Well it was the turf, then it was the grass. Next it was the coach(es). Next the management. Dissatisfied players, (Cunningham, De Ro). Injuries and the refs, the fans and rules. Yep!! We have blamed everything. HOW ABOUT THE PLAYERS WE HAVE AND HAVE HAD NOT BEING GOOD ENOUGH. Yes we have had some good ones and do now but the majority are not. We can't beat the bottom teams and generally, but not always, are out played. If Vancouver, Montreal can achieve greater success then we can IF WE GET BETTER PLAYERS.
I blame MLSE, their record of failure is spectacular. It's got to be close to a decade since any of the teams has had a winning record. What's management going to do, fire themselves?
Yes, let's just replace all the players with new ones. Because the revolving door strategy has worked so well for us through the past 6 seasons.
Yeah. Don't think the players are the issue. For sure there's a couple that can be replaced, but the trick in the MLS is to make do with what you have. I look around at some of the other clubs and man-for-man we're not much worse off. Wish it were that easy as replacing players. No, the problem is deeper than that.
MLS players are just OK, Frings is a waste of money and not big enough of a name. Mariner is not good enough and we do not have a proper manager or Director of Football.
A lot of players who struggled with TFC have done quite well with other clubs, both before and after their tenure with TFC. Bad internal club politics combined with a lack of coherent strategy and tactics can make any player struggle.
You're joking right? He's one of the most prominent players of his generation. He's capped over 70 times with one of the top national sides in the world, and played in two World Cups, including one final (in which he was a core squad player). Very few, if any, MLS players can claim to have played in a WC final. Not even Spice Boy.
For 2,4 million dollars Frings has been a complete waste! Has he helped the team with attendance? Nope! Has he helped with the teams performance? Nope! There are so many better players you can get for 2,4 million per season. You don't spend 2,4 million on a central midfielder you spend it on an attacker. You can find very good central midfielders that will do just as good as a job of a 36 year old in Denmark, Norway, Greece, Scotland, Argentina or the English Championships for 200k-300k a year.
Really? I have done this exercise before...so let's run through it fairly quickly. I will take your mid-point.....$25ok per year. Most years have 52 weeks......so in the parlance of UK football....that is $4,807.69 per week. Today, the pound is worth around $1.6.......so that means £3,004.81 per week. Can you identify some of those "very good central midfielders" that are earning around that per week in, say, the English Championship? I think they earn considerably more than that if they are any good.
Mikkel Diskerud is available at the end of the year as he signed with Rosenberg until Dec 2012. He is only on 100,00 euro gross and he becomes a free agent come December I am sure he would love to sign and play for Sven.
That's what you meant by "You can find very good central midfielders that will do just as good as a job of a 36 year old in Denmark, Norway, Greece, Scotland, Argentina or the English Championships for 200k-300k a year." A 21 year old substitute that is making $160k a year? That's the profile of player we should have signed instead of Frings?
Excuse me? Frings is a tired 36 year old who cannot compete that is making 2,4 million dollars. And yes Mikkel Diskerud is one idea or a potential guy to come in at central midfield. Stabeak manager reported he is on much higher level than Ricardo Clark (MLS allstar and has won an MLS Cup) was at Stabeak who was slotted in to replace Diskerud. Before you talk shite at least know what you are talking about. When Dunfield who is an ex League 2 player in England (Div 4) at best who could not close the deal at Motherwell on a trial is one of the better players on Toronto you have serious issues. Ryan Johnson for inastance could not even cut it in the Swedish 2nd divison! Thorsten Frings while he was an excellent player in his day, he is too old and tired for the physical MLS game.
