A busy weekend for Toronto FC saw them play the last game of their pre-season, against DC United in the Carolina Challenge Cup, as well as continue with the all of a sudden rapid progress in adding to their squad. After signing Gianluca Zavarise, and welcoming Adrian Cann back to the team, a trade was announced on Friday afternoon, Nick Labrocca going to Chivas USA with striker Alan Gordon coming back to Toronto. Aged 29, Gordon's been an intermittent starter over 7 years in MLS, mainly with LA Galaxy, where he scored 16 goals in 99 games, before being traded to Chivas, with whom he scored 1 goal in 9 games.
So, a tall striker who doesn't really score that many goals, but gets quite a few assists, acts as a target man, holding the ball up for other players, and as Adrian Cann's nose can attest after meeting his elbow in the game at Chivas last year, is a, erm, physical presence. The obvious comparison is Danny Dichio, and while I doubt he'll have as big an impact, he'll bring some welcome physicality to a team that throughout pre-season seemed to be lacking it. Unless there's more additions to the forward line in the next week, he should be starting as the middle of the three forwards, with Maicon Santos and one of Jacob Peterson or Javier Martina playing wide.
One feature of pre-season seemed to be that TFC didn't seem quite good enough to be able to take their possession play into the final third and penetrate the defence. This meant the final ball into the box was more often than not a cross from out wide, and more often than not, nothing came of that, so a big man in the box should definitely help that default option become a more successful one. Before we have to fall back on that default option though, Gordon should be able to use his size to hold the ball up in the final third and bring the other forwards, or Dwayne De Rosario coming from midfield, into the play in more dangerous areas. If this works and he fits in well, he would be a very important part of any success TFC might have this season.
As for Labrocca, he's a competent if unspectacular midfielder, but won't really be missed. With Julian De Guzman and Elbekay Bouchiba coming back soon from injuries and academy player Oscar Cordon also getting a lot of time in midfield, Labrocca fell victim to the numbers game as more options were needed up front.
After Friday's trade action, there was a game to be played on Saturday, the final game in Charleston and it ended 2-2, Dwayne De Rosario and Maicon Santos with the goals, and TFC holding on for the draw despite being down to ten men after Mikael Yourrasowsky was sent off for two yellow cards in two minutes in the first half. I didn't see the game, but actually scoring a goal from open play has got to be a good sign, and most importantly De Ro proved his fitness after missing the last couple of games.
As part of Adrian Cann's return to training Camp, Aron Winter made it known an apology to his teammates was needed, and it turns out that that was going to be a public apology, as he was wheeled out to take part in Winter's post game media interviews. Cann, as meek as a chastised schoolboy with Winter the stern Principal looking on, apologised to the fans and everyone in the organisation, acknowledged he made a mistake by leaving, calling it a mental lapse, and said he now wants to concentrate on the season and getting off to a good start against Vancouver. He then added a much needed moment of levity to the interview by adding "and win a championship".
More painful than the public show of contrition would be the financial hit Cann took for his actions, as the details of the reason for Cann's walkout was revealed in this article from the Star's Daniel Girard, and it turns out it was another unwelcome leftover from Mo Johnston's reign of error. Cann's salary last year was a very low $65,342, apparently as much as TFC could afford under the salary cap, and there was an unwritten promise that this season's salary would be topped up to make up for that. So after Winter's appointment, Cann went looking for that top up, asking for a $175,000 deal for this year. TFC countered with an offer of $160,000, not to Cann's satisfaction, and thus he eventually left camp to force negotiations along. TFC called his bluff, and now Cann is back on his original $124,000 deal, so in effect his principled stand has ended up costing him $36,000.
Turning down that $160,000 compromise probably wasn't the smartest move by Cann, but hopefully, he and the team can put everything behind them and move forward. Cann should have motivation to play as well as possible so as to help him with future negotiations when this season is done, whether with TFC or another club. This situation, along with the broken promises made to Dwayne De Rosario are big indictments of how TFC used to be run, hopefully from here on in things will get a lot more professional, and hopefully there's no more ticking time bombs that the new management regime will have to deal with.
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