Jump to content
  • The final finger


    Guest

    ccs-473-140264014754_thumb.jpg

    Toronto FC got out from under Mo Johnston's thumb a couple of years ago. Today, they’re finally free of his finger.

    In many ways, today’s dumping of Canadian international Julian de Guzman to FC Dallas erases the final lingering piece of the management mess left behind by TFC's original GM.

    It’s the last time the Scotsman’s memory will wave the middle finger at Toronto FC and its fans.

    This all goes back to the 2009 MLS season, and Toronto’s doubled-barreled signings de Guzman and fellow Canadian international hometown hero Dwayne de Rosario.

    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

    DeRo came first, right at the end of 2008. A trade with the Houston Dynamo, and the Scarborough Superstar signed on to lead TFC to ultimate playoff glory.

    Except …

    The guy was never happy with his contract. Toronto FC had never had a Designated Player, and Mo wasn’t about to start with DeRo. The lad got essentially max money for MLS, a bit over $300,000 per year. It wasn’t perfect, but it looked like all concerned were working together to make things work.

    All that summer, there was talk of Julian de Guzman. He’d been named MVP at Deportivo la Coruna of the Spanish La Liga, but now things had gone very, very sour. Sick of not being paid, de Guzman sued the club. Dep la C benched him, and no other club in Europe gave him a glance.

    Mo was slinging bait off the boat, but de Guzman wasn’t biting. We were well into the fall when Julian appeared on It’s Called Football, and assured us all he’d love to play for Toronto “some day,” but all his efforts were aimed at keeping his European soccer dream alive.

    And then, very suddenly, the media were summoned to BMO Field, and Julian de Guzman signed on.

    He was under a lot of pressure. Mo had apparently lured him with DP status and a million bucks a year. But it was hard to miss that, throughout the press conference, Mo was grinning – and Julian wasn’t.

    It should have been a masterful bit of team building, but the disparity between DeRo’s and de Guzman’s contracts ended up being hugely damaging to Toronto FC.

    See, Mo wasn’t wrong about DeRo. No other team in the league saw him as a DP either. Even now, as MLS MVP and Golden Boot holder, leading a once-desperate D.C. United back into serious contention, he’s still not a DP. At his age, it is desperately unlikely he ever will be.

    Julian’s contract ate at DeRo, but that wasn’t all he was annoyed about. There were occasional terse wisecracks about “promises” that had been made, and then broken. We may never know what those promises were, but there’s no doubt in the universe that Mo Johnston made them.

    And that’s where we were when DeRo scored against San Jose, and made his infamous cheque-signing gesture to management, right in the faces of TFC supporters who’d just been made to gargle a significant hike in their season-ticket prices. Instead of a cheque, de Rosario was actually signing his one-way ticket out of town.

    Even with Mo and DeRo both gone, the de Guzman contract continued to weigh awkwardly on Toronto FC in 2011. The new regime was forced to pay seven figures to a struggling defensive midfielder.

    It’s true that many fans misunderstood Julian’s role, expecting him to score goals for that kind of money. It also didn’t help that, on the rare occasions Julian did score, they were highlight-reel scream jobs.

    When I watched Julian in TFC red, I was generally happy with the frequent and varied ways he came up with the ball – and utterly frustrated at how rarely he was able to get that ball to a teammate downfield. I’m not talking about gorgeous crosses to wide-open strikers. Howzabout just a good ten-yard pass to the next man down the line? Didn’t happen nearly enough for my liking.

    When Torsten Frings arrived, he landed on Julian’s role. Mo’s giant contract could not be easily dislodged, even though de Guzman was having a dreadful time playing up to it.

    No problem, as it turned out. TFC’s defence was so bad, Frings was forced back into a sweeper role. Frings can get the ball to de Guzman, de Guzman can forward it to … oh, yeah … right.

    What Toronto really needed was an open DP slot, where they could finally land a real centre back, and send Frings back to boss the midfield. And the only way to do that was to deal away Julian de Guzman for a lukewarm prospect who doesn’t count against the salary cap.

    To review:

    Arguably the two best players on the Canadian national team, both from Toronto, playing together on TFC, and Trader Mo’s devious, dubious glad-handing turned a beautiful dream into a soggy, whining disaster.

    And the ultimate implications – the loss of both players for little or nothing in return – took almost two full years to work their way through the system.

    As stated above, de Rosario – post-TFC – has won the MVP and the Golden Boot. I fully expect de Guzman to be a noticeably more effective player in Dallas.

    The only good news today, really, is that Johnston’s nightmare contracts and shady dealings are finally in the past.

    The finger has fallen.

    Onward!



×
×
  • Create New...