April 28, 2018 MLS Toronto FC--Toronto FC vs Chicago Fire (by Rocket Robin)

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Result and details of the Saturday April 28, 2018 MLS game between Toronto FC and Chicago Fire played
at BMO Field in Toronto at 3:00pm.

7 min...TFC Jonathan Osorio GOAL...TFC Victor Vazquez at 70 yards on right sideline boots ball high and downfield that bounces at 35 yard line on right and charging TFC Sebastian Giovinco recovers it at 25 yard line on break and heads and dribbles it forward to 6 yard line about 10 yards wide of post and sends low cross past goalie guarding right post at 3 yards and charging Osorio slides and pushes 3 yard shot into left side of open net. A video review did not overturn the goal for Giovinco's apparent offside. 10 min...TFC Sebastian Giovinco has a goal disallowed after a video review. Giovinco led rush upfield on right and rolled and rolled ball forward for TFC Nicolas Hasler. Hasler ran to close to right end line and passed it back from 2 yards and it took a deflection off a sliding defender and the ball bounced back to Giovinco cutting in to middle and his one-touch low 8 yard shot from even with right post is into the open left side of net. 21 min...TFC Victor Vazquez GOAL...TFC Ager Aketxe takes a cornerkick from right that a defender heads away from inside the 6 yard box on the right post. TFC Michael Bradley charges up the middle and connects on cleared ball at 28 yards and he sends high shanked ball forward but to right and charging Vazquez running towards net as all players are running out of the box gets to ball at 25 yards on far right. He dribbles towards center and chips 18 yard shot from right near 6 yard box over goalie on right post and ball drops into left corner of net. 33 min...Fire Aleksandar Katai at 25 yards in middle chips ball forward over defenders and ball deflects off a Fire player just inside box over to Fire Nemanja Nikolic at 12 yards in middle and TFC Ashtone Morgan who kicks at ball and connects on Nikolic's ankle and TFC Gregory van der Wiel clears ball. Play continues on upfield until the TFC players clear ball out of bounds as Nikolic is still lying in the TFC box. Referee Alan Kelly uses video review and awards Fire a Penalty kick. 37 min...Fire Bastian Penalty kick blast is low and to left and diving goalie Alex Bono dives to that side and is able to push it wide of the post. 68 min...Fire Bastian Schweinsteiger GOAL...Fire Diego Campos takes high cornerkick from right and Fire Kevin Ellis at 12 yards in middle behind crowd of players pops up header forward and Nikolic leans forward at 6 yards even with right post and heads ball into center of open net. 90 min...Fire Bastian Schweinsteiger recovers loose ball at 30 yard line on right and lofts cross into box. Fire Alan Gordon charging forward leans forward at 6 yards and heads ball towards right post. TFC goalie sprawls and has ball hit him on chest at 2 yards and ball pops up off fallen Nikolic deflects towards middle of net. The goalie now swats at it on the line and retreating TFC Liam Fraser turns on line and kicks ball as he falls into net and the ball hits goalie and pops up and Fire Nemanja Nikolic scoops it up from the ground and his chip from 3 yards hits the bar and falls back into 6 yard box and TFC Michael Bradley wide right of post is able to clear ball. 93 min...Fire Alan Gordon GOAL...Fire Bastian Schweinsteiger sends in cross from 28 yard line on far right and ball ball falls between TFC defenders Ashtone Morgan who missed header attempt and TFC Jason Hernandez in crowd of players in box and ball hits shins of Gordon and he turns and fires 7 yarder up middle into top part of middle of net over goalie. Final Score:...Toronto FC......2...........Chicago Fire......2........ Attendance was announced as 26,331 on this cold afternoon with a rain that kept falling most of the morning and only stopped when the player warmups were over. It did not rain again during the game and the sun even came out for a short time in the second half. The crowd was slow to fill in for a weekend game and the walk up crowd may never have turned out because of the earlier rain. Man of the Match (who is always a TFC player) was named as goalie Alex Bono. Yes I'd agree as he made some key saves including the Penalty kick which could have turned the tide on Toronto earlier. I do wonder if they choose the award five or ten minutes before the game is over. Alan Gordon scored the tying goalie deep into injury time a few minutes after a header from him was saved and cleared on the line. Gordon brings back memories of his time in the bad days of TFC although he had a history of scoring late goals for Toronto and against them too. In his TFC days he had long blonde hair and a surfer-dude image dating back to his Los Angeles Galaxy days. Of course in those days TFC was known for failing to hold onto leads. The Fire had not been a good team this year after finishing third last year. They did win on the road last week 2-1 against New York Red Bulls. We expected TFC would rest some players after the game CCL in Chivas on Wednesday. They won that away match in Guadalajara Mexico to even their series Final 3-3 but lost 4-2 on Penalty kicks to miss out on being the first MLS team to reach the club world championships later this year. Micheal Bradley moved back from the central midfield to play as a central defender as six starting defenders were injured. TFC still played with only three in the back for most of the game. Forward Jozy Altidore who had to leave the Wednesday game did not play today. This game will long be remembered in the future as the one that had the most Video Assisted Referee reviews so far in an MLS game. There were at least three and other times when referee Alan Kelly appeared to be listening in his earpiece and turned down using VAR a few other times. Most of the fans didn't like any delay for VAR but when the Fire scored their first goal, they turned and were yelling for VAR to be used to possibly overturn the goal. I didn't see clearly whether plays were controversial until I got home and played through the game. The goals are both more than 50 yards from where I sit so I can't judge offsides that are close. We the fans were not able to see replays of those plays that were being reviewed unlike the referee with his sideline television screen and the fans at home having the networks replay the incidents from multiple angles. On the Fire's first goal although he didn't touch the ball Fire Nemanja Nikolic would have been offside if he'd touched it on the play but no video review was made as the referee didn't think he'd made enough of a distraction. I expect TFC must pass teams like Chicago to reach the playoffs. I expectged three homestand wins over the struggling Fire, Philadelphia and MLS Cup finalist Seattle who have a record even worse than TFC. The team owners made an attempt to get people to stay for the USL game between TFC II and New York Red Bulls II which started 90 minutes after this game ended even baiting people to go to the north end to pose for photos with injured defender Eriq Zavaleta and the MLS Cup trophy. That ploy didn't really work as the attendance for that second game was only 117. Fans waited for their photo ops and left. Parents of the ball girls for that second game made up quite a few people in the crowd. Rocket Robin robing@eol.ca twitter @RocketRobin01

