Federico Bernardeschi scores a hat trick as Toronto FC cruised past rivals CF Montreal with a dominant 5-1 win at BMO Field.
It was an incredible performance for Bernardeschi, who put on a masterclass for the TFC faithful in attendance. Both he and fellow Italian DP Lorenzo Insigne have appeared to have truly bought into new head coach John Herdman’s philosophy and style of play.
In addition to Bernardeschi’s hat trick, Matthew Longstaff opened the scoring for TFC in the 6th minute, while striker Prince Owusu scored his 6th goal of the season in the 19th minute to extend the lead to 3-0 after the Italian scored his first of three goals in the 12th minute. Owusu has been in great form as of late as the goal was his 5th goal in his last 6 MLS matches.
The early 3-0 lead was a historic feat for Toronto as it was the first time in club history that they scored three goals in the first 20 minutes of play.
TFC has been able to turn things around and reignite the passions and enthusiasm from their fanbase after the past two seasons were lackluster and didn’t live up to expectations. Toronto bounced back and snapped their two-game losing skid and now sit in 5th place in the MLS Eastern Conference standings.
During his post-match press conference, Herdman heaped praise on Bernardeschi’s performance and overall play this season. He mentioned that the Italian has bought in from the start, which has certainly translated on the pitch:
“There’s just layers to him [Bernardeschi]. He’s a really caring man. Like from what I can see, he’s a good dad, he’s a good husband and he’s a great teammate and he’s really taken on that leadership role. To score a hat-trick, it was special because he went ten games and it was tough for him. He was struggling inside. Everyone is asking the question, is he ever going to score for Toronto and we just knew it would come…He has massive respect from the fans and his teammates. For periods, I think he carried the team.”
Toronto FC head coach John Herdman post-match comments on Federico Bernardeschi’s performance
Unfortunately for Toronto, Bernardeschi picked up his fifth yellow card in stoppage time, which means that he’ll receive a suspension for yellow card accumulation and will miss next week’s matchup against 1st place FC Cincinnati next Saturday. TFC have an excellent opportunity to close the gap with Cincinnati as they sit 8-points back and a win would close that gap to 5-points.
Check out highlights from Toronto FC’s 5-1 over CF Montreal below:
Cover photo credit: Toronto FC (@TorontoFC – X)
