2016 MLS Playoffs: Sebastian Giovinco leads Toronto FC to 7-0 aggregate win of NYCFC

There's no reason to laugh. None whatsoever. No reason at all why fans of the New York Red Bulls should be amused or even moderately cheered at the playoff misfortune of another team.

RBNY's 2016 MLS playoffs ended in a fair-and-square loss to Montreal Impact. No great complaint; certainly no reason to celebrate some other club's achievements in a completely different playoff series.

The NYCFC-TFC Eastern Conference semifinal only had relevance to RBNY if RBNY managed to get by Montreal to face one or other of those teams in the Eastern Conference final. Since RBNY lost, the result of the other Eastern Conference match-up is largely irrelevant.

And the second leg of the series, at Yankee Stadium, became less interesting to the neutral when Toronto FC won the first leg, 2-0. And it was much less interesting when Sebastian Giovinco opened the scoring in the Bronx in the sixth minute: a 3-0 aggregate lead including an away goal; NYCFC would need four goals to win.

Then Giovinco bagged a penalty in the 20th minute: NYCFC needed five goals. Jozy Altidore scored in the 30th: NYCFC went in at half-time needing to score six in the second half to get to the next round of the playoffs.

Jonathan Osorio scored for TFC in the 50th minute, and Toronto was just dancing on the grave of an already-dead series.

With a 6-0 lead on aggregate, there was really only one remaining shred of interest for the neutral: could TFC make it a 7-0 win on aggregate? TFC could. Giovinco bagged his hat-trick goal in the 91st minute, rounding the score out to 5-0 to Toronto. And condemning NYCFC to a 7-0 aggregate defeat in its first-ever MLS playoff series.

And there is nothing funny at all about NYCFC losing 7-0. Nothing funny in the slightest.