TORONTO – As if an MLS Cup berth were not enough, the Eastern Conference Championship will have something extra on the line.
After a gruelling 34-game regular season, and three difficult matches apiece in the Audi 2016 MLS Cup Playoffs, Toronto and Montreal will renew their age old rivalry when the two meet in a home-and-home series later this month to determine who will become the first Canadian club to feature in the league's championship game.
That it would come to this was perhaps inevitable.
Last season, the two faced off in a pair of crucial fixtures late in the year. The Montreal Impact won both, prying away home field advantage on Decision Day and prematurely ending Toronto FC's first-ever postseason appearance with a 3-0 humbling in the Knockout Round.
“You're not a competitive person if [last season's finale] doesn't bother you. It bothered me,” said Toronto head coach Greg Vanney after Wednesday's training. “A preseason or midseason game won't even the score. The only way that we feel better is to do something in the playoffs. We haven't forgotten. In the back of our minds, [we] recall walking off the field that night and how that felt.”
This time the stakes are even higher.
The clubs have met regularly since 2008, when the inaugural Canadian Championship was played for, and Montreal joined MLS in 2012, but the animus stretches way back, through sport, the development of Canada, and the founding of the two cities.
It goes deep, like the best rivalries so often do.
Proximity, at least in North American terms, plays a factor. So too does political and economic power. Add a splash of ethnolinguistic differences, a dash of religious divide, and a healthy dollop of shared history, and it makes for a contest that transcends the field of play.
For those reasons, many consider it the premier rivalry in MLS.
“It's up there,” said Toronto fullback Steven Beitashour, who tasted some of the league's best rivalries, having played in both the California Clasico with San Jose and the Cascasdia contests with Vancouver.
“These are the games you live for, you love playing,” continued Beitashour. “Everyday in training, working your tail off, it's because of these games. You know it's more than yourself, your team. It's the entire city. They're so passionate about it. You feed off of that passion. You want to win more than anything for them.”
For Jonathan Osorio, the lone local representative in Toronto FC's expected starting lineup, there is no doubt of its rank, and this edition even more so.
“This is the biggest one,” said Osorio. “Everything that happened in the regular season doesn't matter. These two games, and whoever goes through [does]. That's what everyone is going to be talking about. [Last year] left a sour taste. Nobody liked it, anticipated it. [Montreal] deserved it, we deserved to lose in that way. We've learned from that.”
Added Vanney: “Prior to last year, [the rivalry] was felt more by fans than the players. After one team, us, walked off embarrassed, it kicks into a new gear. Our guys remember... That's a real experience that draws an emotion you can use. The higher the stakes, the more those emotions come out.
"The rivalry will grow after this. There's going to be a winner, there's going to be a loser. Somebody is going to go home and somebody is going to go to an MLS championship.”
The task, according to Vanney: “Make sure we're the one standing in the end.”
