Toronto FC superstar Sebastian Giovinco said during TFC’s final media availability of 2016 on Tuesday that the BMO Field playing surface may have affected his play during the MLS Cup Playoffs and wondered if the field contributed to the cramps that forced him to come off during MLS Cup.
BMO Field was shared by Toronto FC and the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts this year. The Grey Cup, the CFL’s championship game, was also played at BMO Field on Nov. 27, three days before Toronto hosted Montreal in the second leg of the Eastern Conference Championship series.
Giovinco registered four goals and four assists in six postseason games, but only had one goal and two assists in four matches at BMO Field.
“Maybe the only factor that may have contributed somehow in changing since last year is that now another team was playing in BMO Field,” he said on Tuesday through a translator. “That may have contributed to changing something on the pitch.”
The Italian said that he hadn’t cramped once in four years before experiencing them three times in TFC’s four home playoff matches.
“With all other factors being equal, something must have changed somewhere else,” he said.
Several CFL players criticized Giovinco on Twitter shortly after he made the comments.
Toronto FC president Bill Manning said that the surface “wasn’t ideal,” citing the Dec. 10 timing of MLS Cup – the match was played in below freezing conditions – and recent Grey Cup as detriments to the surface.
Manning added that the club will explore the possibility of installing a hybrid playing surface featuring both natural grass and artificial turf. According to the Toronto Sun’s Kurt Larson, the club will also consider changing the entire field midseason as a potential solution.
“I’m confident we will be better a year from now… A player like Seba, he does experience that and he was frustrated,” Manning said. “It is what it is and it’s something we will improve upon.”
Toronto FC head coach Greg Vanney took a slightly different tack on Tuesday. He acknowledged in a radio interview on Sportsnet 590 The FAN that the field wasn’t ideal, but that’d be the case for almost any field in a climate like Toronto’s this time of year. He was reluctant to blame the surface for any problems TFC may have had in MLS Cup, indicating that the narrative might be a little different this week had the team been able to put away any of their chances in their loss to Seattle.
“I think they’re personal opinions for [Giovinco],” he said. “The field was the field for both teams, and, like I said, we did a lot of things well enough on the night to win, we needed to put one away… It’s one thing we can look at I guess as a club, because it’s the first time we played in December in an important game.
"Looking at what are the various factors we learned this year between us and the CFL, the various events that are on the field and how we can continue to make it better. But on the night it was our inability to score goals – because we had good chances – that ultimately led to [the loss].”
