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Toronto • A pair of former Toronto FC players were in for a busy night in Real Salt Lake's 1-0 loss to the hosts at BMO Field on Wednesday night.
Forward Joao Plata, who played in Toronto in 2011-12, was prominent on the offensive side for RSL and defender Aaron Maund, who was with TFC in 2012, had a hand in Toronto forward Sebastian Giovinco scoreless.
Plata, like his teammates. lamented missed chances. He was a fan favorite in Toronto and his coach at RSL, Jeff Cassar, appreciates him as well.
"He's fantastic, I love him," Cassar said. "I love all of our attacking players but he is somebody we feed off, as his energy level is so high. He's exciting, the fans love him and he's creative. This year he has been fantastic."
"We played well but they took advantage," Plata said. "The games are 90 minutes and we need to train hard for a couple days and get ready for Saturday," at home against the Chicago Fire.
It was frustrating, Plata admitted, after the game: "I mean, I had a couple of chances and missed, but that's soccer. Sometimes you can make a goal and sometimes no. But this one, to be back in Toronto and to see the fans it is always nice."
As for Saturday, Plata said, "We have to be strong. We're back in Salt Lake tomorrow, Friday we have a little training session and the focus is on Saturday. We need to win this game and get the three points."
Maund anticipated a tough game trying to handle Giovinco and was successful for the most part.
"Our focus was to make it obvious what he [Giovinco] was doing and try to keep him at bay and I think we did that. … Overall I thought it was a good performance, besides that one play [on the goal]," he said. "I think we've been solid for a good stretch of games here and we're going to continue to keep working and iron out the kinks. So hopefully it keeps getting better and better."