TORONTO — After Toronto FC gave up a late goal to tie 1-1 with the San Jose Earthquakes on Aug. 27, goalkeeper Milos Kocic admitted to feeling tired after playing two games in three days to finish a busy month.
Fatigue should not be a problem now. Toronto haven't played since that game and should be rested when they resume their league schedule on Saturday at Columbus.
After the disappointing finish against San Jose, a break was needed, according to Kocic.
“It’s been a lot of games,” Kocic said Monday at training, “I felt tired the last game we played.”
There was a reason for the tiredness. Toronto FC had suffered a 1-0 loss in a CONCACAF Champions League Group C game against FC Dallas on the morning of Aug. 25. It was a replay in its entirety of the game that had been abandoned at halftime the night before because of severe weather.
The game against San Jose was Toronto's seventh in August, including trips to Nicaragua and Panama. Toronto also played seven games in the previous month, closing it with a July 30 trip to Portland.
But taking five days away from training has helped.
“It was good to recover after the long trips and a lot of games in a short period of time," said Kocic, who played six of the seven August games with No. 1 keeper Stefan Frei out nursing a bruised knee. "I feel good now.”
But while the break has been nice, it won’t last. After Columbus, there is a trip to Mexico City for a CCL Group C game against Pumas UNAM on Sept. 14. Then the Reds are back in Toronto for a game Sept. 17 against the Colorado Rapids. TFC hope the break helps them for the rest of the schedule.
“It was good,” forward Peri Marosevic said. “I was able to go home and see the family, put my legs up a little bit, rest and make sure that coming back I’m fully fit and ready for the busy schedule that we have coming up.”
