Toronto FC leaned on their kids once again, and one week after putting up a sterling offensive performance at home in Toronto, they shut down Didier Drogba & Co. on the road in Montreal.
The Reds were able to grind out a 0-0 draw on the evening to secure a 4-2 aggregate series win and power themselves through to the finals of the Amway Canadian Championship on Wednesday evening. The team’s youngsters drew much of the praise for their performance against a team featuring one of world soccer’s premier forwards.
“Fantastic,” veteran TFC defender Drew Moor said of his young teammates’ performance after the game. “The defense over both legs was absolutely great. Nick Hagglund, Eriq Zavaleta, Ashtone Morgan and Steven Beitashour and anybody else who filled in were absolutely just monsters.”
Though teams often play less experienced squads in the earlier stages of these competitions, whether it’s the Canadian Championship, U.S. Open Cup or CONCACAF Champions League, Toronto FC’s young lineup in both games of the series was borne somewhat out of necessity.
Head coach Greg Vanney was missing two of his Designated Players outright, with Michael Bradley away on international duty with the US national team and Jozy Altidore still recovering from a hamstring injury. TFC’s other DP, Sebastian Giovinco was just returning from an adductor injury suffered on May 28 and saw 16 minutes off the bench in the second half.
With those absences, Vanney was looking for his young guns to step up to the plate, and they did just that over the two legs.
“I think we have a lot of younger talent that is coming up in our system and within our team,” Vanney told reporters after the game. “And those guys had the opportunity, obviously at home in the first leg, and made a great statement and positioned us for this one.
“We obviously put a couple more veterans on the field with this game being on the road and in terms of the context of things, but the guys we kept out there still competed, still did well, still held up their end of the bargain in terms of fulfilling their responsibilities on the field and have again proven that the team can win.”
One of the most notable young standouts in the series for Toronto was forward Jordan Hamilton, who bagged his first two goals in competitive play for TFC in the first leg and put in an earnest defensive shift in the second.
“He’s earned it the last two games,” said Vanney. "I thought he’s put in a good shift, he’s worked incredibly hard, he’s done some good things in terms of his running and putting himself in good spots to score goals.
“I think he’s proven that he’s capable of some minutes with us and there’s still some things for Jordan that are great, that he can continue to work on, but I think having had these two games, it can really help us to show him, ‘These are the few things you really need to focus on at this level to even take another step forward.’”
