Sunday, Nov. 1 will go down in Toronto FC history as the night the lights went out in Georgia. 

Facing a must-win situation, TFC suffered a humbling 3-1 road loss to Atlanta United FC at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, officially eliminating them from playoff contention and extending their drought to six years.  

Toronto (9-12-12) sits in 12th place in the Eastern Conference going into this weekend’s regular-season finale, four points below the playoff line with no hope of catching up.  

Toronto’s reputation as a comeback specialist this season is well earned, having scored in the 80th minute and beyond in 11 separate games to pick up an extra 18 points (46 per cent of its 39-point total). Those late comebacks kept TFC in the thick of the playoff race over the final stretch of the MLS campaign. 

Resilience is a wonderful character trait for any team, but you can only rely on it for so long. Eventually, the well runs dry. Sunday proved TFC had tapped their reservoir one too many times, with no way back from a 3-0 deficit after 51 minutes. 

“You could see it in many games this season; we wouldn't give up and there's a lot of games that we came back to win. A lot of games that we came back to salvage a point,” captain Jonathan Osorio said. 

“I think at least you can see in this group that we kept fighting till the end. But unfortunately, when you look at the overall picture, we dug ourselves too deep of a hole to get out of at the end of the season.” 

Midway through the first half, Atlanta’s Aleksei Miranchuk nutmegged TFC defender Nicksoen Gomis on a lovely give-and-go with Miguel Almirón, who stabbed his shot through the legs of........

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