Not sure why y'all spending so much time for a player who quit on us midseason and will never wear a TFC shirt again.
Move on, he has, you should too.
Not overly convincing, as expected:
http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/mls-m...league-soccer/
I'm sorry but you can't go on a fucking tirade of "woe is me" and "y'all being mean suggesting I'm not committed"........followed by a question asking if he's committed to next year, aka his god damn contract, and the answer is "well, I dunno about next year"
Fuck off.
If you're committed, then say so. Stop this saving face act. Anyone who follows pro sports has seen this song and dance a billion times over. If you can't simply verbally agree to the contract you signed, then why the fuck should we believe you?
Any player who wants to play for a team, will flat out say "I'd love to be back next year." It's that fuckin simple mate, just say it.
They'll both be gone. We'll be better for it.
Prima Donnas don't fit here in Toronto.
Posted earlier on different thread
Just spit my coffee out upon reading this one http://www.torontosun.com/2014/10/23...-drama-sources . Funny how all this stuff is leaking out now after failing to make the playoffs and the final game is approaching. This seems to be a classic blame shifting exercise by management by making Defoe and his mother the story instead of the real story which is management screwed up this season. The info in this story seems to have been spoon-fed from management. Unbelievable that they can't even use propaganda properly by trying to make Defoe the scapegoat instead of themselves with such a clumsy attempt. Sadly this kind of crap will be gobbled down by some. Management screwed up this season and no one else.
"The reds believe they can get more out of Gilberto with the addition of a prominent attacking midfielder"- no shit sherlock, if we had one this season, we'd got a lot more from Defoe and Moore also and probably made the play offs.
They had chances to address this obvious issue during the season and choose not to.
What a fucking twat.
Revisionist history is indeed just that, but I wonder if we would have been a less desirable place to be by cutting Gilberto before he played a game, keeping Laba and accepting that stigma, or going the route we went and the fall out. Does Defoe stay if we're Top 2 in the east?
It's so baffling to me that management knew they were going after a big name and knew there might be players willing to come here based on that name, and yet still locked in an unrelated DP.
Wouldn't be surprised if Defoe's girl is pushing him to go to London too. Probably excited at the prospect of being a glorified wag.
Cutting Gilberto out of the picture before he even played a game, would have looked terrible, and even possibly harmed our franchise reputation further. It'd be like doing a sign-and-trade in the NBA, without the player's knowledge or blessing. And hindsight is 20/20 - we couldn't possibly have known that the Defoe era would end up in such a mess so quickly.
“Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.” ~Christopher Hitchens
^ I think if we really had quality managers, instead of a kid who should be fetching coffee for sr lawyers, a dumb ex-player as a coach, and a circus-huckster president ... They might have figured it out.
To me it sounds like Nelsen gets it in his head Defoe is the guy. Leiweke backs it because of the hype. Bez nods politely because that's his role in the organization.
Someone prudent would have turned over rocks, realized The issues with Defoe and his lack of motivation beyond making the England Squad. The fact they had to chase this guy so hard he clearly didn't want to be here just pointed to the fact the signing was a bad idea. But they went straight to the newspaper scribes to sell stories about what amazing deal makers they are. They can certainly close, I'll give them that, but they are empty headed about how to actually run a team.
I tend to agree. However, I've always felt with Tim L, would cold have got away with cutting Gilberto more than another GM (, again, not that I'm starting a debate on whether that is correct)
But even if Defoe is only half that ass hole that he appears to be, they have to tank his rep and make him look bad as bad as possible the second they find a buyer.
Above all, TFC has to find a way to say, "yeah, but this one wasn't exactly our fault, Defoe was a head case" when trying to woo players. Some of the team mates were fed up with Defoe, we'll see if they player a greater part in the wooing.
I have no doubt that this stuff about his mother was probably leaked by no less than Leiweke himself, to start building the case for him to deflect any "blame", now that it seems inevitable that Defoe will be gone.
Personally, I think he should just own it - "Yeah, we ambitiously swung for the fences on this player, and it just didn't work out for whatever reason. If you want to know why, I suggest asking Jermain. We did what we could to make him comfortable." Slinging shit about his mom, even if 100% accurate, is completely unbecoming.
“Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.” ~Christopher Hitchens
well, TFC has never been a club associated with the word 'class'.
we're going to get a lot of grasping of straws and blame game next couple of weeks.
MLSE is furious that TFC missed the playoffs, and Bez especially is trying to survive. No one is going to man up and take the blame. If anything, Defoe and Nelsen are going to get a lot of poo flung at them.
“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
FWIW, Larson indicated he was working on that story for 3 months. Not sure what that means except that somebody somewhere was talking to somebody about Defoe's Mom back when Nelsen was around and we were still in 3rd. Maybe a crack in an OTR interview with an agent or a player down in Brazil got Larson digging?
i.e. Sure TL gets a lot of spin potential out of this and he's likely the one who filled in the puzzle pieces for Larson. But, there is somebody else wanting to tell this story as well, and that somebody started it back in at least July.
Well in fairness, Bradley was suppose to be that attacking midfielder, but Osorio, Bekker, Warner etc were just not capable of holding in CDM. Also let's not act like Bradley was good the last half of the season. He was great to begin the year but for reasons he was just not very good at all to the end the season. Bekker, Warner, Osorio just don't cut in this league, no IQ and and not athletic enough. This league is taking a massive step forward and better quality is needed. My grandpa watches soccer religiously probably over 10,000 matches he's of course retired and watches it all week long and on the weekend and when I turned on the TFC game he picked out Osorio and said no IQ... He's right - you either have or you don't. His work rate is what's kept him in this league but there is no potential here.
I am honestly surprise to see/hear how much pampering went on to make Defoe and his family happy in Toronto. So I am not surprise that Defoe's family (his mother in this case) played a major role to get Defoe back to England.
I am glad that Defoe is gone, hopefully next DP signing doesn't need much pampering to feel special.
Imagine if TFC had gotten David Villa... He alone would draw another 5000 fans per game - i'm not kidding. The spanish are crazy for soccer here.