TFC tame the Tigres

Day -92 WorldCup2018

It was past my publishing time last night to contrast my misery about Aston Villa's defeat with Toronto FC's quite stunning Champions League quarterfinal win against the Mexican Champions, Tigres.

It was past midnight when I thought about completely rewriting yesterday's post. I didn't have much hope for TFC after they won the first leg 2-1. A comfortable Tigres win was on the cards, in front of their vociferous fans who would create an intimidating atmosphere unlike anything the TFC players had experienced before. When the brave boys from Canada made it to halftime at 0-0 I felt it was worth the late night to see if the miracle was possible.

TFC, it must be said, looked pretty good. They weren't hanging on desperately. They were solid defensively, and tried to get the ball out to Giovinco and Altidore quickly when they could. So it wasn't a complete surprise when in the 64th minute they took the lead. But it was a little surreal. It was a bizarre, very bizarre, own goal and the commentators were a little sure as to what was going on. There were many replays, in between which the TFC players seemed to be somewhere between arguing with the Tigres players and protesting with the referee. Steven Caldwell, the ex-Scotland international and former TFC player and his Canadian co-commentator seemed to be stuck between celebrating, questioning whether it was actually a goal and playing the part of professional, impartial commentators. Was there a question of offside or was it just bemusement that the Tigres defender had managed to score that goal.?

But it really was 1-0 for TFC. Five minutes late Eduardo Vargas made it 1-1 and with the stadium rocking it looked like a matter of time before TFC buckled. Not long after, Giovinco worked his magic and scored directly from a free kick. The Tigres goalkeeper's efforts at saving it were questionable and, as Caldwell pointed out, he seemed more worried about not clattering into the post than making a save.

Game over? Tigres now needed to win 4-2. Not quite. Andre-Pierre Gignac scored in the 84th and then did a very good impression of a French centre forward who can't score when he missed a glorious opportunity to make it a very nerve-wracking finish for TFC. His reaction to the miss was priceless. He didn't shake his head in disbelief or embarrassment, he didn't hold his head in his hands, he didn't apologize. No he just sort of looked back at everybody with a look of, "so what, I missed. Why do you think I'm playing here in Mexico and not for PSG or even Lorient"?

He made amends, sort of, in the 93rd minute when he scored a penalty but the Mexicans ran out of time and the plucky team from the land of endless winters, ice and snow covered pitches moved on to the semifinals at the expense of the best team from the strongest CONCACAF country.

Today the real Champions League was on again, the European one. Barcelona hammered Chelsea and Bayern Munich yawned and stretched to a win over Besiktas. The quarterfinal draw is full of many of the standard favourites: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich.....Juventus? Are they favourites based on their history, or their two recent final appearances, or dark horses because everybody is compared to the first three? The same can be said for Liverpool. Then there's Manchester City, Sevilla and Roma.

I think we are due another outsiders' final. We haven't had a Porto-Monaco type final for a while. Roma-Liverpool, that's my pick. Not my betting pick, more like my wish list. Wouldn't that be fun? A repeat of the 1984 European Cup final in Rome, won by Liverpool on penalties thanks partly to Bruce Grobbelaar's wobbly knees. Look it up. It's out there.

And the World Cup? The British government announced today that no Ministers or any member of the Royal Family will go to Russia, in response to the Sergei Skripal poisoning. This may get really ugly for the English fans and team. No wonder the Foreign Office issued a warning today for UK nationals in Russia to be "aware of the possibility of anti-British sentiment or harassment." The fans are probably wishing the World Cup was in Argentina right now.