Toronto edges Vancouver in 1st leg of Canadian Championship final

Sebastian Giovinco, whose influence grew as the game wore on, gave Toronto FC a 1-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps in the first leg of the Amway Canadian Championship final on Tuesday.

The Italian forward put Toronto ahead in the 43rd minute in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 20,011 on a beautiful evening at BMO Field in Toronto. Taking a pass from Mo Babouli, Giovinco hit the accelerator and passed several defenders as he cut inside, making room to rifle a shot from just outside the penalty box that deflected in off defender Kendall Waston.

"A bit fortuitous," Vancouver coach Carl Robinson said of the goal, adding that the result of the game was probably fair.

The Whitecaps played well in the first half and likely deserved better than to go into halftime a goal down.

"I thought we were terrible in the first half and much better in the second half," said Toronto coach Greg Vanney. "Ironically, we scored in the first half and didn't score in the second half."

Toronto controlled the second half with Giovinco looking increasingly dangerous. Vancouver tried to counter, throwing on Blas Perez and Kekuta Manneh, but Toronto kept pushing for a second goal deep into stoppage time.

"Should we have scored more goals? Yes," Vanney said. "Could they have had a goal? Maybe."

Vanney said his team's offence improved because Toronto began to move the ball around, stretching the Vancouver defence and giving Giovinco more room to work his magic.

'We dodged a few bullets'

The coach of the Whitecaps admitted the Reds were the better team in the second half. 

"We dodged a few bullets like you need to do and we hung on in there," Robinson said.

"It's not what we wanted, obviously, we tried to get the away goal. But we'll work with it and we'll try to win the game at home. And we know that we need to win the game by two goals. And we need to not give anything up."

Canadian international midfielder Russell Teibert started for Vancouver, setting a record with his 16th appearance in the Canadian Championship and served as captain after Pedro Morales was subbed off in the second half.

"I take pride in that," said Teibert. "I take pride in [Vancouver] being the reigning Canadian champions and I want to be a Canadian champion again this year."

2nd leg next Wednesday

The Whitecaps started five Canadians while Toronto opened with three.

The tournament winner claims the Voyageurs Cup and advances to the CONCACAF Champions League where a berth in the FIFA Club World Cup and $500,000 US is awarded to the winner.

Since the annual tournament began in 2008, Toronto has won the Canadian title four times to Montreal's three and Vancouver's one.

The second leg is June 29 in Vancouver.