skip navigation

Match Recap: Toronto FC III 2 - 1 North Mississauga Panthers

By League1 Ontario staff, 05/21/17, 12:00PM EDT

Share

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." 


(Photo: Martin Bazyl)

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." 


Bradley Fenton, North Miss (Photo: Martin Bazyl)

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. 


(Photo: Martin Bazyl)