Oh my god! You traded Chad! You Bastards!

Well, I guess those of us who thought that Earl Cochrane had done all the necessary chopping of dead wood from last year's squad and that Aron Winter, Paul Mariner et al would move swiftly on to the rebuilding stage were wrong.  At Wednesday's Superdraft! TFC did a lot more than just draft players.   They first of all traded away Chad Barrett to LA Galaxy for the ubiquitous future considerations, in what was essentially a salary dump. Reports vary on whether TFC is still paying a portion of his salary or not, though the club has said that they won't be.  Jon Conway was also traded to Chicago Fire for a 3rd round pick, and 4 players were drafted.  Demetrius Omphroy, Matt Gold, Junior Burgos and Jaoa Plata will now have a chance to make it in Toronto.

I won't pretend to know much about any of those players yet, you can find more details here, or more colourfully, here.  Suffice it to say that lower round picks don't have a history of working out great, so if 1 out of those 4 ends up sticking with the club long term, that will probably be considered a success.

Trading Jon Conway also isn't really that big of a deal, Milos Kocic should be an able backup to Stefan Frei, so the $70,000 Conway is due to make this year can be put to better use in areas of greater need, which is pretty much every other position.  By all accounts, Conway was a great teammate and all round good guy, so I wish him nothing but the best, and his last act as a TFC player, saluting the crowd while walking off after his red card for upending Columbus' Steven Lenhart is certainly a fine and memorable way to go out.

The trade of Barrett though, well that's a big one.  Chad Fucking Barrett!  For most people that would be said with an exasperated tone after another wasted opportunity, for me it was always with a defiant glee when he'd done something right, scored a goal or had a particularly good game.  I always liked Barrett, even back in 2009 when he was, how to put this nicely, not so prolific, and when Barrett vs Vitti arguments regularly raged on the supporters forums, I was always on his side as his contribution was always so much bigger than mere goals scored or not scored.  In 2010, when he added more composed finishing to his undeniable workrate, well, can you say MVP?  I did,  It was no co-incidence that everything fell apart last year after he and Maicon Santos were injured.

In 2009 it was always a bit of a pleasant surprise when Barrett scored, and that attitude carried over for me into 2010.  The game against Chicago in May when he scored twice, I was positively giddy, it was as if the special kid in school had got an A, one that he'd actually earned.  Probably the best thing I could say about his improvement in 2010 would be that that sense of surprise disappeared, later in the year, before and after his injury, a Barrett goal was a lot more routine, I expected him to finish a good chance, and he usually did.

But this is what happens in sports, so I'll move on, and for now, I'll trust that our new management have impressive plans on how to spend all the salary cap space now at their disposal, and I'll also admit that Barrett was overpaid, so hopefully there's better value for money out there.

For now, though, I'll say goodbye with highlights of some of his finest work.  If I had any sort of technical skills, I'd put the highlights together into a single youtube video with a suitably admiring soundtrack.  One quick glance at my blog however, will tell you I don't have those technical skills, so instead here's a bunch of different clips of his best moments.  Just imagine you're listening to "Nobody does it better" in the background.

First off, his goal against Montreal in the 2009 Voyageurs Cup, at 7:50 of this video.




Then there's his 1 goal 2 assist second half performance in the Montreal Miracle, starting at 3:30.




This is the game mentioned above where he scores twice against Chicago, starting at  0:40.  My season tickets are in section 227, so the fact that he always ran to that corner after scoring in the north end was great, he had some really good celebrations there.



Next up is his goal against San Jose in 2010, not the greatest goal, but another great celebration 1:30 in.



And I'll finish up with his contribution to our triumph over Motagua, here's his goal in the first leg starting at 0.33



And his 2nd leg goal, at 1"36, where he really shows off just how much he sweats in a game.  Good luck with that LA heat.



Thanks for everything Chad, I'll miss you.