Today's News : Friday July 19

[TOBOR !]

Good afternoon :

Nelsen: TFC will improve once salary cap is sorted

meh.

Sunshine

[TOBOR !]

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[tfcmanu]

MLSE boss Tim Leiweke begins era by burning bridges to Maple Leafs past

http://www.thestar.com/sports/2013/0...%2Fsports.html

His highest near-term hopes and largest heaping of scorn are saved for Toronto FC. Leiweke is comfortable in all three of his worlds, but seems most conversant when it comes to soccer.

“We can fix (TFC) quicker than the other two because it’s more free-wheeling. In the NHL, there’s no Stanley Cup that does not come from the draft. You cannot free-agent your way to a Stanley Cup.

“MLS is a little different. Much of that roster has to be made up of trades.”

Speaking more generally about the moribund soccer team, Leiweke is ruthless in his assessment of its first seven years.

“We disrespected the fans by not giving the kind of players that teams like New York and L.A. are signing. The fans act like New York and L.A. We acted like . . . well, I’m going to piss somebody off here . . . ” — he almost names the city that pales next to his new home, before thinking better of it — “ . . . like a small-market team.

“We changed the entire league’s opinion of the viability of soccer in North America. And then we blew it because we chickened out. When we could take the big dives, we always found the ‘B’ player. We found guys that we thought, ‘Well, he’s not David Beckham, but he’s awful good.’ No, he’s not. Why not get the ‘A’ guy?”

Off the record, Leiweke names two “A” guys the team is currently pursuing. Both are massively expensive, major international stars.

We’ll see in the next little while if Mohammed, Cope and the rest of the board meant what they said about Beckham at that initial meeting, because now they’re being asked.