Kei Kamara. Sebastian Giovinco.
Regardless of what MLS team you’re a fan of, those two names should immediately command a great deal of admiration and respect for what they’ve accomplished in 2015. With the regular season winding down, Kamara’s Columbus Crew SC and Giovinco’s Toronto FC are set to face off in likely the biggest game of the year for both teams.
Not only will there be playoff implications galore on the line in Toronto Saturday afternoon, but the two MVP candidates find themselves locked in an epic battle for the MLS Golden Boot. Both players are currently tied on goals with 22 and have two more games to try and cement their claim to be the league’s leading goal-scorer this year. The stakes will undoubtedly be sky high on multiple fronts when these Trillium Cup rivals duel at BMO Field on the penultimate weekend of the regular season.
MLS Golden Boot Race Heats Up in Toronto
In many ways, the fortunes of Kamara and Giovinco have been intertwined. Both came to MLS from stints in Europe looking to take that next step in their careers.
For Kamara, it was a chance to return to the league he had made a name for himself in after a short but challenging period in England. The former Crew SC draft pick was acquired via the club’s top spot in the league’s allocation ranking in October of last year. The team was hoping that the Sierra Leone international’s presence up top in head coach Gregg Berhalter’s favored 4-2-3-1 formation would provide what it was missing the previous year, which was a capable target forward able to finish with regularity.
I think it’s safe to say that with the regular season nearly complete, that move paid off quite handsomely for the Black and Gold.
In Giovinco’s case, it was an ambitious move both on the part of the player and the team signing him. After all, the diminutive Italian had plied his trade for the entirety of his career in the Serie A, one of Europe’s best domestic leagues, having made over 90 appearances for Juventus, the super club of his native Turin. He also didn’t exactly fit the profile of previous moves to MLS by high-profile European players. At 28 and still clearly in his prime, the move to bring him to Toronto was a paradigm shift of sorts and in certain respects dispelled the common narrative of the league as a final stopping place for over-the-hill international stars. Of course, the TFC front office was also banking on him being the final piece in the puzzle to finally get this club over the hump and realize its first playoff appearance in franchise history.
After Wednesday’s 2-1 win over current Supporters’ Shield leaders the New York Red Bulls, the team and its long-suffering fans were able to rejoice over the realization of that objective with Giovinco playing a key role in what transpired. His spectacular goal which came mere hours after he arrived back in Toronto from Rome having played for Italy the day before has to be seen to be believed. It could quite possibly be a late season candidate for goal of the year.
Now comes Saturday’s showdown in which so much will be on the line in terms of playoff positioning as well as the race for the MLS Golden Boot. To put into perspective how close the race for favorable seeding is in the East, the teams currently second through sixth are separated by a mere four points. Crew SC, currently in fifth, could conceivably move up to second with a road win over TFC if they get some help elsewhere. Consequently, a loss could see them fall into the sixth and final playoff spot if other results don’t go their way this weekend.
It must be said that before the loss to the Red Bulls two weeks ago, Columbus were one of the hottest teams on the road, enjoying a four-game winning streak away from MAPFRE Stadium. As such, there shouldn’t be that much trepidation over the ability to grind out a result at BMO Field. That said, a suddenly confident TFC side playing their fifth consecutive home game and having won the previous four will most definitely prove a daunting challenge.
Kamara and Giovinco should figure prominently into the final result. Considering how many goals these two clubs’ back lines concede, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. TFC’s 1.69 goals against per game is tied for worst in the league, while Crew SC is tied for second worst with a 1.66 mark. The co-goal scoring leaders nabbed one apiece in the last game between the teams on July 25th which resulted in a 3-3 draw, a less than savory result for Columbus considering they blew a 3-0 lead.
There has to be a small semblance of irony that these teams meet in the second to last game of the season considering their first clash took place in week two. It was way back then on a cold, late-winter night in Columbus that Kamara opened up his scoring account and celebrated with a tribute to the club’s past in a 2-0 victory for Crew SC. Now, with him and Giovinco neck and neck in the MLS Golden Boot race, and the margin for error razor sharp with two games to go, it’s only fitting these two teams come together in a clash that should be full of the requisite emotion and ferocity you come to expect from a game with this much on the line.
Two may be the number that somehow binds these clubs together this year. Kamara and Giovinco are tied at 22. Both teams appear to be gunning for that two spot in the East. Their first clash of the year took place in week two and final one takes place with two weeks left in the regular season. Nevertheless, someone is going to finish number one at the expense of the other and Saturday’s game will go a long way to determining who inevitably does so.
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