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MLS Toronto FC

New York City FC (3) - Toronto FC (0) Postgame Summary

September 24, 2023 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Toronto FC News Release


NEW YORK CITY FC (3) - TORONTO FC (0) POSTGAME SUMMARY

SCORING SUMMARY

NYC - Andrés Perea 2' (Santiago Rodríguez)

NYC - Andres Jasson 45+4'

NYC - Julián Fernández 54' (Talles Magno)

MISCONDUCT SUMMARY

TOR - Shane O'Neill 30' (caution)

NYC - Julián Fernández 90+2' (caution)

RECORDS (W-L-T)

New York City FC 8-10-13 37 points

Toronto FC 4-16-10 22 points

LINEUPS

NEW YORK CITY FC - Matt Freese; Tayvon Gray, Thiago Martins (C), Birk Risa, Kevin O'Toole; Andres Jasson (Alonso Martínez 84'), James Sands, Andrés Perea (Justin Haak 84'); Talles Magno, Santiago Rodríguez (Matías Pellegrini 75'), Monsef Bakrar (Julián Fernández 46')

Substitutes Not Used: Luis Barraza, Braian Cufré, Nicholas Benalcazar, Stephen Turnbull, Mitja Ilenič

TORONTO FC - Luka Gavran; Kobe Franklin, Sigurd Rosted (Aimé Mabika 63'), Shane O'Neill, Raoul Petretta (Themi Antonoglou 46'); Federico Bernardeschi, Alonso Coello, Michael Bradley (C), Jonathan Osorio; Deandre Kerr (Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty 63'), CJ Sapong (Prince Owusu 71')

Substitutes Not Used: Tomás Romero, Franco Ibarra, Víctor Vázquez, Latif Blessing

MEDIA NOTES

Luka Gavran made his debut for Toronto FC this afternoon.

Gavran saved the first penalty kick of his MLS career in the 31st minute, becoming the first goalkeeper in club history to save a penalty on his First Team debut.

Michael Bradley made his 300th competitive start for Toronto FC across all competitions.

TERRY DUNFIELD - INTERIM HEAD COACH, TORONTO FC

Q. Your team took an early punch today and gave up another goal at stoppage time for the second game in a row. What were your thoughts on the performance, and what do you say to your team after a day like this?

Yeah, it's been a long week for sure. What I said to the group was in key moments, we weren't able to execute. We knew New York City had quality, and they punished us for two really difficult turnovers, and in key moments of the first half, right at the start of the second half and at halftime, we spoke about not letting this get away from us, and yeah, the guys went out in the second half and were professional. I thought New York City's third goal was a well-worked goal.

Q. Curious about the decision to start Luka [Gavran] today. What was the thinking behind that and what you made of his performance overall?

Yeah, I thought Luka was excellent today. I think his presence and profile helps for sure on the penalty save. I thought his distribution was good. So no, I think he can be proud of his performance. Unfortunately on his debut, you want to be leaving the changing room with a nice feeling and three points but he's worked his ass off for that opportunity, and been patient, as well and we've been just waiting for the right moment to give him his debut.

Q. Wanted to get your thoughts on conceding the goal just before halftime. Did it make your halftime talk a little bit more difficult for the squad?

Yeah, I thought we reacted well to going one nil down and handling the punch to a degree. I think what made the second goal difficult was the turnover in midfield where there was a pass to play forward, and now New York City are down our necks.

But at halftime, there was some great leadership from Michael Bradley. He did most of the speaking and then I got into a couple of the details tactically.

Q. What was the story with Lorenzo [Insigne] and is this latest injury related to other injuries? Or I guess people are wondering about his overall health?

Yeah, he felt some tightness at the end of the Inter Miami game. He's had a couple scans in the last couple of days that we're assessing but there's still some soreness, lower leg soreness.

Q. I know you're not a doctor but does this seem to be from one thing or is it just a slate of different things?

Probably play the "I'm-Not-the-Doctor" card here.

But this particular injury, I think came from just a load of the match against Inter Miami and he started to just feel soreness in the last five minutes, five, ten minutes of the game and signalled to the bench. We're assessing from there.

Q. Obviously you were expecting to play yesterday. What was that like? Was it difficult? Was it easy enough to kind of reload and re-prepare for today? What was it like?

I thought the extra, I guess, 18 hours worked in our favour. It gave some of our vets a little bit more time to recover from Inter Miami. It was a tough travel day, too, leading into Inter Miami. We were stuck on the tarmac for close to four hours.

So no, I think everyone woke up a little bit fresher this morning, and it also gave us a little bit more time to just move on from the heaviness of the 4-0 defeat against Inter Miami.

But just a shoutout to our operational team. They were first class, and it was pretty seamless, to be fair. But it was, what the heck, we're not playing? We quickly put together a training session last night.

Q. We have talked about the need to stay professional at times like this, but this part of the year, a campaign like this, it's also about evaluating guys for next season. What are you trying to see from these guys in these past few matches and the next few coming up?

Yeah, I think my role as the interim head coach is to analyze our group as best we can with three games in seven days, the opposition that we're playing, and put together an 11 and a subs plan that can hopefully bring back three points. I think big picture, that's more of a question right now for our front office that we'll be analyzing as well as John Herdman and his staff.

