TORONTO — It’s all over.

A 2-1 loss to the Chicago Fire on Wednesday night officially eliminated Toronto FC from playoff contention in Major League Soccer, condemning the beleaguered franchise to its sixth consecutive year without a single post-season appearance.

French striker Eric Hassli scored for TFC, who remains rooted to the very bottom of the MLS standings with an anemic 5-17-6 record and set a new league mark for the longest playoff drought.

Toronto is now winless in its last eight games in all competitions (two draws and six losses), and last tasted victory on Aug. 1 in the CONCACAF Champions League. Its previous MLS win was almost two months ago.

Coach Paul Mariner painted a bleak picture in the post-match press conference, bemoaning his team for playing as individuals and not as a cohesive unit, and for lacking spirit and fight.

"I’ll tell you what the problem was: it’s all about being a professional in every single aspect of the word. We’re the bottom of the table, we haven’t won in two months (in MLS) and that’s the type of performance you give as a group. There was absolutely no excuse for that first half," Mariner stated.

He later added: "We were the architects of our own downfall."

Mariner went on to call this game the low point of his coaching tenure and stated the opening 45 minutes was one of the worst stretches TFC has played this season.

"The jobs that you’re in, you want to go on and be the best you can possibly be in your field of work. I don’t see that from some of the players. The mentality will change starting tomorrow morning," Mariner promised.

Defender Darren O’Dea agreed with his coach’s assessment.

"When you have one or two players off the pace, you can carry them through at times. But when you have five, six, seven, eight players, you have no chance," O’Dea said.

History will record Sept. 12 as the day TFC was officially eliminated from the playoff race.

The truth, though, is that the death knell was rung back on May 19 when the Reds lost their ninth game in a row to start the campaign, establishing a dubious new league record for futility. There was no coming back after that disastrous start, and TFC have simply been playing out the string ever since.

So it’s all over. But not really.

The Reds still have six MLS games and two Champions League contests remaining, and they have to make do without two of their three designated players — captain Torsten Frings and forward Danny Koevermans who are out injured.

If TFC was an ailing and lame dog, it would have been put down by now. If there was a mercy rule, it would have been applied long ago.

If only it was truly over.

Instead, fans will continue to feel the hurt and endure the embarrassment of watching this team for another six weeks. Or maybe they won’t — an announced crowd of 14, 623 took in the festivities at BMO Field (the smallest attendance for a home game this season), a sure sign that MLSE is going to have its work cut out convincing season ticket holders to renew.

10 minutes to kick off. Sparse. twitter.com/JohnMolinaro/s…

— John Molinaro (@JohnMolinaro) September 12, 2012

With nothing left to play for, what does Mariner hope to achieve over the remainder of the season?

"Find out a great deal about the players and demand that we have a high level of performance from everyone. … It’s all about analyzing (who’s) going to be around next year," Mariner said.

"There’s one thing that you got to have in a football team, and that’s fight. If you don’t fight for the right to play, if you’re not fighting for your own personal pride, then that’s a problem."

Toronto was without midfielder Terry Dunfield (Canada) and forward Ryan Johnson (Jamaica) who were not available after being away on national team duty. Defender Ashtone Morgan, who was on the bench for Canada in Tuesday’s World Cup qualifying loss in Panama, came on as a second-half substitute.

Returning to the lineup were goalkeeper Milos Koic (making his first start since Aug. 18) and Hassli (who missed the last two games with sore ribs).

TFC looked pretty lifeless right from the opening kickoff, and they were duly punished courtesy of a great individual effort by Pavel Pardo.

After a Toronto giveaway, the Chicago midfielder started a quick break that ended with him unleashing a shot from in close that hit the post. Instead of giving up on the play, Pardo outhustled TFC’s stagnant defenders, collected the rebound and then delivered a cross back across the box for Alvaro Fernandez to head home in the 13th minute.

That seemed to wake up the Reds, as they marched back down the field and swarmed the Chicago penalty area, forcing a pair of saves from goalkeeper Sean Johnson.

Toronto continued to press, but Chicago doubled its lead in the 42nd minute, Chris Rolfe scoring from distance after the Reds failed to clear their lines off a corner kick.

The Fire should have made it 3-0 going into halftime off a quick counter-attack that saw Patrick Nyarko blow past Toronto defender Richard Eckersley and break in alone on Kocic before pulling his shot just wide of the far post.

After a truly dreadful opening 45 minutes, Mariner gave his players both barrels in the locker-room during his halftime talk.

"My first statement out of my mouth was that we were (Chicago’s) best player. If you want to give teams a two-goal start, then carry on," Mariner said.

Chicago poured it on to start the second half, and caught TFC napping when Sherjill MacDonald beat the offside trap, only to fire just over the crossbar with Kocic at his mercy.

Toronto salvaged a bit of pride with Hassli’s goal in 79th minute, the Frenchman beating Johnson from inside the box off a feed from Luis Silva.

But that hardly was able to disguise how the poor effort and performance against Chicago was merely a microcosm of this entire ill-fated season for Toronto.

"You can’t get away from it, it’s not good enough. It’s not been good enough for a while," O’Dea stated. "Where do you start? I don’t know but we certainly need to get together and figure it out because the road that we’re on at the minute is so far off anyone’s standards it’s incredible."

NOTES: Toronto returns to action Saturday when it hosts the Philadelphia Union… Chicago leads the all-time series against Toronto, with seven wins and four draws in 14 meetings… The Fire won the previous two matches between the clubs this season…