TORONTO – It’s no secret that the Toronto FC duo of Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore have a special connection on and off the field; the two US internationals have played alongside one another for many, many years now.
But while those two Designated Players go way back, Altidore is finding himself forging another partnership with Italian international Sebastian Giovinco, a process that he says was made easier because the two have become fast friends.
“We got along since day one,” Altidore said. “We’re good friends off the field, so that helps a lot. I think a lot of people forget that he’s a striker himself. He’s an attacker. He likes to score goals. That’s his main thing. We want him to do that as much as possible.”
Giovinco isn’t just scoring goals – three in his first six games – he’s also creating for Altidore. Giovinco assisted on the second of Altidore’s two goals in TFC’s 2-0 win Sunday over Orlando City SC and on one of his two goals in their season-opening 3-1 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps. Those two braces gives Altidore four goals in his five games this year heading into TFC's matchup Saturday with the Philadelphia Union (4 pm ET; TSN4 in Canada, MLS LIVE in US).
Bradley says Giovinco “puts fear in the other team’s defenders,” and highlighted that the “Atomic Ant” moves in such a way to open up space for Altidore and himself, as well as the team’s wide players. That work, Altidore says, is largely instinctual; there’s no language barrier getting in the way.
“I don’t really remember a time where Seba’s yelling out ‘go this way, go that way,’” Altidore said. “When we’re on the ball, we just kind of move and try to make something happen. He’s a natural at that.”
TFC head coach Greg Vanney explained that those movements aren’t just chances to create spaces; they are, themselves, dangerous positions, ones that TFC’s other players need to be identifying more, too.
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“We, as a team, have to really think about getting him on the ball,” Vanney said. “There’s times where he moves into great spaces and we don’t necessarily give him the ball in that moment. Jozy does a good job of working with Seba to create little pockets for Seba to get into, and now it’s on us to find him and allow him the opportunity to make things happen for us.”
As for Altidore, Vanney says that while the US forward is scoring freely from certain kinds of passes and movements, he’d still like to see some more improvement from wider positions to help feed Altidore up top.
“When we look at the data from the fitness side, he puts in a ton of work,” Vanney said of Altidore. “He’s one of the guys with the most sprints over the course of the game and as a result, he picked up two goals as well. We see a real correlation between how active he is and how successful he is over the course of a game.
“We just want to keep him working on scoring goals both when he has open space but also when he’s in and around the box and the spaces are a little bit tight,” Vanney added. “It’s also us giving him better service, to be quite frank. We know when we get into crossing positions we haven’t necessarily always put the best balls in the box to give the big man a chance to go get it.”
