New York is another Eastern Conference team failing to produce at a crucial point in the season. For the second week running, writes Frank Giase, it “played host to a desperate team fighting for its playoff life, and for the second game in a row they failed to match their opponent’s intensity and drive for the postseason.” The reason they lost 3-1 at home to bottom-place Toronto was, according to coach Juan Carlos Osorio, that the players cannot cope with the pressure.
“The pressure at the moment is probably too much for a lot of the players,” said Osorio, whose side is just hanging on to a wild card playoff spot. “It’s easy when you play with no pressure during the year, probably without thinking ‘Well, this is a must-win.’ Now every game is a must-win, and it has proved that some of us can’t handle the pressure.”
“I’m very disappointed,” Osorio went on. “I think we panicked too much. We don’t play to our potential. We’re looking for someone to make big plays, and at the moment it’s not happening for us. These three games have been testing all of us. It’s a lot of pressure and we have not handled it well.”
Striker Juan Pablo Angel saw it all clearly enough: “We made mistakes and we got punished. Sometimes you get away with it and lately we haven’t. This is the wrong time of the season to be playing like this.”