Toronto FC’s Tsubasa Endoh gets in front of Ottawa Fury’s Andrae Campbell to score TFC’s second goal during the second leg of the Canadian Championship semi-final on Wednesday.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The result, Ottawa Fury head coach Paul Dalglish had to admit, was inevitable.
"You look at the depth," he said of Toronto FC shortly after the MLS team dispatched his scrappy second-tier, United Soccer League team 4-0 Wednesday night to win their Canadian Championship semi-final 5-2 on aggregate. "They've got three or four players on their roster who earn more than our entire roster and coaching staff combined.
"You look at the quality TFC put on in the final third [of the game] and that was the difference. This was like a university lesson for us as an organization, to play the best team in MLS."
But Dalglish and his Fury charges boarded the bus back to Ottawa with their heads high. Not only had they kept the 15,175 fans at BMO Field restless for most of the first half as the Fury's cautious defensive game held off the TFC offence, but they shocked the big team and its fans a week earlier with a 2-1 win in the first leg of the series in Ottawa.
Granted, TFC was without star forwards Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore in that game and head coach Greg Vanney started a roster of substitutes, but it was still a hard-earned win for the United Leaguers. On Wednesday night, TFC was still missing some stars, with Altidore and midfielder Michael Bradley away playing for the U.S. men's team, and the Fury hung in for a while.
"We didn't get enough credit after the first game," said Dalglish, who went into the second game rightly saying all of the pressure was on TFC. And for the first 40 minutes it sure looked like it.
"At the beginning of the game, we were executing well," Dalglish said. "The guys were following the plan."
The Fury kept three midfielders on the defensive side of things, protecting the team's back four, which did not leave a lot of room for the TFC attack. When the visitors had the ball, the object was to lob balls in the middle for Hume.
Indeed, the Fury had the best scoring chance in the early going with Toronto goalkeeper Clint Irwin having to make a nice diving save on a drive from Ottawa's Ryan Williams.
"We were kind of in-between early on and between Clint Irwin and some other players we did well to keep it 0-0," Vanney said. "[The Fury] put up a good fight for a large stretch and made it difficult for us."
But for the most part, it was a tremendously dull series of Toronto moves up the pitch being turned aside. This was not fun for the fans, who grew increasingly restless as each sortie was turned away.
However, what seemed a setback – a hamstring injury to TFC forward Tosaint Ricketts late in the half – turned things Toronto's way when Vanney used the injury to change his strategy. Giovinco, who missed 18 days with a strained quadriceps, was available but Vanney elected to replace Ricketts with defender Steven Beitashour and change his formation.
Vanney switched to a 3-4-3, with midfielder Victor Vázquez and Tsubasa Endoh supporting Jordan Hamilton up front and Beitashour helping defend, and it soon paid off. The Reds struck for two goals in the 41st and 42nd minute with Endoh setting up an Ottawa own-goal and then scoring himself and the Fury's defensive game fell apart.
"They finished their chances. We didn't finish our chances," said Fury midfielder Jamar Dixon. 'It's a game of chances, right?"
The win means TFC will play the Montreal Impact in the Canadian final with the winner advancing to next year's CONCACAF Champions League. The first game of the two-leg series is June 21 in Montreal with the second game at BMO Field on June 27.
Thanks to a quirk in the qualifying setup, if TFC loses the final to Montreal it can still make the Champions League by beating Montreal in a one-game qualifier after the final. But if TFC wins the final, Montreal will not have the same opportunity.
Giovinco finally made his return from injury but not until the start of the second half when the game was in TFC's control. The Atomic Ant did score, but it was in the 85th minute when the outcome was long decided. Five minutes earlier, midfielder Marky Delgado scored the Reds' third goal.
Vanney said the plan all along was to hold Giovinco back until the second half, when he would get some playing time in preparation for TFC's next MLS game, Saturday on the road against the New England Revolution.