unlike hockey, there is a strong grassroots soccer in pretty much any part of North America. MLS's main financial goal is to get that big money TV contract, and to do that, you need viewership all over America.Originally Posted by ag futbol
and unlike hockey, I think it's easier for 'small' market teams with good ownership to be successful in MLS.
I don't see any other city having a 2nd team, until MLS gets to sustainable pro/rel, with good number of teams to support it.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
I'm not sure about this. Other than having an Italian-Canadian (and Saputo is more like, Italian-Quebecois) owner, couple of Italian players, does IMFC really say 'Italian calcio' to you guys?
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
I don't think the critics in this thread would argue that withholding sources is bad journalism per se. The point I would mention is that making it a perpetual exercise (Rollins) could be seen as bad journalism and compromising to the subject of their content (TFC). It's sort of like cry wolf if you do it enough. Sports journalism has opinion attached to it more than other news that's just the way it is, which is why sourcing, when possible- which it usually is, still has importance. Otherwise it's not even sports news, it's an opinion piece supported with gossip. Aka blogging not journalism.
This is, more or less, the nature of the business.
Nobody is going to throw their career in the garbage can so a reporter can find out a star player is being traded on deadline day. There’s no strong ethical pull or underlying reason that would allow people to go public. The whole transaction is about quid pro quo. You keep me in the loop and I’ll keep you in the loop.
This isn’t about the sports journalists, it’s about your preferences. You want facts and not grey area. Everybody does, but sometimes you can’t have it. I’d like to know if my next project at work is going to lead to a promotion, but nobody’s going to make life that simple. So if you want information on player moves you can either a) accept that sources will be anonymous and stories will occasionally be wrong b) get out of the game and wait for the official press releases
Consistently public sourced sports journalism on everyday player movements and signings? Hell will freeze over before that happens. The best thing you'll get is reporters with a strong filter of what they'll report, but you'll still be relying on their judgement and they'll never be infallible.
Can we please rename this thread "TFC 2013-2014 Off Season General Discussion Thread", and then create a thread entitled, "TFC 2013-2014 Player News/Rumors Thread - NO DISCUSSION - Post must contain a link"......?
This thread is always useless.
Especially with a 3 million dollar cap as opposed to a 50+ million dollar cap.
HERE HERE!!!!!
Great idea!
And neither it should, like TFC they are a Canadian club, not Italian or Portuguese, and who have to appeal to the whole community.
A good description of motives and pragmatics, but it's still blogging. I certainly don't expect regular sourcing, though reading other sports columns I'd say divulging facts isn't totally dead.
You can also source indirectly simply by adding detail, providing source material is any good to begin with. Eventually vagueness and gossip become the same thing. Sure, protecting is reasonable, but it doesn't require precedent in every circumstance, which as a practice is no better than internet Anonymous.
Last edited by nonc; 11-15-2013 at 09:10 AM.
http://www.insidefutbol.com/2013/11/...PJ1qY2L13gS.02
Samuel Eto'o in talks with TFC
That article is 4 days old and he's since said he's not interested. Of course, he could be playing it down while he's in blue.
Exactly. I hate all this European crap! But however, I understand why this club was made how it was since British football is more popular and what a lot of people in Canada can relate to the most. If TFC was build like Impact (Italian oriented), then a lot of soccer fans will feel not wanted except Italian and Serie A fans.
But that being said, if want to get rid of this ethnic issues, then we need to invest into player development locally so we don't have to go to Europe, USA or South America to sign players.
Last edited by TFC07; 11-15-2013 at 10:31 AM.
And that's what we have been doing since the inception of the academy program. However as DeVos stated in the TSNFC podcast it doesn't help when TFCFO is giving no help to other teams and academy's. They've just been pillaging there players away with no help. That I believe has a lot to do with the fact that most of the FO was corporate guys that put more emphasis on selling tickets and sponsorships then helpng out local clubs.
We didn't even have proper football minds running the pro team, so there would be no mechanism to help out local youth teams available. This relationship has to be fixed and is probably the reason why there is so much reluctance on the part of these soccer insiders in the GTA to hinder players coming here.
The mess has to be fixed.
You know the sad, beyond Football aspect of most of what's been mentioned in the past few pages of this thread is that certain ethnic groups consider themselves from "Country X" rather than Canadian. I know people like this personally and even when our team was on it's "fill the team with Canucks to make the forum goers happy" kick a few years back these folks still didn't care for the team (or our national team for that matter). With people like this you can never win so I'd rather us never build a team to suit a certain group who would most likely never support the team anyway.
Thoroughly disagree. There is a huge difference in the depth of interest in soccer depending on where you are.
I'd buy this, except Real Salt Lake is a success, and I don't think anyone thought Salt Lake City as a soccer city. Or KC for that matter.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
I don’t think his point is being an “Italian” club per say, but more so the club adopting a mentality that is somewhere in the ballpark of what people in these ex-pat communities understand about soccer. It’s not easy.
Utah has favorable youth participation rates and would rank in the top 1/3 of states when it comes to Latino population as a % of total population. It's not what you think it is.