I think it should be pretty clear that in Paul B's early days with TFC he was consciously trying to model his approach, especially the openness and fan interaction, on what had worked for Wilt (with some Kevin Payne DCU thrown in and a more EPL infused brand identity). It worked well, TFC launched bigger than anyone could imagine,* and they made a lot of money a lot more quickly than anticipated. In many ways that early success likely laid the many of the seeds of our problems both in terms of the need to win immediately to keep folks happy and justify price increases (which are a function of demand not wins but aren't perceived that way by fans). For some though, there was always a perception that his engagement was driven by cynicism rather than a legitimate appreciation of soccer support and the fan experience. I've never met the man or spoken with him so I withhold judgement on that question entirely other than to say that I suspect the truth exists somewhere between the two poles of that continuum. Whether Paul was just a victim of poor results and an ownership that demanded higher margins sooner rather than later or actively played his part in either of those things is an open question. The people with the answers are all insiders with no reason to tell. What is clear though is that PB wasn't able to deliver results like Wilt - again, not that that was necessarily something he could influence - and couldn't fend of the price increases and extortionate cash grabs like Marlies packs even if he was against them and would have preferred a different business approach. Regardless, he has, rightly or wrongly, become a lightning rod for a big portion of the active support and I don't think it's unfair to say that he's not trusted. Not many fans feel that he has their best interests at heart or is a voice for them inside TFC. That's really different from Wilt. It also is probably the reason Paul B might end up promoted and Wilt can't get a job inside the league. In the end there's certainly not going to be any protests or banners if Paul B walks away. It strikes me that Wilt would make an even better owner than exec. Too bad there's no qualification other than access to capital necessary for that job! *And the people who argue otherwise, who suggest that "I always new TFC would be hugely successful" are either liars, delusional, or just not knowledgeable about the facts of mid-2000s MLS and Toronto soccer culture. No one serious imagined an MLS team could sell out season tickets before TFC; that was revolutionary at the time.
Mariner vs Svens record in the English Championship very simple math my friends. Both of them coached very average teams. Mariner coached Plymouth 25 percent winning percentage Sven coached Leicester and had a 44 percent winning percentage almost twice as good. You know why Sven almost won twice as much as Mariner because he is twice as good as him plain and simple. Again its simple math...
I love when people have such poor communication skills that they argue with people who agree with them. TOarea is not arguing that Frings has made an appropriate impact for a player who takes up the max budget hit and another $2mil beyond that. I'm pretty sure he's implied that he'd be okay with Frings not returning. He's simply knocking down your idiotic notion that it's "easy" to replace him. By DEFINITION it can't be "easy" as every team is competing with you to do the same thing on the same sort of budget. There's only so many Joel Lindpere's out there interested in coming to MLS on the right sort of money to fit the league's budget. And, since every team would love to have one of those guys, you've got to be better than them at identifying those players, making sure they're willing to move to North America, and getting a discovery claim on them before anyone else does. Funnily enough TFC does just do the "easy" thing (that also happens to make fans happy in the short term): just back up a ton of cash to an available famous player and out bid everyone else with a DP contract. The vast majority of suggestions on message boards for how to improve TFC basically employ this strategy. The hard work of shifting assets to manage the salary budget and build and entire TEAM of good players basically gets ignored in favour of the magic bullet. Or we suggest firing the coach. I'll give you credit that you actually seem to want TFC to do the smart thing and look for solid undervalued players from more obscure leagues. But to suggest that that is "easy" doesn't give the rest of the league the credit they're due. And seriously, the Sven thing better be a troll.
Okay, if that's not proof you're trolling I don't know what is. Have fun (and look up the transfer and wage budgets of Leicester versus Plymouth during each man's respective time in charge one day). But before any other idiots read this and start repeating it: Leicester, under Sven, were promotion favourites where he got to spend a ton of money, sometimes bringing in players who still might have been subs on Premier League teams, and TOTALLY ********ING BOMBED missing the playoffs for both seasons he had an influence. Plymouth, under Mariner, were a club in financial meltdown already tipped for relegation that he couldn't do anything to improve in what amounted to a half season audition. Yeah, both "very average teams" my ass. You're clearly trolling and that's the last you'll get out of me.
