Honestly, in the context of the entire history of TFC, the last 24-hours doesn't even break into the top five wackiest days. That has a lot to do with just how wacky TFC has been, but still...
For the record, the sacking of Preki and Mo Johnston is No 1 with the day John Carver had a mental breakdown coming in with the silver.
Aron Winter, in general, is third. DeRo's Scottish vacation fourth and the hiring of QPR's starting centre-half fifth.
It's been an odd little ride.
And the last 24-hours contributed to the general oddness of The Worst Football Club in the World .
But, it's not yet clear whether the oddness is a continuation of Danny Kovermans' apt description or whether it was the act of a general manager who is finally in full control. The instinct will be to mistrust all that TFC does -- and that's understandable -- but that instinct is based on perception rather than evidence. The truth is there is literally no history to point to with Tim Bezbatchenko.
From all reports it appears that Bezbatchenko was on the wrong side of a power struggle between himself and Tim Leiweke/Ryan Nelsen. Although Bezbatchenko did actually play professionally, he's not your typical jock and, as such, notorious jock sniffer Leiweke sided with the former Premier League defender.
With Nellie's biggest backer now a sitting duck, the geek took his revenge and took control of the operation. We won't know if that's good or bad for a while, but based on his first big move he deserves some rope from TFC fans.
That move?
Sacking Nellie.
Nelsen was clearly in way over his head and should never have been in the job in the first place. As others have said today, and as I've been saying since the day he was hired, Nelsen made a bad situation worse by refusing to hire qualified assistants.
He was tactically naive and made bizarre roster choices. Bezbatchenko was 100 per cent right to call him out for not doing more with the talent that is here.
The second part of the move -- hiring Greg Vanney -- is riskier. Vanney is more experienced than Nelsen was (technically speaking my cat was equally as experienced as Nelsen was so this isn't that big a deal), but he's hardly what you'd call experienced. He was widely seen as have done good work with limited resources at Chivas and his work with the academy thus far has been solid, but this is a guy that is getting a look as much because he's a Bez guy as it is because he's highly qualified.
So, file this one solidly under the "wait and see; lots to prove" category.
There was, of course, another piece of drama at BMO today. Bloody Big Drama, so to speak.
We simply don't know how unhappy Defoe is and how much the last 24-hours will impact his performance moving forward.
We do know that TFC did not capitulate on a deal that wouldn't help them -- it appears that the $11-million deal rumoured yesterday was well below what the Reds would have been willing to take.
We also know that they considered moving him. That means things aren't perfect and that the next two months will go a long way to determining whether Defoe is here next Spring, or if his MLS experiment will prove to be a Bloody Big Letdown.