Not happy about this. I really don't care if it's Messi at this point. We're going to sign a player, loan him back to the club, he'll have a shot at the WC and then a month or so off afterwards... For what? So he's ready to play by end of August? Is this a joke? We need some fucking help NOW and this is the best they can come up with? I'd rather see TL blowing smoke up our asses as long its a January transfer.
Agreed. The wild card is older players need to be more closely monitored and MLS schedules / shallow rosters pose a challenge.
But you can still get huge performances as an older player in secondary leagues like ours. Clarence Seedorf has been an absolute monster in Brazil over the past few seasons.
“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
http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/is-gi...or-toronto-fc/
Molinaro on Gilardino.
“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
We definitely need reinforcements sooner rather than later. It's great news if they're able to sign Gilardino, but I see him more as a reinforcement for 2015. My question then remains: who are we getting to help us avoid another disaster for 2014? Sure, we may still be in contention for the play-offs in August, but if history has taught us anything it's more likely that we'll be completely out of the play-offs by the time Gilardino puts on a TFC jersey. With that we'd likely also have a new coach. That begs another question: will this new coach want Gilardino, or will he trade him away like we did Urutti. Probably not, but either way we've done ZERO so far to prepare ourselves for 2014. That's the status right now.
We'll see if the presser happens. We knew there would be at least one big signing that wouldn't be here till after WC. This doesn't get people invested in a full season of tickets. I'll wait to see how he gets people invested from the season opener still.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
I'm still in denial about Gilardino, and I'm still surprised that Gilardino is considering signing for TFC. This team has been such a shambles that any quality player would want to play for TFC is a shock to me.
Some knock on effects to consider is that, TFC might not even be paying the transfer fee. If Dempsey's transfer fee is paid by MLS, and Seattle is filthy rich, why not TFC? Gilardino would raise the profile of the league just as much as Dempsey, if not more. (Opening up new market for MLS and player pool)
And if TFC gets Gilardino, that news would signal to other potential DP targets that TFC is serious business, maybe some players not for DP too. (Consider this, versus signing some quality, but no name DP from SA)
“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
“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
Yes we know Koev who was just as much a poacher wasn't getting the service he needed to score a lot of goals. /sarcasm.
It's not the service that's an issue. It's that no forward (aside from Oso whose a midfielder for gods sake) made smart runs into the box. When they did find themselves in space, they didn't have the quality to finish their chances. That's the difference.
I think you'll find more than a few people who are willing to challenge on that point.
Whatever the reason the play between the two strikers is never very good. You'd rarely see them combine on anything. You'd also rarely see the strikers connect with the rest of the team. You could blame that partially on movement off the ball, but there is still aboslutely nobody playing in the hole behind the most advanced forward which is a huge problem. Either one striker has to drop deep or we need an out-and-out AM.
I strongly disagree. Our #1 problem is lack of goals. Who will we get in the MLS that will fix that problem for us? We need a Keane or an Henry, a Koevermans who can stay healthy. Yes, I agree we need some MLS guys as well, but we will continue to struggle scoring goals unless we get proven goal scorers - and they're extremely hard to come by in our league. In my opinion we need to get 2 DP's, they can be 1 striker + 1 AM, or 2 strikers. We need AT LEAST 1 super striker to start the season in March. On top of that, yes, we do need some MLS guys to help our team improve. But our #1 problem is goal scoring, and getting a proven goal scorer who can knock the ball in the back of the net like Henry, Keane, or a healthy Koevermans, those guys aren't available through trade in January. Not gonna happen!
Goals are made. Strikers rarely create them on their own. Without service, Henry and Keane are pointless.
you build a team from bottom up, and I'm not convinced TFC is built to sustain a team through long MLS season. you can build a winning MLS team without DPs, if you get the rest of the team right. DPs are suppose to be players that puts an already good team over the top, not the guys you want to rely on primarily.
Top 4 out of 6 goal scorers last year were not DPs.
“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
Well yeah you need service AND good strikers. But the main reason Montreal got off to their great start was because Di Vaio was finishing every little chance he got. Even Mariner got off an OK start because Koef was on form.
TFC badly needs that lethal finisher. We didn't create a lot of chances this year, but if we had a more clinical striker instead of Earnshaw and Braun we would've scored a lot more goals.
think we could pick up Darren Mattocks? Seems trouble is brewing over there. Would give us a dimension we don't have, tho attitude issues may start to override the positives. Rather have him then weeds in terms of speed.
And bringing into Gilardino helps out a lot with regard to this even if we don't have a decent CAM. He compensates by being a decent no.9 who can hold up the ball and bring the midfielders into the game (especially a flat midfield 4). Something we didn't have this year aside from an unfit Dike.
It all points to a lack of quality up front this year. I can't stress how important someone like Gilardino will be to this club, Defoe or not.
“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
More on Mattocks:
http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/jason_de_vos/?id=436064
No thanks.The time is etched in my memory because it was then, at 10:35am, that Darren Mattocks came strolling down the hallway. Big headphones blaring, he didn't look like he had a care in the world. He certainly didn't look like a rookie who was late for the last practice before his first game as a professional soccer player. He bowled on by and walked into the dressing room - the last player to arrive by a wide margin.
This is not what we need. If they couldn't handle Silva's mentality then someone like Mattocks is way outside of what they are capable of coaching.
just tuning into the Tottenham game right now. My dad said something about the announcers mentioning that he will be a Toronto FC player next year. Anyone can confirm? Maybe they were just talking about the rumours?
“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