TORONTO — Under John Herdman, the Canadian men's soccer team talked proudly — and often — of the brotherhood within the squad.
"We believe within our group," veteran midfielder Jonathan Osorio said on the eve of Canada's opening game against Belgium at the World Cup in Qatar."With the quality that we have and our brotherhood we can go as far as we want to go.''
Osorio, who leads all Toronto players with 341 games played in all competitions, lifted the curtain on the team a little when asked whether there was a brotherhood this season at the MLS club. "We were trying to take a club with really big expectations, take a group of players with a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of different experiences and a lot of different levels of motivation, ambition. And we were trying to make a team," he said.
Toronto lost seven straight and won just one of its last 21 games in finishing a season that set franchise-low records for wins , points and wins on the road . At 0-18-1, Toronto also was worst in the league when conceding the first goal of a game."I provoked the players to say, 'If you want to be here next year, you better be all in,'" Herdman said Saturday after the game.
While Herdman officially took over the team Oct. 1, he and his staff watched the two road games that followed from the stands as interim coach Terry Dunfield ran the team. Herdman took over training during the international break that preceded the Orlando contest and was on the sideline for the first time for the season finale.Herdman, his staff and the substitutes stood arm in arm on the sideline during the anthems.
Consider that Orlando rookie forward Duncan McGuire, who scored both goals off the bench Saturday and has produced 13 goals and three assists at a cost of $77,360 this season. And the fact that 20-year-old Deandre Kerr tied Bernardeschi for the team lead in goals this season — having played eight fewer games — at a cost of $90,767.
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