Toronto FC (2) - CF Montréal (2) Postgame Summary

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MLS Toronto FC

Toronto FC (2) - CF Montréal (2) Postgame Summary

April 30, 2025 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Toronto FC News Release


April 30, 2025

TORONTO FC (2) - CF MONTRÉAL (2) POSTGAME SUMMARY

2025 TELUS Canadian Championship Preliminary Round

CF Montréal win the penalty shootout by a score of 3-2

SCORING SUMMARY

TOR - Theo Corbeanu 29'

MTL - Joel Waterman 71' (Luca Petrasso)

TOR - Tyrese Spicer 74' (Theo Corbeanu)

MTL - Giacomo Vrioni 88' (Tom Pearce)

MISCONDUCT SUMMARY

TOR - Alonso Coello 38' (caution)

MTL - Victor Loturi 43' (caution)

TOR - Nicksoen Gomis 45+3' (caution)

TOR - Maxime Dominguez 80' (caution)

LINEUPS

TORONTO FC - Luka Gavran; Kosi Thompson (Kobe Franklin 74'), Lazar Stefanovic, Kevin Long, Nicksoen Gomis (Raoul Petretta 64'); Jonathan Osorio (C) (Alonso Coello 21'), Deybi Flores, Lorenzo Insigne (Maxime Dominguez 64'), Theo Corbeanu, Tyrese Spicer; Dékwon Barrow (Ola Brynhildsen 73')

Substitutes Not Used: Sean Johnson, Adisa De Rosario, Sigurd Rosted, Matty Longstaff

CF MONTRÉAL - Jonathan Sirois; Dawid Bugaj, George Campbell, Joel Waterman, Luca Petrasso; Nathan Saliba (Dante Sealy 46'), Samuel Piette (C) (Dominic Iankov 70'), Victor Loturi; Hennadii Synchuk (Tom Pearce 46'), Caden Clark (Owen Graham Roache 81'), Prince Owusu (Giacomo Vrioni 57')

Substitutes Not Used: Sébastian Breza, Jalen Neal, Aleksandr Guboglo, Fabian Herbers

MEDIA NOTES

Dékwon Barrow made his debut for Toronto FC as a starter, becoming the sixth player to make his club debut during the 2025 season.

Theo Corbeanu recorded his first assist for Toronto FC.

With a goal and an assist tonight, Theo Corbeanu recorded his first multi-goal contribution performance for TFC.

Dékwon Barrow, Ola Brynhildsen, Theo Corbeanu, Maxime Dominguez and Lazar Stefanovic made their first Canadian Championship appearances.

ROBIN FRASER - HEAD COACH, TORONTO FC

Q: A painful evening, from Oso [Jonathan Osorio] going down, to the 88th minute goal, to the shootout. Can you share your emotions? Disappointment?

I think you just summed it right up. Incredible disappointment. Incredibly disappointed. Disappointed because we lost not one lead, but two, we certainly felt like we did enough to win the game. Disappointed to give up the last goal. I mean there are so many different things that you could point to that lead to that, but at the end of the day, what I told them is that we haven't had many leads late in games and we have to close games out. Obviously we did against RSL (Real Salt Lake), but that's the one time.

And with this being a single elimination event, there just needs to be a mentality that we're not going to lose. So obviously really disappointed. We have a lot of games coming up and we have opportunities to right our wrongs, but the disappointment of being one and done in this competition is immense. But we have a lot of soccer left, we have a lot of our season left, we can turn our season around. But the mentality needs to be one, that's easy to say, but we need to get to a point where we don't lose at home. We refuse to lose at home. And I know that might sound somewhat naive because there are a lot of things that go into it, but I do believe that mentality has a lot to do with your ability to take care of certainly your home games. And again, it's one of these things where can't fault the effort. The effort was great. They give everything, but we have to be more clinical in the moments that we need to be and we have to be actually more precise on both ends of the field.

Q: Do you have an idea of how serious the injury to John [Jonathan Osorio] is?

I don't. I'm not exactly sure. I've had that. It's incredibly painful.

Q: Is it separated then?

