Departing Toronto FC head coach John Carver has his say in this morning’s Toronto Star.
I’m not going to go deep on this one, but there are some inconsistencies that need to be flagged.
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Carver says he quit because of MLS meddling – the last straw being the league ordering him out of the private box and back to the sidelines for Saturday’s match with Kansas City. The fiery coach refused (so he claims) and picked out a plane ticket instead.
He also takes credit for the 4-3-3 formation that has suddenly turned Toronto FC into a football team.
Caretaker bench boss Chris Cummins has said the 4-3-3 was “a group effort.” Given how dreadfully lost the entire TFC roster was in Dallas – the final game (and loss) in Carver’s fatally flawed 4-4-2 – I think “intervention” is a better term.
Carver may have had a hand in it, but he’d never done anything throughout his TFC tenure that even hinted at two defensive midfielders, and three hard-running raiders at the front. This was a bold departure – and it just happened to coincide with a new man on the sidelines?
Carver claims he went upstairs to see how the new formation would work. There’s certainly precedent for that. He’d done that last year, as well – at least twice.
But GM Mo Johnston, addressing the media after the Kansas City game, suggested things had been coming to a head for awhile. Mo says he was deflecting pressure off of one of his “best friends.” But if it’s all as Carver says, why didn’t Mo say it was Carver’s idea to watch from upstairs? Why vaguely hint at a “we thought it better” approach?
And – if Carver quit because he didn’t like the league, what does that say to his players? They are even more helplessly subject to the strange structure of MLS than any coach will ever be. Where’s “all for one” now?
The short digest version, then: An embattled coach who publically said his job was on the line before any of this happened, concocts a brilliant new strategy that transforms his team, then quits because of interference from league office. If true, it says a lot about the man's priorities. If not ... well, discuss among yourselves.
John Carver may indeed believe he quit because he’d had a bellyful of Our Little League. But there’s more than enough evidence to suggest he’d still be out on his ear today – even if he thought he wanted to stay.
Onward!