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2015 was a landmark season for Toronto FC. But now the slate is wiped clean.
The original Canadian MLS club broke a eight-season streak of missing the MLS Cup playoffs last year and fielded its first MLS MVP, Sebastian Giovinco.
With Giovinco and US international Jozy Altidore back for their second season in Toronto, the bar is raised much higher this season, all the way to an MLS Cup.
"It’s definitely a goal of ours," Altidore told reporters during a roundtable in New York on Monday. "It’s not going to be easy but I think when people like Maple Leaf Sports [and Entertainment] put together this team and the things that they see for the future that was an MLS Cup. That’s why I came there, that’s why Sebastian came there, Michael [Bradley] and a lot of the guys that came there in the offseason.
"It’s definitely, I wouldn’t say an obsession, but it’s definitely something that we’re looking towards and trying to reach in the next year or two for sure."
With Giovinco stealing the headlines and Altidore missing time last year due to injury and international duty, the American's contributions largely went under the radar. But Altidore, who scored 13 goals in 25 regular season appearances for Toronto, responded to critics who say he had a poor 2015 season.
"Last year they said I had a bad season, I scored one goal almost every other game, national team I’m not doing well, I’m fourth all-time in the history of the federation," he said. "This is life, this is how it is at this level, it’s constant pressure, constant expectation to do better and I understood that since I was 16 years old, so it’s something I use to motivate myself and not kind of fight back at it with negative words of my own."
Of course, given Altidore's problems with hamstring injuries the past couple years, many thought the worst when Toronto FC head coach Greg Vanney recently said the striker was questionable for Toronto's season opener on Sunday against the New York Red Bulls (1:30 pm ET, MLS Live in US/TSN4 and RDS2 in Canada) with a hamstring issue.
But Altidore put any fears of a long layoff to rest on Monday's episode of ExtraTime Radio, telling the program, "I worked really hard in [USMNT] January camp and maybe I overdid it a little bit when I joined Toronto in preseason. That’s all it is. It’s nothing big, it’s not a major injury like people are reporting. I’ll be back on the field in a week. I’m ok…It’s not that serious at all."
