TORONTO -- With five games remaining, Toronto FC finds itself battling history as well as rivals on the pitch in its bid to make the MLS playoffs for the first time ever.
Entering its ninth season in the league, Toronto's career record was 62-120-74. The club was on its ninth manager, had won just 18 of 128 all-time road games and was running out of ways to appease its long-suffering fan base.
The club's year-by-year finishes is a string of consistently high numbers: 7, 7, 5, 5, 8, 10, 9, 7
Jermain Defoe, the club's 2014 saviour, was a 2015 bad memory after opting to return to England.
Today, Toronto (12-13-4) stands fifth in the Eastern Conference and has a four-point edge over the Montreal Impact, who hold down the sixth and last playoff spot. And Italian star Sebastian Giovinco, the new saviour, is on MVP pace.
Coach Greg Vanney's team would seem to have its playoff fate in its own hands.
While the Impact (10-11-16) have two games in hand on Toronto, TFC has the next four games at home -- starting Saturday against the underachieving Chicago Fire -- before wrapping up the regular season in Montreal.
But ask Vanney if Toronto is saddled with the weight of its history more than other clubs are, the answer is an immediate "Yes."
"The history of this club is one that hasn't been as positive as a lot of people hoped," Vanney said after practice Tuesday. "So it carries that burden of getting over the hump, if you will. It's been a big hump that's been years in the making. It's easy to be reminded of those moments.
"So as soon as something goes not quite right, it's easy to go back to those types of things ... I think it's human nature. And at the end of the day we have the ability and we have the attitude to turn that around.
"We know it's on us and that's fine. We accept it and we'll find whatever way and whatever means to motivate ourselves to go out and to do what we can to get our ship going and get the ship of the club going in the right direction. We want to get everyone behind us. We know we're going to be successful. And that time is coming for us."
Striker Jozy Altidore says while some of the criticism of the club may be correct, "people love to kind of hate" Toronto FC.
"You feel that everybody's waiting for something bad to happen," he said. "For something to turn and for us to tank. You feel that.
"That's just because of what they're used to in the past few years. But hopefully this season we all came here, we all bought into this project to turn that around. It's not easy and it won't be easy. It will get harder and harder. But we're on the right track."
