After things turned spicy over the weekend thanks to the ongoing Canadian soccer drone scandal, Toronto FC and Forge FC took the animosity to a new level on the field Tuesday night.
TFC beat the lower-level Hamilton-based club 1-0 at BMO Field in the second leg of their Canadian Championship semifinal, securing passage to the final by virtue of scoring one away goal in a 2-1 defeat in July.
It certainly wasn’t smooth sailing for TFC, with tempers flaring on both sides throughout a hotly contested fixture.
TFC star Lorenzo Insigne tugged on the beard of Forge’s Beni Badibanga late in the first half after a tackle from behind. Insigne then exchanged words with Forge coach Bobby Smyrniotis.
When asked what was said during the exchange, Smyrniotis, per John Molinaro of TFC Republic, told the media: “You do not want me to repeat that. It shouldn’t be repeated.”
Insigne went on to score the winner in the 53rd minute and then celebrated the goal in front of the Forge bench. He blew a kiss to the crowd, showed the heart symbol with his hands and then put his hands to his ears to encourage TFC fans to cheer louder.
“If they’re doing all that when they score a goal, it is what it is,” Forge captain Kyle Bekker told OneSoccer after the match, when asked if his team could be proud of pushing TFC to near elimination.
“There’s got to be some positives in that.”
The stage was set for fireworks after The Athletic revealed last weekend that a drone was seen above a Forge training session before the first leg of the semifinal.
Forge FC told Canada Soccer about potential drone usage, The Athletic reported, although no official complaint was filed and it’s unclear who was operating the drone.
The Canadian women’s national team came under fire in late July after a team analyst was caught using a drone during New Zealand’s training sessions at the Olympic tournament in Paris.
Canada received a six-point deduction and three coaches, including head coach Bev Priestman, were handed one-year suspensions. Despite the penalty, Canada advanced to the quarterfinals, where the team lost to Germany on penalties.
Canada Soccer proceeded with an independent external review following the drone scandal and plans to release its findings publicly when complete.
According to reports from Neil Davidson of the Canadian Press and Molinaro, Canada Soccer told FIFA in an official document that John Herdman started the drone-spying strategy when he was the head coach of Canada’s women’s team.
Herdman is now the coach of TFC.
“… We suspect that the practise of using a drone stems back to John Herdman when he was the head coach of the women’s national team,” Canada Soccer wrote to FIFA in the document, according to Molinaro and Davidson.
“In other words, this was a practise started by one person — John Herdman — and continued by Bev Priestman. It was not facilitated by the federation. New Canada Soccer administration is supporting a full independent investigation of this issue and has already taken steps to ensure that this scouting tactic does not happen again.”
Toronto FC will travel to Vancouver to face the Whitecaps in the Canadian Championship final on Sept. 25.