stats from MLSsoccer.com
Match Information

Goals and Assists
 8'    TOR Jonathan Osorio          Assisted By: Sebastian Giovinco, Víctor Vázquez        
22'    TOR Víctor Vázquez           Assisted By: Michael Bradley            
69'    CHI Bastian Schweinsteiger   Assisted By: Kevin Ellis, Diego Campos                 
90'+4' CHI Alan Gordon              Assisted By: Bastian Schweinsteiger, Johan Kappelhof          

Disciplinary            
73'    CHI Aleksandar Katai         Reason: Persistent Infringement     
80'    TOR Jason Hernandez          Reason: Unsporting Behavior              

Lineup

Toronto FC          
10 F Sebastian Giovinco        
25 G Alexander Bono        
96 D Auro           
 9 D Gregory van der Wiel        
 4 D Michael Bradley          
 5 D Ashtone Morgan            
18 M Marco Delgado     
26 M Nicolas Hasler        (75')      
 8 M Ager Aketxe           (81')    
 7 M Víctor Vázquez        (75')        
21 M Jonathan Osorio          

Bench
 1 G Clint Irwin     
12 M Jason Hernandez       (75')      
87 M Tosaint Ricketts      (75')      
14 M Jay Chapman       
27 M Liam Fraser           (81') 
22 F Jordan Hamilton     
54   Ryan Telfer     

Manager Greg Vanney     

Chicago Fire
23 F Nemanja Nikolic          
28 F Elliot Collier           (67')         
45 G Richard Sánchez       
 5 D Kevin Ellis              
 4 D Johan Kappelhof     
31 D Bastian Schweinsteiger           
15 D Grant Lillard            
 3 D Brandon Vincent           (82') 
10 M Aleksandar Katai
 6 M Dax McCarty               (76')   
19 M Mohammed Adams    

Bench
32 G Patrick McLain          
21 D Alan Gordon              (82')
16 D Jonathan Campbell      
12 M Tony Tchani       
18 M Drew Conner       
22 M Jon Bakero               (76')
17 F Diego Campos             (67')           

Manager  Veljko Paunovic            

Officials
Referee                  Alan Kelly       
Assistant Referee        Brian Dunn       
Assistant Referee        Logan Brown    
Fourth Official          Nima Saghafi       
Video Assistant Referee  Kevin Terry Jr.          

Match Information
MLS at BMO Field
Toronto, ON
Attendance 26331
Weather Cloudy

Team Statistics

TFC                            Chi          
 15    Shots                    17           
  4    Shots on Target           8      
  8    Shots off Target          5     
  3    Blocked Shots             4      
  6    Corners                   7     
 10    Crosses                  18    
  2    Offsides                  4         
  7    Fouls                    12        
  1    Yellow Cards              1          
  0    Red Cards                 0     
459    Total Passes            444       
 82 %  Passing Accuracy         80 %       
 50.3 % Possession              49.7 %     
 52     Duels Won               51        
 14     Tackles Won             20      
  6     Saves                    2      
 17     Clearances              10

Toronto FC starters