Insert generic Winter pun here.

While there's been no official announcement yet, word has very much got out, if a little unspecifically, about a very interesting development in TFC's search for a management team.  According to reports, former Dutch international and current Ajax (the Amsterdam one, not the GTA one) assistant coach Aron Winter has agreed to a 3 year contract, and will be bringing fellow Dutchman Bob De Klerk with him.

Throughout the day there's been varying different reports, guesses and assumptions about exactly what role these two will fill, as well as Paul Mariner who it was thought might now be left out, but was later reported as very much still part of the plan, as either a coach, or as Technical Director.  By the end of the day a consensus seemed to be forming that Mariner would be the GM/Technical Director, with Winter and De Klerk as Coach and assistant respectively, though some suggested Mariner and Winter were going to somehow split the Technical Director and Coach roles, though I'm really not sure how that would work.

Whether that is correct, and what's going to happen to Earl Cochrane, Jimmy Brennan, Nick Dasovic and the rest of the coaching staff will eventually be revealed whenever the official press conference happens, and going by history with TFC, that probably won't be for another few days.  I'll wait until then before reading too much into all this, but it does seem positive, and proof that there was a point to Jürgen Klinsmann's time here.  If the bringing in of Winter and De Klerk from Ajax is a sign of the philosophy that Klinsmann has decided on for TFC, then it should at the very least be more entertaining than we've seen so far in the last 4 years, and if patiently stuck with, could mean great things for the academy, and thus TFC's and Canada's future.

With the caveat that they are all relatively inexperienced, with Mariner's failed managerial spell at Plymouth Argyle the only non-assistant experience between them, this seems like a really good combination and a very strong managerial team.  Winter and De Klerk will bring the Ajax style, which will hopefully flow down to the academy as well as help the first team, Mariner has the MLS experience as well as recently refreshed contacts within the English game, and Cochrane, Brennan and the rest of the holdovers from last year bring knowledge of MLS as well as the Canadian scene, and the talents, quirks and egos of the current squad.

Patience could be the key here, as one of the main planks of Ajax's success over the years has been the flow of players from their famed academy, talented and schooled from an early age in the Ajax way of playing, and it's obviously going to take a lot of time for that sort of effect to hit the first team.  Hopefully the MLS experience brought by Mariner will be enough to build a competent and competitive team in the short term, as I'm not sure the stretched too thin patience of TFC fans will be able to tolerate too long of a learning curve.  In that respect,one of management's best moves is the price freeze of season tickets for 2012.  I always thought of that not really as an apology for what happened last season, but as a pre-emptive bargaining chip in case the rebuild isn't an instant success.  If that is actually the case it would represent an admirable change from what's happened so far, with 5 coaches in 4 years.

Hopefully supporters will also give the new regime time, and the mood on the messageboards seemed to be one of cautious optimism and approval, which is a good sign.  This could be the start of something really good for the future, let's hope it works well enough in the present for that future to be given a chance.