“I really, really hate losing at anything, but a championship game, a Cup Final, that’s just the worst,” said Mason Toye, young rising star with Minnesota United on the eve of his first Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final. “I’ve lost the last two championship games I’ve played in, and it’s built up some extra hunger and desire in me. They’ll be in my mind in Atlanta, and I’ll put everything on the line.”
It’s a funny word coming out of Toye’s mouth: hate. Sunny and open about his successes and challenges, he’s more at-home with stoked and blessed and passion. His elaborate post-goal dance routines say a lot about his attitude toward the game and life. But, the striker’s feelings about being on the wrong side of a result do go just that little bit past plain old dislike.
Still 20, his last two championship games ended in defeat. An undefeated run with the Indiana Hoosiers – in his only collegiate season before being drafted by Minnesota United at age 18 – ended with a 1-0 loss to Stanford in the NCAA Final (known as the College Cup) in 2017. The year before that, his Seton Hall Prep lost the New Jersey High School State Cup Final to Newark East Side.
Still Looking Up
If he’s tasted some of defeat’s agonies, Toye still wins more than he loses. After being loaned out for portions of both his rookie and sophomore seasons in Major League Soccer (to Colorado Springs Switchbacks and USL League One side Forward Madison), he’s settled into the first team in 2019. The striker, who has ambitions of winning a World Cup with the U.S. and some day playing in the UEFA Champions League, learned big lessons away on loan. “It was an important step,” Toye admits of stints in the lower divisions that made him “mentally stronger and work that much harder in the off season.”
