VANCOUVER, B.C. – Toronto FC head coach Aron Winter has long maintained that the Reds’ rebuild would not happen overnight. Based on the club’s play in a wide open 4-2 loss to Vancouver on Saturday, he’s right.
The loss not only gave the Whitecaps a victory in their MLS debut, it also seemed to illustrate many of the difficulties TFC struggled with in a preseason that saw them only win one game.
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Winter was blunt in his assessment of the team’s performance against the Whitecaps.
“We weren’t good enough,” he said. “We need to be better.”
He promised that there will be changes leading into next week’s home opener against Portland. Adrian Cann was a surprise starter at left back after playing most of 2010 in the middle. The Whitecaps exposed him throughout the game – something that didn’t escape Winter’s attention.
“Adrian did not play well,” the first-year manager said. “The whole defense didn’t play well, though.”
There were a few moments of promise in the game. Dwayne De Rosario scored the 8,000 goal in MLS history and Maicon Santos hit a beautiful 25-yard strike that is an early candidate for Goal of the Week. However, those moments were too few, said De Rosario.
“It’s disappointing,” he said. “It’s one thing to lose, but to lose like that – we had no fight. It’s hard to take.”
De Rosario wasn’t in the mood to blame lack of understanding of Winter’s new system for the loss.
“It’s going to take time to adjust,” he said, “but hopefully it will happen soon because the games are going to come fast.”
Both Winter and De Rosario agreed that the Reds showed some character in pushing back from a 4-1 deficit to make the game interesting through its final minutes. However, De Rosario said that it was nothing to be too proud of.
“It was too little, too late,” he said.
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