Once Leiweke left MLSE, TFC has slowly reverted back to the old teachers pension fund days. No excitement whatsoever with this club anymore.
I guess we will be dinning on that roof, pitch, and cup win he gave us for the next 10 years
Last edited by Richard; 01-05-2021 at 03:50 PM.
Marky has been posting some Instagram stories recently discussing/showing his recovery. I think his injury at the end of the season was a lot more serious than we/I thought it was.
We have the reigning MLS MVP on our team, one of the highest paid Canadians in the world, convinced our team captain to drop from a DP to a TAM slot, and beginning to integrate some up and coming young players with great ceilings (Akinola, Nelson, Rutty, Priso). It's fair to say we aren't at the same level as our Leiweke days, but the sky is falling rhetoric is overkill.
RT @KristianRDyer: While it is true that #TFC spoke with Patrick Vieira, I'm being told right now that he is not a candidate for the open p…
Has anybody heard ANYTHING about coaches leaving with Vanney? I woulda thought Dan Calichman would go with Vanney. BTW, the TFC website doesn't seem to have updated coaches bios since 2015.
Dan Calichman and Jim Liston (director of sport science) are both joining LAG. https://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/mls...oach-1.5862320
RT @KevLaramee: I can confirm that a contract offer has been sent to Patrick Vieira by #TFClive for the vacant TFC manager position.
Although that would make sense, and may still happen, that's not actually what the CBC article says. It just mentions there are connections, but I don't believe there's any confirmation of the other moves yet. Unless one of you have heard from other sources:
The Galaxy said Vanney's coaching staff will be announced at a later date. It's likely they will include some familiar faces for Toronto fans.
TFC assistant coach Dan Calichman is a former Galaxy captain while Jim Liston, Toronto's director of sport science, served as L.A.'s strength and conditioning coach.
Vanney played at UCLA with Nick Theslof, another TFC assistant coach. The two also worked together at Chivas USA where Vanney was an assistant coach and technical director of the youth academy prior to joining Toronto in 2013 as academy director and assistant GM.
This should probably all go in the "Vanney steps down" thread, but anyway...
This is gold, from TFC's media guy:
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/Eric_Giacometti/status/1346616139141545985
Confirmed in an LA times article.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/socce...ach-rebuilding
Vanney, who said Monday was his first day in his new office at Dignity Health Sports Park, isn’t coming back alone. Dan Calichman — who played beside Fraser and Vanney on that first Galaxy back line, then spent parts of seven seasons as an assistant in Toronto — will join the staff in Carson, as will Jim Liston, Toronto’s director of sports science and a former strength and conditioning coach with the Galaxy and Chivas USA
@KristianJack
Sources: Patrick Vieira is not under consideration to be Toronto FC head coach. Contrary to other reports the Frenchman has not been offered a contract to coach the club. The club have narrowed their search to a shortlist & will be looking to offer a contract soon. #TFCLive
Wouldn’t be surprised if Viera was offered and rejected it and now they’re covering their asses.
I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few weeks, and most of this is really just based off my view on the outside looking in on the TFC FO so take it with a handful of salt. Personally, I think it all comes back to Ali coming across as REALLY unlikeable to anyone who's watched/listened to him speak, at least for me.
There's an all for one episode from I think 2019 on him that looks at his life and career leading up to the TFC hire and Curtis spends the whole time talking as if it were a job interview. I know he's got extensive corporate experience, but even then I don't think I've heard anyone in speak in such a...corporate-y (?) way as him. Hell it's been a while since I was in any office setting now and I've never worked in the areas Curtis has worked in but it's always seemed to me the top businessmen know how to speak business without sounding corporate, and I never ever get that from Ali. And to be clear I only bring the all for one episode up because it made me realize he ALWAYS sounds that way and it points to why I think so many of us on the outside have a hard time trusting him - he just comes across as completely inauthentic.
And the inauthenticity makes it tough to imagine him negotiating with Genk/Vanney/whoever else (not to mention dealing with Marsch) and is compounded when he says "2 weeks" and nothing happens for months, though the 2 weeks thing is definitely not something known as well overall as it is on this board.
It's also not just our fans who don't like him. The Petke firing and the townhall Curtis hosted that followed was such an extensive and fiery shitshow that NYRB fans never seemed to forgive him despite hindsight showing that this was clearly the right move. It feels like a no-brainer now, but at the time Marsch was three years removed from his only coaching experience (a year with an Impact team that made the playoffs after he left) and Petke was (still is) a fan favourite. But I don't think Petke (or virtually anyone in MLS) would have had a chance at the shield with that first post-Henry-era team, so obviously he made the right move. It's also worth noting that a lot of the success of that 2015 team came from signing new players (Kljestan, Kemar Lawrence, Mike Grella) that became the backbone of the team for the next half decade (unsure how many of those signings were Curtis or the RB scouting network but still). And people blaming him for NYRB getting cheaper is ridiculous - they were always going to get cheaper. NYRB in 2015 had just lost one of if not the most celebrated player in the league's history and were now fighting an expansion Man City owned team for the NYC market. It shouldn't be surprising New Jersey has since gone in on building from the academy and young signings and selling them for profit - which is the exact model the other Red Bull owned teams use, albeit a larger scale - versus buying big names like they used to do and like City were now doing. I think it's understood Red Bull hired Curtis because they thought he'd fit their new identity moving forward but they're clearly the ones who spearheaded that identity change, not Curtis.
I'm getting off topic now but my point is I get the feeling Curtis, though the jury is still out on him, is far more competent than he's spoken of here. NYRB were successful with Curtis at the helm, and at least some of that had to have been thanks to him specifically. I think a lot of the criticism of him stems less from what he's done as much as from how he's done it. And I also think people are most worried about his communication skills, which are especially important with big signings, but that's probably come with criticism of other areas which aren't necessarily fair to him.
Moving forward I'm still interested to see if he can improve how TFC's young players are integrated into and developed within the first team based off of how well academy and NYRB2 players have fared in the last half decade.
The young DP thing is still slated to start this season per the athletic
"The terms of the deal would also keep in place plans for an under-22 player initiative set to begin in the 2021 season, the source said. That new discretionary spending category would allow teams to sign up to three players under the age of 22 with no limitations on acquisition costs, as long as the player’s salary is less than the maximum budget charge, which is set to be $612,500 in 2021. The under-22 initiative player signings would then be counted at a reduced budget charge similar to young designated players."
With the U22 thing news, here is Toronto FC being linked to 20 year old Dominik Yankov.
https://twitter.com/futbolbulgaro/st...610130947?s=20
I can't imagine this rumour to be real at this time. He signed a new deal in the fall, is like the youngest starting player at Ludogorets and they rate him quite high.
Ya I see this as a bit of a stretch. He’s highly rated and would seem to have plenty of opportunities in Europe.
Fully capped by Bulgaria too btw
Report: Toronto FC linked with French defender Loïck Landre
https://www.wakingthered.com/2021/1/...r-loick-landre