Some late thoughts on the Aron Winter axing, just in time for Paul Mariner’s TFC coaching debut:
Just for the record, it’s not seven coaches in six years.
Toronto FC has just anointed/set up for sacrifice its seventh head coach in 5.3 seasons.
The fact that they didn’t have any bloody choice does not absolve ownership of ultimate responsibility.
Pick your acidic acronym:
- Makes Less Sense Everyday
- More Lame Silly Excuses
- Multi-year Losing Streak Extended
- Mo’s Laughing – Sincerely, Exaltedly
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
But this time, by random blundering chance, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment may just accidentally have got it right.
Not that they really deserve any credit.
To begin with, it could have been worse. Imagine if the press conference was called so embattled MLSE soccer non-expert Tom Anselmi could introduce us all to departed Barcelona ringmaster Pep Guardiola.
Anselmi would look blank and mountainous, while Guardiola assures the assembled that Toronto FC really can play high-possession, touch-passing Catalan football, just as soon as he teaches Ryan Johnston to be the next Lionel Messi.
Aside from the fact the Guardiola is a pistol-hot property, that’s really not so much more far-fetched that Winter’s now legendarily hollow assertion that a team which had never once made the playoffs in Major League Soccer could be geared to play Dutch total football.
But you know why we buy stuff like that? Because there’s this unjustified yet potent aura around Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
Because of the alleged aura around the Toronto Maple Leafs, a bunch of middling sports managers, with no clear concept of what it actually takes to win in any sport, get treated like royalty in this town. Anselmi has been repeatedly exposed – badly – yet he still has the aura, and therefore still has the job.
Having been badly burned by original manager and flim-flam factory Mo Johnston, MLSE tabbed German soccer legend Jurgen Klinsmann to find Winter. Yes, they found Paul Mariner as well, and therein lies another tale.
You see, established Euro legends don’t win in Major League Soccer. They can spell MLS (most times), but have no idea of the ins and outs of a salary-cap league with heavy passport restrictions. They’re not allowed to buy the best players here. Citizenship becomes an ongoing component of roster decisions, which would drive just about any “real” soccer manager mad.
Mariner is not a “real” manager. His only previous experience was helping the Pilgrims of Plymouth Argyle crash down through the English divisions. That’s basically the resume of disgraced, exposed ex-TFC bench boss John Carver, who had only assisted the Hatters of Luton Town crash all the way out of the Football League.
What Anselmi failed to grasp is you do not need a foreign star to coach your MLS side. You just go get “a guy.”
Paul Mariner is “a guy.” He’s learned MLS the right way, being an indispensible lieutenant to Steve Nicol (one of those rare foreign stars who ever made it work here) during some lovely seasons – and one MLS championship run – in New England.
This is a guy who’s earned the promotion – and likely should have been handed TFC at the start of 2011.
He’s not going to try to make TFC Academy kids and journeyman mid-level pros play like Johan Cruyff. But he might be a shining footballing proof that less is more.
If you look at the gruesome mistakes TFC made all over the pitch in dropping their first nine MLS matches, you see exactly what was wrong with Winter’s expectations. Instead of just getting the ball and kicking it somewhere useful, the Reds were constantly wondering where they should be and what they should do, to the point where, frequently, they didn’t even know how to tackle a single opponent who was ragging the ball sloppily just a couple of yards to their right.
That’s over. Now we get to see if the common backstage belief – that TFC’s roster is deeper and better than their results suggest – has any merit to it at all.
If Anselmi has, in fact, found the right “guy”, he only did it because his wrong guy bombed. Wouldn’t it just be MLSE if Mariner excels, and they finally move up with a guy they mishired, and buried in the wrong job for a year and a half?
Tom Anselmi has no business – NO BUSINESS – running a professional soccer team.
Let’s all hope Paul Mariner does, or a critical number of Toronto FC fans might want to consider one other acronym:
- Maybe Let’s Spend Elsewhere.
Onward!