I've rarely been this pissed since 2014. should have been 6 or 7-2 if the crew could find their shooting boots.
sigh.
How can we increase the urgency in this team? is there anything from a fan perspective we can do? it's all there for us with the other results going our way so if there is anything we can do we should do it.
While I expect wholesale changes this off season, this team has the capacity to do something great. fulfilling that potential will be the hard part.
great teams find a way to win - MB 2017
Watched the entire game and my son (a GK) said Q was to blame on the second goal because he dove backwards for the ball instead of forwards and didn't get his fingertips on it. I can't put my finger on the general malaise of the team (and it *is* a malaise from top to bottom) but there is definitely something fishy going on here. Og's quote from Jozy sums it up: Why do the new guys need to be the ones to give them a lift? Why can't they lift themselves? This team has been mired in rudderless, aimless drifting ever since they achieved the treble and lost on penalties to Chivas. I'm beginning to think that it's time to remove the majority of the players and coaches that helmed the 2017 team and start rebuilding the squad with a new vision that's not looking back wistfully at past glories, but looking forward to new challenges.
Malaise is a good word. But fishes rot from the head - to me it starts with Manning. Or perhaps the decision to have him run the Argos too. If it is arrogance/overconfidence it starts there.
Jozy interview was very interesting "we dont have the attacking quality" . Poz replaced VV - not as good but plays every game, so call it even - still no replacement for Seba. I think that is what Jozy is referring to - so he is essentially calling to the new guys to step up.Or possibly calling out management.
Jozy is simply reminding us, that 2015-2017 was all because of Giovinco, that even during those years, when he missed a game, the team struggled, and were often lucky to win. MLS is like that, add one outstanding player (Vela, Martinez, Giovinco), and you have the making of a great team. TFC front office doesn’t get it. Adding a winger here, a defender there, amounts to a hill of beans in a league characterized by such parity. You want to win, go out and sign another forward who can strike fear into the opposing team.
ANY team? I'd challenge that. There were players equally dominant whose teams didn't win the treble. Giovinco didn't win best player in 2017, and he wasn't the best player.
As much as Vanney hasn't seemed to be able to handle a less than optimum side for much of this year and last, he most certainly made some excellent tactical decisions with a top squad. Best example was in MLS Cup 2017 suddenly surprising Seattle with a different formation than Seattle had trained to play against, they weren't prepared and their 10-men-behind-the-ball strategy was defeated. That wasn't just Giovinco, because Giovinco had been there in 2016 too, that was Vanney thinking through how to do things differently in 2017. The difference between 2016 and 2017 was pure tactics, 100% the coach.
My issue with Vanney isn't with how he manages top players, it's that he often can't be pragmatic when he has a not so great squad due to absences, etc. Sometimes you want to just grind out a win in a less than beautiful way. He sometimes seems incapable of that. He expects secondary players to be Man City, which they are not capable of.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 08-20-2019 at 09:07 AM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
Tactics and VV were the difference in 2017, as to '16.
But, I agree with the general sentiment, here: I think it's like taking the best managers around the world and giving them Derby County's squad to work with; just because they don't fare well with that lot, doesn't make them bad managers… rather that they are suited to a certain build of a team.
We definitely need another Giovinco-type, impact player, else we're likely a mid-table or so team.
I beg to differ. An impact player makes a difference but not the difference. I truly believe we have the talent, although some of them aging out of their positions and need replacing. Our tactics are all wrong and we are not playing to our strengths. We are currently playing to whatever logic Vanney has going on at the moment. Bad coach? Nah, past his best by with this squad? Absolutely
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
That's the problem. I think we have issues in transition both offensive and defensive because we don't really have clear roles like LAFC does. Bradley tends to play close to our defenders because our defense is so scary, although he does get forward sometimes. Oso could be box to box but he tends to pass off the ball instead of moving it forward. So our attackers (Pozo, Altidore) don't get enough of the ball. Meanwhile there is too much pressure on the shaky defense. Problems both ways. We really need a Beitashour type player on defense, that would allow Bradley to get forward and Vanney to play our TAM wingers (who don't have defensive strengths according to him).
