ORLANDO

There’s no love lost between Toronto FC and the Montreal Impact, a pair of sides scheduled to meet Wednesday night for TFC’s penultimate pre-season game in Tampa.

The Reds, you’ll recall, were — as club president Bill Manning put it — “embarrassed” in a 3-0 playoff shellacking from the Impact last October. They’ve been working to repair their image ever sense.

Like it or not, TFC bench boss Greg Vanney should expect the tension to be ratcheted up yet again with jobs on the line and pre-season coming to an end.

“I don’t think we need to get into that in pre-season,” Vanney said following Tuesday training. “I’d rather us just get off the field healthy and get some repetitions for what we want to do.”

Getting healthy took on a slightly different meaning Tuesday afternoon when star striker Jozy Altidore felt tightness in his hamstring near the end of training.

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The 26-year-old managed to avoid injury concerns through two friendlies with the United States earlier this month but won’t participate in Wednesday’s game.

“He pulled up. He was feeling tight,” Vanney said of Altidore. “We were about to shut down the session anyways. All things considered, it was time to shut him down. He was feeling a bit tight in general when he came off. We’ll assess him and see where he’s at.”

Altidore joins Steven Beitashour (quadriceps), Collen Warner (hamstring) and Marky Delgado (groin) on TFC’s injury list.

Beitashour and Delgado are expected to resume training early next week while Warner is a long shot to be available come opening day.

“As we get into the season it’s about getting healthy and it’s about keeping guys healthy,” Vanney said. “Getting as many guys on the field together as often as possible has always been the challenge.”

In addition to that list, Sebastian Giovinco sat out of training Tuesday after being “banged up” in Toronto’s 2-1 pre-season loss to Orlando City on Sunday.

While the Atomic Ant won’t dress for Wednesday’s game, he should return in time for the weekend — a match Vanney says TFC will “focus” on as a simulated MLS game.

In preparation, the Reds continued to labour over defensive schemes during Tuesday’s session, which was full of stops and starts and focused on tactics and positional understanding.

Centre backs Drew Moor and Damien Perquis were vocal at the back in helping to organize the midfield pressure in front of them.

From across the field, Michael Bradley barked orders at draft pick Tsubasa Endoh before pulling him aside post-training for a quick one-on-one.

Vanney and his staff were quick to correct tiny imperfections in the amount of pressure that was being applied when the opposition was in possession.

“We’re starting on the road for eight games,” Vanney explained. “We want to be sound defensively. We have good attacking players and we’ll start to build in more attacking things.”

For now, though, this Orlando leg of pre-season has been about fixing what went wrong last year — conceding an astronomical 58 goals in the regular season.

Back in Toronto, meanwhile, general manager Tim Bezbatchenko is looking to address the club’s cap situation. It’s believed the Reds need to shed a salary or two to become salary cap-compliant with the league.

Luke Moore, who remains away from the team, is likeliest to leave. But it’s unclear under what mechanism that will be.

A trade, while possible, doesn’t seem likely considering Moore’s relatively high wages.

And waiving the Englishman does no good unless another MLS club is willing to pick up a piece of his salary. There remains a small chance Moore returns to the team for at least a portion of the season.

The Reds have already shopped other attacking players during the off-season but nothing has materialized from those discussions.

As a result, the possibility exists that TFC might need to discard — or trade — a solid piece in order to become cap-compliant before the start of the season.

“If we really are in a pinch and the league is saying, ‘you have to do something,’ you have to find a way to do whatever that something is,” Vanney said.

“For us it’s about trying to keep the pieces we really need to keep together and build from that.”

The Reds currently have a glut of midfield talent and a healthy serving of central defenders. They’re only sellers at this point in the season — especially with guys like Endoh and, potentially, Molham Babouli looking for first-team deals.

With Bezbatchenko scheduled to arrive in Tampa ahead of Wednesday’s game, decisions are being made.

And a potential injury to Altidore might impact which players remain.

DAMON A BIG SOCCER FAN

The heck with baseball.

Retired MLB all-star Johnny Damon has turned his attention to the Beautiful Game.

Damon, a 42-year-old two-time World Series champ, took in Toronto FC training Tuesday afternoon at the club’s training facility outside Orlando — and joked with the Toronto Sun about wanting to play for a 17th major league season.

He didn’t hesitate to talk about his fondness for a sport he now plays and appreciates.

Ex-Yankee Johnny Damon took in TFC traing today in Orlando. @MLSpic.twitter.com/PgOPIurPQr — Kurtis Larson (@KurtLarSUN) February 23, 2016

“Just being able to stay focused and watch an entire baseball game (is difficult) as compared to a soccer game,” Damon said. “Plus, there are maybe one or two soccer games a week.

“You can pay attention a lot more. I mean, baseball is tough (to watch) until playoff time for me. Ten teams make the playoffs and the season is 162 games.

“Soccer and American football is what I like to pay attention to.”

He follows local side Orlando City, too.

“We’re one of those towns where if you win the fans are going to come out,” Damon said. “If you have a superstar, people will come out and watch in Orlando.

“I think soccer will do better than football here in Orlando, believe it or not.”

When the conversation turned to the international game, Damon dropped some serious knowledge.

“Is Cyle Larin going to be with Canada?” Damon asked, referring to the fact he was speaking with a Canadian journalist.

Larin, a Toronto-born Canadian striker currently with Orlando City, is expected to play a massive role for Canada in next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Mexico.