TORONTO – History beckons for Toronto FC, who celebrated their first Supporters' Shield win with their fans on Sunday night, but remain focused on the task at hand.
With a 1-0 win over the Montreal Impact on Sunday evening at BMO Field, TFC equaled the MLS record for most points collected in a season, drawing level on 68 with the mark set by the LA Galaxy in 1998.
“It's a nice feather in the cap for a group of guys who have worked very hard this year,” said Greg Vanney post-match, himself a member, along with assistant coaches Robin Fraser and Dan Calichman, of that LA side. “They have set goals, [attained] them and keep pushing forward.”
“It’s been nice for this group to have,” continued Vanney. “They want to create a legacy for themselves; to be able to set history, and things like this are great talking points.”
Before the match, a hype video recounted some of the myriad accomplishments the team has achieved this season. As a club, they have set new marks for wins, points, most goals scored, fewest losses, most assists, and most clean-sheets. And are on pace to set a new low mark for goals against as well.
The win over Montreal not only moved Toronto onto 68 points, but also tied Seattle Sounders FC post-shootout era record of 20 wins in a season, while guaranteeing they would become only the second team since the 2005 San Jose Earthquakes to finish a season with a points-per-game of above two.
And they still have one game left to go: next Sunday on Decision Day presented by AT&T, away to Atlanta United, in what could be a preview of an intriguing and entertaining post-season match up come the Audi 2017 MLS Cup Playoffs.
“They have their eyes focused on the playoffs and lifting the MLS Cup,” said Vanney. “That's the next goal. If we can get the next one it is going to be a product of us focusing on our performance, each and every day, coming out and trying to be the best team we can be on the day and do what we need to do to win games. We have done that throughout the good chunk of the year and we are going to try to keep on doing that throughout the playoffs.”
Alex Bono, who increased his own record for most clean-sheets in a single season to ten, would not be drawn into talk of history: “I’m not too focused on the [points] record and that sort of thing. We're focused on getting the team ready for the playoffs. That’s what we’re after.”
“We want to go to Atlanta and win,” said Michael Bradley. “In the process, if that means that we break the record for most points, then it's something we want to do.
“We've got to keep ourselves going; momentum counts for some much this time of year. It's hard to pick and choose when you want to play, when you want to really go after it,” continued Bradley. “So, one thing we've talked about all year is this idea that we're going to step on the field every weekend, play, compete, try to win. And we've done that. We're going to do that one more time before we get our chance to get into the playoffs.”
“It's another important week,” added Bradley. “We'll use [it] to get ready for a big game, an exciting game, in Atlanta. We've not been to that stadium; by all accounts they'll have a big crowd.”
