Random notes on minor happenings.

With the opening press conference and talk of strikes and lockouts now behind us, and the team and De Ro's mouth safely out of the media glare in Turkey, pre-season really gets under way on Wednesday with Toronto FC's first training game, against Partizan Belgrade of Serbia.  With no new news on the De Ro contract saga, there's been very little information from training camp, just the usual cliches and fluff pieces, which is all I'd want really, dull, uninteresting and professionally run are all good things at this stage. 

The much anticipated list of triallists attending camp with TFC didn't exactly set pulses racing, hopefully some of them will be able to make the squad and contribute, but there doesn't seem to be any star players in the group.  That list, along with details about the players can be seen here. 

The main news so far was that last year's Interim Coach Nick Dasovic didn't go to Turkey with the team, and his future is being worked out as it seems his time with the club will probably be coming to an end.  It seems with Aron Winter and Bob De Klerk taking up the main coaching positions, there was no room for Dasovic at the level he wants, so he'll probably try his hand elsewhere.  I wish him the best of luck, but I'm in no way disappointed by this, in fact I'm pleasantly surprised and re-assured by one aspect of this in particular.

Many times Tom Anselmi has spoken about the importance MLSE places on developing coaches and management in North America, and how they were investing in Dasovic, as well as Danny Dichio, Jim Brennan and Earl Cochrane.  To that end, when Preki was brought in back in 2009, he was asked to take Dasovic under his wing, and Dasovic was instrumental in the firing of Preki when things went bad towards the end of the 2010 season.  The fact that MLSE is now ready to let their investment leave, rather than force Winter to find a place for Dasovic that he'd be happy with is a good indication that Winter, Paul Mariner et al have the power and independence to do things their own way.  Of course, nothing is official yet so things may turn out differently, but that seems to be the case for now at least.

The one bit of news that will definitely affect things this season slipped out today which was the 2011 replica home jersey as seen below.

I like it, it's simple with no unnecessary embellishments.  It is, as the link above shows merely the replica version.  The "authentic" Jersey still hasn't been released yet, presumably there'll be a grand unveiling at some point, so there's still time for me to be disappointed with extras like the embossed Maple Leaf and "All for One" marketing slogan on the collar that marred the previous effort, but hopefully they won't have gone too far with all that this time around.  If it stays like this, I could be tempted to buy one, even with a sponsor on it.