The hell with it. Even though the season's not officially over yet, now seems like a good time to start the off-season news thread. Seems like a lot of vitriol will be spewed here, if it hasn't been already in other threads. Have at it.
There are a lot of player who will be in the squad the weekend that I hope we won't see when it comes time to start the season in March 2013
The only way TFC will be able to bring in players is through the draft and trades, in which case they'll be stiffed by the trading teams given that everyone knows how shite we've been this season and how desperate we will be to upgrade. No free agents are going to want to come to TFC with Anselmi and Cochrane leading the charge... as much as I love the club, we've established a horrid reputation in terms of treatment of players and standard of coaching. Its so unfortunate - we have a great city, a great core of fans who love the club, but disappointment seems to be all that we are rewarded with. Bring in a real president with real football knowledge and connections to lead the charge. I would even believe that Mariner might even be able to do a good job if there was a strong president presiding over the team's direction and vision. Get rid of Cochrane who has proven he cannot do the job, and bring in a GM that know how to bring in talent without handcuffing the club's salary cap. Winter should never have been fired - he was promised 3 years to deliver a vision and competitive team, and he only got 50% of that time. The results weren't there yet, but I enjoyed the way the team was playing, and I could see real progress. Like all good coaches in any sport will say when changing the way an athlete plays - you will always get worse before becoming good - he never got the chance to get to the "good" phase. A proper football president would've given Winter the whole 3 years.
Yeah, a real president is our number-one need. Peter Wilt and Erik Soler are a couple names I've seen talked about, and I think they both could work.
Thomas Rongen. Knows the NA soccer system top to bottom, knows the league, and knows the system that we're supposed to be playing (but aren't) That's the whole point of hiring a president rather than just a GM. A president would have the power to make decisions without the approval of Anselmi. We, the fans, just have to press them to give us someone like that and not settle with them giving us another in experienced guy.
Good call, I completely forgot about him. So TFC can promote Rongen or try to get either Wilt or Soler on board. Three choices that actually have a decent shot at working. They'd be idiots not to try
This is MLSE your talking about. They've already proved over the last six years that they are idiots when it comes to setting up a proper FO for this team
Don't know if it qualifies as off-season news or not, but it looks like TFC is having those off-season pub crawls again. Pretty brave of them, given the fan sentiment these days. But then again maybe it is meant to try to rebuild the spirit of 2007 again: http://www.torontofc.ca/tfc-pub-crawls
Broken record time. The team under Winter was finally starting to get some results. That coincided with the return to game fitness of some key players. Winters should have been given more time as like many i was enjoying how as a group they were starting to play. Winters wasn't given this opportunity and Mariner was put in charge. We continued to get results although the style of play was not to my liking. Then, our best got reinjured, Soolsma was sent packing and the wheels started to come off. No one really to blame given the randomness of injuries. Hard to manage around this. Given the difficulty of developing depth in MLS we were done. Likely would not have mattered who was at the helm given this. Mariner though has gotten more and more frustrated and has gone from being a cheerleader to an angry leader. He may have gone to far to being able now to be an effective leader.
End of year press conference going on right now --> http://www.torontofc.ca/live Almost everyone is trying to be optimistic, though some are more than others.
Only thing I really enjoyed hearing was Frings is looking to come back by the time pre-season comes around in February.
That time of year where rumors of players coming into and out of the club during the off-season. First one being linked to our club is striker Eamon Zayed http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/league-of-ireland/zayed-set-to-stay-abroad-3287973.html
I remember seeing rumors (can't remember where) that we had a Bermudan striker and a pair of Brazilian twins who used to play for Cal FC, all on trial. The quality of players Mariner is looking for is so low it makes me want to cry
Rumours are rumours of course, so you need to take these things with a grain of salt. But it seems that Mariner and Cochrane do most of their scouting in Bermuda, so the Bermudan striker rumour sounds completely plausible.
According to twitter Mariner suppose to start bringing down the axe on a few player next week after his scouting trip from Europe, really interested to see how many and who are going to be released from the club
Found it. The twins: http://www.canada.com/sports/Cupboa...inale+Montreal+comes+visit/7417337/story.html And here, the Bermudan and a single man who apparently forms a pretty big chunk of PM's scouting network: http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20121016/SPORT01/710169900
Harden is screwed for sure. Same with Williams. Cordon and MakuBOOYAH I expect to be playing in the CSL pretty soon. Kocic, Cann and Avila will probably be traded, but it wouldnt surprise me to see Mariner stupidly just release them too.
Mariner wont release them. He'll trade them for discovery signing spots (since there's a limit) so that he can sign more Bermudans
Looks like Hassli is hoping to stay on with the club, now does management want to keep him though the prospect of a Kovermans/Hassli strike force is very mouthwatering. http://www.torontofc.ca/news/2012/11/hassli-hopes-extend-stay?
In an interview on sports net just now I think Mariner said Frings is training with Breman. Not certain as he slurred through the sentence. anyone know for sure?