http://www.torontofc.ca/news/2012/07/toronto-acquires-eric-hassli Toronto FC announced Friday that the club has acquired forward Eric Hassli from Vancouver Whitecaps FC in exchange for Toronto’s first round pick in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft along with an international roster spot through the 2013 season. Hassli will be considered a Designated Player and occupy an International Roster spot. Rennie keeps shipping offensive players away.
Couple of questions if anyone can answer: Toronto had four open International spots. They traded one and Hassli takes up one. So they are down to two open,no? Vancouver's acquired international spot would be presumably used on a transfer or trade?
Hassli was on the bench, got out performed by our young guns all year. That being said, Hassli is a elite talent in this league, he has game changing capability's, and was a fan favorite. this trade will bite us in the ass. Even tho the return is very nice
it's one thing to be outperformed, another to get into games every three weeks. i like mattocks, but how you can play with a single striker who is a rookie remains questionable imo. i tried saying that a while back but someone answered that hassli is slow. whatever. as for the return on the trade, this draft pick may not be as high as it looks if the 'new' tfc goes on a run.
I think soon as Koevermans was out for the year everyone in Canadian soccer circles saw this move coming. I'm sad that Hassli is gone since he brought a lot of good memories for us but it seemingly had to be done. He's a bit wasted on the bench.
Trade makes sense. Toronto needed someone to replace Koevermans and it is way too late in the transfer window to find a reasonable replacement. Vancouver was never going to use Kenny Miller and Hassli together, so one of them was going to be on the bench and you can't have a 335k bench player in MLS. The biggest question is where does this leave TFC for next year. I can't see having Koevermans and Hassli up top together, so I'm thinking one of them has to go next year.
Makes sense for both sides. The problem I see with Vancouver is their midfield. I still don't get why they dumped Lee Nguyen before the season even began, and then sold Chiumiento a few weeks ago.
That and Salgado will be coming back next year. He was turning into a regular starter on the wing before his injury. He'll be starting next year for sure and probably playing up front as well for some matches.
So we just spent $250k to get a 3rd DP and now we trade one away? Something else better be in the works, otherwise this is just stupid timing from the FO.
Seriously, you ship out Hassli, Le Toux, Chiumiento and Tan in favor of 2 Scotsmen in their mid 30's? Oh wait, nevermind, I forgot about Richards. You definitely needed an extra dose of skill - less speed in case Mattocks wasn't enough. Rennie's eradication of attacking soccer is not over yet folks. Only after he drops Camilo will this become the most boring team in MLS.
Yeah, in addition to shipping out some quality players, the team has gotten pretty old. Vancouver has to have one of the oldest starting lineups now in the league, with only Mattocks, Camillo and Koffie being under 27 years old and 5 starters over 33: Miller (33) Mattocks (22) or Camillo (24) Richards (29) Koffie (21) Robson (33) Davidson (29) Rochat (29) Bonjour (27) DeMerit (33) Lee (35) Cannon (37) They do have Salgado out injured as one other youngster who was playing a fair amount, but the core of this team is surprisingly old. They play all their home games on astroturf, that can't help some of these older guys stay healthy either.
Well, if the new Scotsman attacks as much and as well as Robson did the other night, I might not leap to the conclusion that this is evidence of Rennie going conservative. I have been heretofore critical of the dual Scottish DP approach, but Robson was quite good last time out. Happy for Hassli.
Not to mention they play at least 2-5 road games on turf a season as well (Portland/Seattle/NE). That's a lot of wear and tear on those older players. Vancouver is obviously in win NOW and/or next season mode. Although integrating the new players in the last 13 games it will be difficult to form team chemistry in such a short period of time.
Not necessarily. If the trade was being worked on MLS may not have made them pay the money. Similar thing happened when Seattle brought in a 3rd DP (either Nkufo or Fernandez, can't remember which) but traded Ljungberg within a couple days. MLS didn't charge them the 250k despite the fact they technically had 3 DPs.
Since it is a 2014 1st round pick, TFC has quite awhile to gear up for making that run. I can understand trading away Hassli's cap hit, but also doing Le Toux?? You'd think they'd keep him around as a lucky rabbit's foot or something... trading away depth just tempts the football gods to pull a few hammies and tweak a few quads. Trust me.
He has 12 goals in 44 matches, three of which were penalties. He's a decent striker, but his penchant for spectacular goals and his DP status lead to him being a bit overrated.
So? The Whitecaps used their spot in the order to pick up Nguyen. Nguyen joined the team in preseason. The Whitecaps released Nguyen, losing him for nothing. The Revolution picked him up and he has been quite good for them. Could the Whitecaps midfield really not have used him? Even if that was the case (it's not), they couldn't have got something of value in return for him instead of losing him for nothing? If your Whitecaps fandom keeps you from seeing how strangely the whole Nguyen thing was handled, then I don't know what to tell you. Or maybe there is a reasonable explanation for the whole thing, in which case I'd like to hear it.