But right now, we are in the fight and we're trying to recover from games, preview the next game, set up for success, and then go and compete. That's the process we're living right now. But it's difficult when you concede the types of goals that we concede or maybe not as clinical as when the opportunities do present themselves.

Q. Just to follow up, you mentioned about the need to be professional and no excuses. Were you happy with the level of professionalism you saw from your players today?

Yeah, I'd say the group kept going. I would say we were naïve in certain moments for sure. But no, I thought that we kept going. But I'm disappointed for sure in the result, and I still think that those difficult moments at the start of the first half and the end of the second half defined the game, and again, in between, there was some nice football, and I think that that's probably how you could paraphrase my tenure.

Q. I think everyone appreciates that winning on the road in MLS is really hard but this team especially has had great difficulty getting result as way from BMO Field. Have you seen anything why results have been so few and far between away from BMO Field?

I think big picture, you can talk about the travel, the different conditions, the different playing surfaces, the variance in style of play that make it tough to win on the road, and then I think internally with a little bit more time, we can do a little bit more of an audit on how we can do better to change that record when we have time in the off-season.

LUKA GAVRAN - GOALKEEPER, TORONTO FC

Q. Luka, maybe just get your reaction to obviously not a great result, just wanted to get your sort of take on the team's performance, especially as this was your first taste of MLS action?

Yeah, tough one, as you said. Right away when you put yourself down in the first minute, it's not going to be easy. Especially the second goal coming the last minute, so we really put ourselves in a tough situation. But I really feel that our performances are just, I want to say, not blinded but like we don't see the good things that we do because of the poor things we do more often.

So I feel like in situation where is we defend our box and things where just some of the goals are unlucky going through our legs where we are screened, this, that. But as you said it was a tough situation, but I'm happy to be on the field with them, and I feel like I did my best and tried my best.

Q. When did you find out you were going to start? What was going through your mind when you found that out as well?

I feel like with the amount of games Tomas [Romero] has had in recent weeks, he's with El Salvador, a lot of traveling, I guess it was just in the plans to give me a game and really see, I guess, what I could bring, what I could do for the team. I feel like I did my best. Obviously there is instances in the game where I could manage better, whether I play short or whether I play long, and the older guys on the team are going to let me know and that's just going to come from experience.

So I had a few days to prepare mentally for the game, so obviously what happened last night with the game being postponed and stuff kind of threw some stuff off but that's no excuse.

Q. You worked hard and waited a long time to make this debut. That delay last night obviously was a spanner in the works. How did you sleep last night? Did it make it a little bit more difficult?

No, I wouldn't say that. But personally me, I don't really like day games. I'm more of a guy that likes to play at night, have the whole day to really get your mindset, get a good rest. But like I said, that's no excuse. You're going to have to play day games. You're going to have to play night games. Preference, I like night games. Mentally I was all there. The nerves are obviously going to be there the first game but I feel like after I really wanted to just get, you know, maybe ten, 15 minutes into the game, get my legs going, and obviously first goal came really quick. But having the PK really settled me down, connected a few passes and then the game kind of flew by, I'm not going to lie. But I was prepared mentally and the nerves weren't that bad.

Q. You rallied and made some good saves. Friends and family, were they all back home watching?

Yes. Yeah, a lot of friends and family came to the Miami game last week. I feel like with the whole team, a lot of people came down. We were just there for a couple days, so it was a nice family trip. But there was a lot of people, my phone is blowing up with messages and everyone is proud of me. I'm thankful for my family and friends that are supporting me. They make it much much more easier. I'm sure they are excited with the penalty save and hopefully I can give them a couple more good performances.

Q. Going down that early in the first half, in your opinion, what were the main factors that contributed to the early goal conceded by TFC?

I mean, I'm going to have to watch it back and see what exactly happened but I think we gave up a ball in the midfield and they played a ball out wide. It's hard defending our box. It was just not good enough. A guy came back post with no problem and he had a free header, so that's not going to help.

Like I said, I've got to watch it back and see what really happened but defending needs to be much better, maybe on my part, being in a better position maybe to come out on the cross initially, but like I said, we've got to watch it over.

Q. Can you take us through the penalty save? Did you have a sense that that's what Bakrar was going to do? Was it a last-minute read? Maybe you can give us some inside into the save.

Honestly, I think initially when Bakrar started, I had a really good feeling they were going to give a penalty because unfortunately it's tough on Shane obviously for what he did but I knew right away, it's going to touch his arm and he said it touched his arm. I was already meant to prepare; this is a moment where a lot of things can change like come up big for your team and my teammates, everyone is behind you.

Initially, as a goalie you can tell whether he's going to wait for you or maybe pick a side. So I watched his run up just a bit and I was going to fly to the one side and he kind of hit it low and luckily I got my foot there. I think maybe he might have meant to put down the middle but like I said, it all happens in a split second.

Q. Can you give us a sense of what this past month, six weeks has been since moving up to the first team? What have you been doing? How has the experience been?

It's been really good. I've made a lot of good relationships, especially with the older guys on the team who are, this past week especially, you have a lot of conversations and you learn a lot of things. Training, I've been doing well. Just trying to be a professional and really just push everyone, including my teammates in training, and really sticking with the team and what the ideas are.

So it's been good. I want to say it's been over a month now, so I'm hoping to really gain from this experience and hopefully get a few more games and really improve on myself.

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