Vancouver Whitecaps' Nicolas Mezquida, bottom right, reacts as Toronto FC's Nick Hagglund, from left, Drew Moor, Ashtone Morgan and Marky Delgado celebrate after winning the Canadian Championship soccer final on aggregate in Vancouver, B.C., on Wednesday June 29, 2016.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Toronto FC hits the halfway mark of its schedule Saturday when it plays host to the lowly Chicago Fire.
At 5-6-5, Toronto occupies the last playoff position in the East – where it finished last season after a 15-15-4 campaign. But there is hope of a second-half run up the standings once Greg Vanney's team gets healthy and the home half of the schedule kicks in.
Hurt by injuries and international call-ups, Toronto has won just two of its past nine league games (2-4-3) dating to May 1.
Vanney says the team has endured "a season's worth of adversity in half a season."
"We've gone through what I hope is the roughest patch that we'll go through with some of those things," Vanney said this week. "Having said that we're still very much within reach of the front of the pack.
"I do think we should have more points for various reasons," he added.
After playing host to Chicago, Toronto plays at Columbus and San Jose next week. Ten of its remaining 15 games after that are at home.
Vanney is without starting goalkeeper Clint Irwin (quad) and midfielders Michael Bradley (knee) and Will Johnson (knee). Reserves Danny Lovitz (knee) and defender Ashtone Morgan (foot) are also sidelined. Star striker Jozy Altidore, who has been out since mid-May with a hamstring injury, is close to returning.
In some ways, it's been a confounding first half of the season for Toronto.
TFC went 3-3-2 on an extended league road trip to open the season due to stadium renovations. But the expected bounce back at BMO Field has yet to come, with the club a disappointing 2-1-3 at home where the team has collected just nine of 18 points and scored only seven goals.
The team has gone 2-3-3 since that opening road trip.
A six-game league goal-scoring drought for Sebastian Giovinco has blunted the Toronto attack. Opponents have thrown numbers at the Italian star, who has cut a forlorn figure up front in recent weeks while receiving episodic service from his teammates.
Giovinco had one of Toronto's three shots on target in last weekend's 1-1 draw with visiting Seattle. According to Opta, he had 43 touches during the game – third worst among Toronto's outfield starters.
"We'd love for him to have more touches," Vanney said.
The Toronto coach believes the return of Altidore will help Giovinco since the big American attracts attention.
"I do think that teams are coming in with a real commitment to say "Seba's not going to beat us. If they can beat us with some of the other guys then we can live with that,'" Vanney said. "So I think it's making it really difficult for him to get the amount of touches that we would like him to get over the course of the game."
A positive has been Toronto's depth, which some had thought would be a weakness.
"We've given a lot of guys opportunities to grow in the course of the first half of the season," said Vanney, who believes that will only benefit his side during the stretch run.
Chicago (3-7-5) sits in the league basement with just 14 points. But the Fire are coming off two wins: 1-0 over San Jose in league play and 2-1 over Columbus Crew SC in U.S. Open Cup play.
Both of those were at home, however. The Fire have yet to register a league win this season with five losses and two ties.
Prior to the San Jose victory, Chicago had just one win in its last 10 league outings (1-6-3).
Vanney still sees danger.
"They're a good team," he said. "They haven't always got the results but they have some guys who can be very dangerous and they are very committed to defending."
Saturday could mark the MLS debut of Dutch forward Michael de Leeuw. He signed with the Fire on May 17 and arrived in early June but had to wait for the summer transfer window to open to play.
De Leeuw, whose last competitive game was May 15 for FC Groningen, scored 46 goals in 117 Eredivisie matches.
Chicago, which parted ways with former Toronto striker Gilberto in late June, can use the help up front. Going into weekend play, it was tied for 18th in the 20-team league with 1.0 goals a game.