jozy and Vazquez will carve you up.
They can be beaten on set pieces, and if you hit at the right time, you can catch a wing-back out of position, but what else can you really do? It gets harder when you realize the attack’s general potency and the always-present variable of Giovinco scoring free-kicks like free-throws.
All of this could be rendered moot on Saturday, though, because Toronto are not playing well right now. They look vulnerable and often out of sync, playing arguably their worst soccer of the season and barely squeaking by opponents they would have easily crushed at most other points in the season. Case in point: TFC killed the Crew in Columbus in May, winning 5-0 without Giovinco or Altidore. In the conference finals, they scored against the Crew only once over two legs.
The winning goal against Columbus was a moment of brilliance that seemed to be an anomaly. The combination play, movement and eventual Altidore finish was brilliant, but in the period since they clinched the Supporters’ Shield back in September, they’ve seemed incapable of pulling that off consistently.
Same goes for the dominant wing-back play that had defined their season, and the intricate mistake-free midfield of Michael Bradley and Marky Delgado that had been the best in the league. All of the positives above still exist, and it’s very possible they could win anyway just like they have all postseason, but Seattle should be feeling pretty good about their chances.
After all, they pulled it off last year.
Next: The 10 best teams in MLS history
What to expect from the Seattle Sounders
They’re not dramatically different from last year either. Here’s what I wrote last year:
I say Toronto are unique in attack, but nobody in MLS can come close to the abilities of Nicolas Lodeiro. Easily the most productive and most creative player in the league, the Uruguayan national team stalwart is the primary reason for Seattle’s midseason second wind. He frees up Morris and other goalscorers with his tactically sound positioning, unparalleled fitness, and clever passing abilities.
Lodeiro was signed in late July of 2016 to help revive a club that had just fired Sigi Schmid and was below the playoff line. He led them on a second half tear that saw them eliminate FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids in the postseason and then, of course, defeat TFC in the final.
Like last season, Lodeiro is the Sounders’ centerpiece and is surrounded by one additional elite attacker (this year, it’s Clint Dempsey), a couple average ones (last year it was Nelson Valdez and Andreas Ivanschitz, this year it’s Will Bruin and Victor Rodriguez) and one quality goalscorer on the shelf — Dempsey was out in 2016, Jordan Morris has been this year. The 2017 version of this team is pretty similar to 2016’s.
As we’ve learned watching Lodeiro play under Brian Schmetzer, the Uruguayan will control the tempo and get on the ball far more than anyone else on the field. He will move in and out of the half-spaces and try to draw defenders out of position, which he succeeded doing in Houston. Playing from the wing, he dominates games by distributing through the center, as shown by his passing map from the first leg against Dynamo:
Joe Willis, Houston’s goalkeeper, talked to FanSided about Lodeiro and how the Dynamo wanted to stop him before the Western Conference final.
“(Lodeiro) is a skillful No. 10 who will like to operate in the midfield and connect all the players around them, so if we can keep it tight in the midfield, force them wide and block crosses, I think we can have some success.
“We’re not going to give them anything easy, and we’re going to make them play wide.”
The Dynamo failed to force him wide. They lost 5-0 on aggregate.
Toronto will have to focus on him, a difficult proposition when you consider the impact of Dempsey, overlapping left-back or left winger Joevin Jones, and a rejuvenated Bruin, who has two goals and two assists in the playoffs. It’s even possible that Morris could return from an injury suffered in mid-September — he’s listed as questionable.
In contrast to Toronto, Seattle look like they’re playing their best soccer of the season. Cristian Roldan is a boss right now, making us forget about the injured Ozzie Alonso, and the backline (led by Roman Torres and Chad Marshall) hasn’t given up a goal in six games.
So, who wins?
In some ways, this game is shaping up be just like last year. Seattle are on the road and dominating defensively, playing a Toronto team that haven’t look like as much of a juggernaut. They could end up bunkering out a close win again.
However, TFC are the deserved favorites, and have shown the ability to win all sorts of games this season. There’s a reason they rank No. 1 on the list of best MLS teams ever.
That’s why I’ll go with Toronto as my prediction.