The job New England is doing of identifying talent that is both dominant and has future value (Buchanan, Buksa, Bou, Brandon Bye -- they have some serious luck with the letter 'b ) makes Manning's admission of just picking the best Italian he could find who was on a free sort of embarassing.
I mean, I still can't believe he admitted that in public. It takes a certain degree of charmed life and disconnection from the reality of performance beyond schmoozing to admit your recruitment strategy is just to wave the biggest handful of cash.
You are correct.
But to be fair, not that comparable.
Ontario demographics for foundational 'Spanish' heritage population, and not NA/CA/SA Latin or LatinXs, is in the few thousands.
Whereas Italians are around a million+ depending on sources.
More a question of player brand equity and capitalizing on a marketing potential; how a player transcends across football cultural markets.
While I love Poz and JJ, they do not have- cross a threshold, never had, that kind of intrinsic necessity level of marketing quality or value.
I suspect Poz or JJ did not by their signing alone increase SSH's in any notable degree.
I suspect Giovinco did.
I suspect MBradley and Altidore may have also to a limited extent.
But those numbers may have been masked by the Bloody Big Deal/Defoe campaign; Edit which did.
Last edited by Mr. Inbetween; 07-02-2022 at 01:44 PM.
Criscito in training yesterday...
Lorenzo still returning from that calf injury - worked out inside as against with the team - they are being cautious.
https://www.torontofc.ca/video/train...ey-july-1-2022
38-year-old Ricardo Quaresma is available on a free if Manning wants to appease another ethnic community. (I joke but he'd surely be an upgrade on the right wing.) Joao Moutinho (the real one, not the Orlando one) is out of contract too if these guys only come in pairs now.
any rumours?
I hope so. I'm a little worried if they expect 2-4 more signings that none are so set in stone yet that they could be announced. Maybe he's trying to get max PR benefit for next week but it feels a little more like they have people weighing offers but uncommitted.
That's a little worrisome, as our window is opening a few days after most others. Then again, these will be contracts where the money is more of an issue as they're not blowing the doors out and offering them $15M a year.
I am just perplexed how Manning does not get canned? He made this mess (Curtis, Armas, etc) and it continues. Just because of MLSE deep pockets, he gets to stay? Anyone could manage better than him.
Has anyone done less with more than Manning?
I get MLSE and for the Leafs winning isn't critical, the seats are filled no matter what, but here, the seats aren't filled.
PS the "Italian" strategy for demographics I guess works here and Gio was excellent and Insigne hopefully will be, but how about if we want techinical footie, we bring in some Croatians for once? Since the glorious Metros Croatia NASL winners of 76, and one on the Blizzard back in the very early days, Toronto hasn't had one....imagine we had like a Mario Manduzkic here before he hung them up, he be banging in goals left right and centre....
Belotli - Monaco
Bernardeschi - Roma
Layrea - Championship, Belgium, Netherlands
Holiett - ?
Trades ?
Sounds like all the TFC rumored players are signing with other clubs then who are the so called signs that Manning has brought up in interviews.
https://twitter.com/GalindoPW
Just finished the #VWFC game. One nugget from the TSN broadcast: Doneil Henry is set to leave #LAFC. Could a homecoming be on the cards?
And there he goes.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/LAFC/status/1543655819245281285?s=20&t=O9UcRYxwNQZh3DsY7VACog
Id agree with that. Criscito apparently speaks good English so maybe he can lead the line a little. we could run a back 3 with him, Salcedo and Mavinga, with O’neill mcnaughton henry as the back ups.
the 343 forest used last year would be interesting, with insigne—jimenez—poz as the three forwards. it would deal with our transition issues somewhat if we had to play through the midfielders instead of trying to bypass them constantly.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Westburg xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx Salcedo xx Mavinga xx Criscito xxxxxxxxxxx
Thompson xx Bradley. xx Osorio xx Petrasso
xxxxxx Pozuelo xx Jimenez xx Insigne
Oso and Bradley have to play the double pivot, while Petrasso and Thompson have to take a similar approach by tilting the field to the strong side.
For this to be effective we’d need two starting wingback as Luca and Kosi aren’t ready yet.