Toronto FC haven't had many nights in recent seasons like the one they had on Saturday, when the Reds were overrun and looked overmatched in an ugly 5-0 defeat to the Philadelphia Union.
Toronto were fielding a shorthanded lineup due to a rash of injuries, but even so, head coach Greg Vanney said his side should've fared more competitively against one of the teams they've been measuring themselves against for much of the season. For whatever reason, Vanney said the energy needed to match the intensity of Philadelphia just wasn't there.
"It was wrong from start to finish," Vanney said on his postgame video call. "We weren't close to them the entire night, really. We weren't in good spots for each other, we weren't clear in terms of the stepping out in how we were going to defend, we couldn't put passes together. And they were just at a different speed than we were on the night, that's for sure.
"So part of it is just we need to put it behind us. But part of it is we also need to recognize it's just a reminder of the time of year. You physically have got to be ready to compete and battle and fight for balls and win tackles and all of those things first and foremost, and then you can play. You've got to be strong when you're holding up the ball, the ball has to move a lot quicker. A lot of that stuff has to happen, and tonight it didn't. Yeah, we were missing some guys, but guys had the opportunity to step in and try to show that this time of year they might be able to help us, and we just from start to finish it was never right."
Highlights: Philadelphia Union vs. Toronto FC
It's an even more disappointing result considering the stakes of the matchup, with the Union snatching away first place in the Supporters' Shield standings with the three points. Both sides currently have 41 points, but the Union are technically on top due to their superior goal differential.
Vanney said going forward the objective will have to be using the lopsided defeat as a reminder for what the games are going to be like come playoff time.
"Obviously credit goes to them because they played at a proper playoff-like intensity and today as a group we didn't match that," he said. "And also, in terms of the set-up of things, we needed to put a little bit more into being able to play out of their pressure, maybe play beyond their pressure. We didn't get behind them enough in the game. There's a lot of things that went on with that. Credit to them, but I think that's what you expect this time of year, is teams to come out when you're fighting for a Supporters' Shield at the top of table, is you expect a team to come out fighting and you have to fight back and push back and set the intensity bar, but tonight it got set on us and we've got to take that as a hard lesson as we go through these last games.
"It's not one that we needed to take, but we're going to take it and we're going to have to move forward."