Look at participation rates by state, or anything else that will measure the depth of interest in the sport. The percentages vary wildly.
There's a difference between being a Supporter and being a Sucker.
make sure you don't fall into that second group
Put a winning team on the pitch and watch how quick they'll gravitate.
Ultimately, I believe most football fans in this city will support a winning team, regardless of the ethnic background of the players on the roster.
That being said, I understand Tim Leiweke's strategy in targeting a marquee Italian DP from a marketing standpoint. The Italian community has been somewhat reluctant to adopt TFC as a domestic club. Our abysmal track record and the level of play in MLS has most certainly played a part. However, I think signing a player of the ilk of a Gilardino would do wonders for the organization in order to cultivate a larger fan base within the substantial demographic market of Italian football supporters in the GTA.
The ethnic debate is a tough one because things can get personal.
I'm Italian but I don't need an Italian mentality team. I was happy when we were trying to implement the Ajax (Dutch) model.
I was happy when we tried to make a German intl the centrepiece of the midfield.
Not because I think Dutch and Germans are the best in the world, but rather because I think we need to adopt a model or culture that has seen success.
Canada has no footballing culture or mindset. So that's not an option.
The US has a new one which seems to be a mix of several schools of thought fed by the NCAA and more directly, their domestic league in. MLS.
We could go that way but that would mean we abandon the upbringing of Canadian players because they're not domestics.
Soooooooooo....we have to look elsewhere for the model.
And I just think that we should have looked to mentalities and cultures that produce good results.
Instead the club catered to the likes of the biggest group of footballing fans in Toronto and hired, designed and signed people, players, kits, stadiums with a UK flavour in mind.
The problem is it hasn't worked. Yet we've reverted back to the same archaic thinking.
And it's a tough subject to talk about because people take it as some kind of xenophobic bashing when, in reality, it's not about bashing the nation or region as a whole, but bashing the football that comes out of that region.
And we're not allowed to talk about it but if you go in to a cafe full of Greeks, Portuguese, Italian, German etc football lovers and ask them why they don't love TFC the answers are pretty much the same.
TFC not only doesn't represent the city (which in fairness would be very hard to do) but they've also chosen to adopt a mentality of a footballing culture that produces little or no results.
It's the equivalent of an NHL expansion team having the choice to build based on Canadian, US, Russian, Swedish or Czech hockey mentality and, instead, choosing Denmark.
Sure..Denmark ices decent teams from time to time but if you were starting from scratch why would you overlook all those better options in an attempt to cater to fans of the Danish league?
It makes no sense.
The Greek success in World Football is a pretty slim resume.
I would also say that with the exception of maybe SKC and RSL, MLS teams play blood and thunder English Championship level style football. Its just we have had rather hopeless teams so the hoof and hope has been our only way...this might change next season. One thing I can say is Laba as destroyer is almost unknown as a type in England. Holding midfielders yes - attacking the ball constantly DMs, not so many. That gives me hope for future change.
Last edited by OgtheDim; 11-15-2013 at 02:08 PM.
Wrong. 2013 MLS teams have very varied styles. very few teams play traditional 4-4-2. A lot of MLS teams seems to favour 4-4-2 diamond.
Then you get Mtl with 4-1-4-1 w/ regista. Vancouver, Portland and SKC play 4-3-3. New England plays 4-2-3-1. And a lot of teams aren't afraid to change formation anymore.
MLS still has emphasis on direct passing especially on counters, but more teams want to play possession based game now. I think only teams that play 'English' 4-4-2 are San Jose and TFC, maybe Chicago and Philly, and SJ and TFC are trying to evolve away from flat 4-4-2.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
All the people I know from my local pubs are all UK born and raised and none of them follow or give a shit about TFC or MLS because they regard it as conference level at best. Some even say that kids leagues in Europe have better footballers. That, more than anything else, is the real reason most of the football supporters from various Euro ethnicities don't follow TFC. Because the game here is obviously at a lower standard than what they can watch from back home on TV makes MLS worthless to them. And we're not taking TFC either. I watched the SKC Vs Houston match last week with them and all they could do was compare both squads to youth teams in Scotland. It's ignorant for sure but it's that Euro arrogance that fuels most of these people's apathy towards our league regardless of the style of play or success of whatever team.And we're not allowed to talk about it but if you go in to a cafe full of Greeks, Portuguese, Italian, German etc football lovers and ask them why they don't love TFC the answers are pretty much the same.
The irony being that either of those teams would run rings around most SPL teams, and would even give Celtic a run for their money.
Hey now, leave Greek Jesus out of this.
I often get the impression that none of you have watched the English Championship and just assume that "one level below the prem" is about MLS standard. It's not. The top half of the Championship would destroy any team in this league while the TFC and Chivas level teams would still struggle against the Oldham's and Bradford's of league one.
And it all comes down to fundamentals. The reason why Aaron Winter had our team doing basic training when he arrived is because things like positioning, vision and putting the right weight on a pass are absent from the game over here.
The same Celtic that lost 1-0 to Barcelona last month after going down a man? I feel what you're saying, but I have to disagree that MLS talent is quite at that level just yet.
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