I am, neither, a fan nor a detractor of SGE......from what I know of him, though, is his method of operation not to join up with teams that are/were underperforming (TFC certainly fits that bill) but have (or appear to have) ambitous owners/chairmen who will give him the resources to outspend (perhaps wisely) the teams around them and, therefore, outperform them? That was certainly the case at City, was what he thought he had at Notts County {turned out he was misled}, and Leicester were huge spenders going into last season (leading EVERYONE in the 12 man Championship pool that I am to predict they would win the division). SGE is, no doubt, a knowledgable guy....probably has a very good eye for talent.....but the sort of manager that relies on being able to, smartly or otherwise, outspend his way success is precisely the sort of guy that I think is ill-suited for MLS (a league where you only get to outspend 3 times) in its current form. It is the same reason I nearly fell off my chair when I read someone suggesting (not sure if they were serious) that 'arry wetnap would be a good choice to run TFC....love him or hate him...'arry needs a chequebook to perform his form of magic.
If that was the one on U-Sector I'm pretty sure it was a sly joke from someone who knows better and wanted to bait the sillier youngsters there. It's his type of (gallows) humor.
I do, as much as possible, limit my contributions to things that I have a bit of knowledge about. That is why I, specifically, limited my earlier response to your "You can find very good central midfielders that will do just as good as a job of a 36 year old in Denmark, Norway, Greece, Scotland, Argentina or the English Championships for 200k-300k a year." comment to the bolded league. I admit that I do not follow Stabeak. When you responded to my question ("Can you identify some of those "very good central midfielders" that are earning around that per week in, say, the English Championship? I think they earn considerably more than that if they are any good. ") with Diskerud, it forced me to look him up and my impression from what I read was that I doubt TFC (or any MLS team) is going to allocate $200k (+/- 7% of their cap space) to a player with that profile.
Sorry to repeat myself. All that I am saying is if Sven's old assistant turned around NY when Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley could not (two of the best managers MLS has ever produced). Don't you think Sven could "probably" steer Toronto in the right direction? You think Sven would allow himself to not do as well as his protege? Between Sven's connections and his manager IQ I think he could turn Toronto into a very strong team. That's all I am saying as it is simple math. I am not trolling guys. I am literally an MLS fan who actually feels sorry for Toronto FC fans as you guys deserve much better. I look at Sven Goran doing what Daryl Sutter did for the LA Kings.
And, I guess, I will apologize for repeating myself.....No, I don't think SGE is the answer. Again, I don't have intimate knowledge of the man but he appears to be one of those managers (and he is by far not the only one) that needs to seek out situations where he combines his football IQ with a strong financial backing and makes (lots of) smart buys. There is nothing wrong with that but it is not a model that applies well to MLS. MLS not only limits the amount of money you can sign, it controls (to a certain degree) the playing location of players entering the league. As for your noting that his assistant has turned around NYRB? Sometimes these high profile "spend and mold" managers carry around with them loyal assistants that do a lot of the technical work with the players......again, I am not that familiar with how SGE worked with his assistants or his players but the impression I get is that he might be that sort of guy. Sometimes these assistants are actually very good at working on the technical side of the game and when they get a chance to manage it is often with clubs with limited resources (or limiting rules) and they turn out to be pretty proficient. It is early days yet, but Steve Clarke may be one of those guys. Many years as an assistant with high profile bosses....gets his own gig with a lesser club....looks to be working out...early days of course. I, honestly, think that is what MLSE were thinking when they hired, both, John Carver and Aron Winter. Both were long(ish) serving assitants, both were well recommended and both were seen to be "ready" to run their own ship.....neither was (for, likely, different reasons). My impression was that Carver disrespected the challenge/league and I think Winter thought that you could just buy players and having an owner with MLSE's resources combined with his football IQ and philosophy would be a recipe for success. The reverse can be true too. I never underestimate the skill of the buy and mold manager...it is a skill that not everyone has. Often times we see these young managers do well with limited resources get their chance with a bigger club and not do as well once they get the chance to buy......again, early days yet, but the first few weeks of Brendan Rodgers' Anfield adventure brings this to mind. Finding the right manager is not about hiring a name (that statement is probably truer in MLS than other places) it is about finding the management team that can combine footballing and financial IQs as they relate to MLS rules......and then having a scouting network.