Reaction: TFC keeper Alex Bono takes blame for Chivas' winning goal

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, Apr 18, 2018

Toronto FC head coach Greg Vanney says conceding two bad goals, the first in the second minute, were the Reds' undoing in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions League final, which it lost at home to Guadalajara, 2-1.

"It was a bad goal to give up," he said of the goal Rodolfo Pizarro scored on a play that began with a throw-in. "We’re not even two minutes into the game. Throw-in on the side, we have to deal with it better.  I don’t know if it changes the game, but it sure puts us in a hole to start the game. Aside from that, we knew what the game was going to look like, telling you from experience this was a very man-to-man game. You take some things away from it. We had some opportunities. We gave away two goals that we shouldn’t have, and now we are in the hole going to Mexico.
 
Vanney had talked in the pre-game press conference about how difficult it was to play against Chivas, which had conceded just one goal in six CCL games, but he said Chivas' pressing defense was not what decided the game.

"At the end of the day," he said, "the score comes down to finishing your chances and not giving goals that you shouldn’t give away. The game looks like it looks like because they play man to man, the image of the game changes when a team chooses to play. In the grand scheme of things from what I can recall, they didn’t have a ton of shots on net, most from distance."

In the previous two series against Tigres and Club America, TFC rallied from a goal and after conceding a tying goal to win both games at BMO Field in the first legs. Vanney liked the reaction after going down to Chivas and getting the tying goal from Jonathan Osoriobut admitted the second half could have been better.

"After that goal," he said, "I thought we had the better part of the first half, but in the second half we probably could’ve gotten more out of it than we did. Obviously, the goals are the goals."

Goalkeeper Alex Bono took the blame for Alan Pulido's winning goal on a free kick that floated over him from a sharp angle into the top corner of the goal.

"I made a mistake that led to it and that is on me," he said.

Bono said he let his teammates down even if it the wind might have been a factor on the play.

"Maybe a little bit," he said, "but I am not going to sit here and make an excuse about that. It is definitely a misread on my part."