May 21, 2017 League 1 Ontario Match Recap: Toronto FC III vs North Mississauga Panthers (from League 1 Ontario website)

Match Recap: Toronto FC III 2 - 1 North Mississauga Panthers
05/21/2017, 12:00pm EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

Toronto FC III saw off a late comeback surge by visitors North Mississauga Panthers 
on Saturday as North Miss' Bradley Fenton (75') struck to cut the Junior Reds lead 
in half with only fifteen minutes to go. 

TFC's Ethan Beckford (3') punished an early defensive error before Marko Mandekic (15') 
found space at the back-post to give the home side an early advantage, which aptly 
reflected a first frame that largely went the way of TFC.

"I thought it was our worst performance of the season," said TFC III head coach, 
Danny Dichio. 

"We had probably 90 per cent of possession in the first half and only scored two goals. 
I think a lot of teams, players and coaches get caught up in the tactics of keeping 
possession but at the end of the day the objective is to create chances and score 
goals," he said. 

"When you have such a large amount of possession, you have to be clinical with that 
and we didn't show that today." 

"I thought in the second half we still had bouts of possession but we didn't manage 
the game well. We didn't apply ourselves well and we were hanging on in the end there." 

North Miss were never out of the match, and fought back valiantly in the second half 
to eventually find a breakthrough through Fenton. The visitors almost equalized within 
minutes but the effort flashed just wide. 

"It was absolutely a game of two halves - one was dark and one was light," 
said North Miss head coach, Sam Medeiros. 

"I don't know what the consensus is, but this has been happening with us for four 
games now. The second half is very different than our first half. We didn't change 
patterns of play, we didn't change the system, we didn't change anything except 
it was just the commitment from the players - to want to go and do what they have 
been asked to do." 

The momentum North Miss generated in the second half was impressive, but not enough 
to off-set the mistakes made in the first frame.

Medeiros explained it has been his team's tendency to allow weak goals, and the 
ongoing project of knitting together a new group of players, that have been the 
biggest challenges.

"What we haven't done is create luck for ourselves in these previous four games, 
what we have done is give gifts to the other teams," he said. 

"They have all scored on us first due to poor passes, poor decisions, bad tackles 
and then we seem to be chasing through the rest of the game. Bad decisions, gifts 
to the other team, and we are showing up only to play the second half of play." 

"But this team is a group of brand new players," he added. "I got rid of most 
of the players from last year and I'm going with a group of '98s and '99s. We know 
we are going to take a beating but the plan is for the long-term, 
not a short-term goal."

"Over the next three or four years our goal is to build into solid contenders 
to win the title and we know that we have steps to take." 

Toronto FC III will next play Sanjaxx Lions on Sunday May 28 
at Kia Training Ground, Toronto.

North Mississauga Panthers will next play Oakville Blue Devils on Sunday May 28 
at Sheridan College, Oakville. 

back to 2017 League 1 Ontario Men's index

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