I wouldn't say it was separated. I think it, what's the word I'm looking for, subluxed. I've seen people recover from that really quickly and I've seen people take a really long time. Not until we do some sort of exam will we be able to tell how severe it is, but it's going to hurt for a while. Not say they can't play with it depending on how bad it is, but it's going to hurt for a while.

Q: You were missing a lot of forwards tonight, playing the young TFC II fellow [Dékwon Barrow] up front. Was that really all you had? You didn't really have any other options?

I'll show you the roster. Yeah, I've been making a joke all week that they say working on an aircraft carrier is the most dangerous job in the world. And I'm starting to think being our number nine might be the second with the number of players that we've gone through in that position. And Dékwon [Barrow] is a young player who's doing well at TFC II, and we didn't really have many options. We were pretty light upfront going into this, so we were looking back at it. Obviously really pleased that Theo [Corbeanu] gets a goal and an assist, and that [Tyrese] Spicer gets a goal, really speaks well of our young wingers, but at the end of the day, we've certainly been snake bitten in terms of injuries.

Q: How do you think Dékwon [Barrow] did?

I thought he had some good moments. I thought he had some good moments of holding up play. I thought there were moments where he looked young and naïve and I think you would expect some of that, but I thought he worked hard. He tried to give us what he could and like I said, I thought he had some good moments for us.

Q: [Federico] Bernardeschi, do you think he might be available for the weekend?

I think so. I wouldn't say we're a hundred percent sure, but I think so. It's just a little bit of instability in his ankle. We just want to make sure that it's safe for him rather than put him out there just because we need him to play. We want to make sure it's safe for him so that it doesn't turn into a long-term thing.

Q: I mean all losses are bitter, but I wonder if this one is especially bitter just given the fact that it's the rivalry of Montréal and just given the poor start to the season?

Yes, yes, all of that is true and all of that does make it bitter and there's no sweet in it. Definitely, especially when you start poorly. This is a fresh competition. Whatever's happening, MLS doesn't matter at this point, and you can take this opportunity and run with it and have a good showing here. Meanwhile, trying to obviously improve where we are in the league. So it's disappointing because it is a little bit of a fresh start and here's opportunity. Mind you, we had a ton of injuries and there's been a lot going on, but still we had two leads and the fact that we lost those and ended up getting knocked out of the competition is going to hurt for a while.

Q: Montréal took forever at the beginning of the penalty shootout. [Tyrese] Spicer was just standing there with the ball. Did you notice that?

I did. I did. And I think I told you, I don't talk about the referees anymore, so I don't really know what was happening there and certainly not making any excuses. I'm sure it was uncomfortable for Tyrese [Spicer] to be standing there for a while, but I'm just not going to make any excuses.

LUKA GAVRAN - GOALKEEPER, TORONTO FC

Q: Painful evening all round. Did you think the team deserved better tonight?

Yep. I think first half, probably one of the better halves to be played. Finally played some football, nice combinations on the wings. We were taking people on, people had confidence and we just got to start finding out how to close games, defend our box better, make better decisions. We got to manage the game better. We're up, we got the lead twice and we're not defending our box, not defending counters and transitions. We weren't the best and at the end of the day, it stings.

I think we played really well and had some probably our best game of football in the past couple of weeks. I know we haven't been conceding many goals, but we haven't really been creating anything either. So today was, I guess you could say that's one of the positives. But yeah, I feel like we definitely got our reward ourselves.

Q: Does it sting even more just given the fact that it's Montréal?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Anytime you lose against your rival, it's going to sting. But short turnaround, we got a game this weekend and we also play Montréal in Montréal in a few weeks, so can't really dwell on it. PKs suck, but that's the reality of football.

Q: How did you feel? I mean it has been a while since you've tasted some action, your first sort of minutes this season. How did it feel to be back out there?

Good. It was probably been since last July I would say. So pretty long time. Preseason, not really that many minutes. We had a few games that didn't happen in preseason, so that wasn't the best, obviously. And it's tough in training when you got to keep the intensity as high as you can when you're not playing. But I was happy with my performance today. Obviously not the best in the PKs. I'm usually better in PKs. It's going to sting a bit, but now I felt good finally to be on the field and really be part of the team. And yeah, unfortunately I couldn't get the result, but happy to finally get some minutes.

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