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
I'd give a testicle to swap Vanney with Almeyda. He has his team playing freely and with confidence. The Earthquakes are quite entertaining to watch; basically, they're the opposite of TFC.
To be fair, San Jose has at least four players who would walk onto this TFC team.
Giovinco wasn’t the best player? You forget that when he was on the field, he had 3 defenders surrounding him, kicking his shins, grabbing his shirt....his presence altered the game in ways that nobody else on the team could match....he still scored 20 goals in all competitions....he provided the room for Altidore, the first touch that nobody else in MLS could match....My dog could have coached that 2017 team.....this is what Altidore misses....what I miss
C'mon man.. I don't get you people. How quickly people forget the impact this guy had.
Giovinco single handily won us games we had no business winning. On more than 1 occasion.
Put Gio on any team and they are winning an additional 5-6 game minimum - that's a big deal
even if he isn't scoring - As mentioned earlier - he has 2-3 guys on him - leaving the rest of the team open to play much more freely. That's a factor you are not considering in your two examples.
Gio made a difference and would do so on any contending team he's put on.
You shouldn't be such a homer, it's widely recognized that David Villa was a better impact player than Giovinco in 2017, and Martinez was also ahead of him. That's not to discount that Giovinco was huge for us, but our team was not unique.
It's not automatic that TFC would have won. Giovinco didn't guarantee it, neither did the complete squad. There were several strong contenders with equally good squads, especially Seattle which was peaking at the right time.
Vanney's brilliantly executed surprise strategy (which they prepared for weeks in secret) switching to a 4-4-2 diamond for the final shocked Seattle and left them unable to use the bunker strategy that they successfully used in 2016. The 4-4-2 diamond is familiar to us now, but he'd only used it a couple of times early in the season, giving the misleading impression to Seattle that it wasn't on the table. We probably don't have that cup without Vanney.
That's not to say that Vanney is the only coach that could have won the cup or that he necessarily is the right coach for a very different squad today, but to say that your "dog could have won" shows a lack of appreciation for the role of strategy in coaching. There were a lot of games in that run where Vanney did adjustments in strategy that unbalanced our opponents. I think people are forgetting that today as he struggles to get working a lower quality (despite having a few very highly paid players) and unbalanced squad without a clear identity.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 08-20-2019 at 04:32 PM.
Michael Bradley was the best player in both MLS Cup Finals. Know yourself and your enemies and you will be safe for a hundred battles ring true. Seattle lacked width in 2017, which allows us to use a diamond mid to clog the midfield. Of course, it all goes awry if Bradley drops a stinker and allows Seattle’s attack to run wild.
Like any well laid plan, no tactics survive first contact with the enemy. Execution is key as well. You can practice it, but all it takes is one lapse for everything to go awry.
Funny you calling me a homer considering how I regularly criticize this team. Oh well. You have routinely underestimated Seba’s brilliance, even when he was setting league records, amazing free kicks, tough as nails, Oct 2015 Rome then Toronto then playoffs, he was the only player the Mexicans feared, and he showed them they had good reason for it, playing in a foreign land, learning English, playing in stupid sub zero temperatures on a field of painted sand, teaching Morrow, Osorio etc how to play the game, bringing creative one touch football to a team that embraced boring long ball for a decade.....I cherish those memories even if you do not
You got it. I am convinced MLSE brass looks at 10,000 empty BMO seats and wonder if not paying Seba (or another international star), was such a good idea. In order for TFC to be a cup contender again, they need to be better than they were in 2017, and they need to do it with style and exciting football. Perhaps Poz has the makings of another VV, but nobody else on the team except for Altidore, have what it takes to put bums in the seats again.