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    Guest

    Cap debate gets interesting

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    My ongoing debate with Bill Archer over the future of the Major League Soccer salary cap is finally starting to bear fruit.
    For me, this was never about Bill. It was about trying to raise awareness and debate of the idea of creating a two-tier cap for MLS, where individual ownership groups could spend some of their own money to ease parity and increase the standard of play in Our Little League.
    And, while we’re still getting troll tracks from under the bridge in Uniontown, two very fine American bloggers have taken the time and care to elevate the discussion nicely. Both Dan Loney of BigSoccer and the anonymous mind behind The Fake Sigi Schmid Blog are arguing elegantly – against the idea.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    The figure on the table is an overall cap of $10 million, as proposed last December by Richard Snowden at Soccer365.com. I feel this number is way too high, but it remains our starting point.
    Here’s Fake Sigi:
    “Under [snowden’s] terms, MLS clubs could spend up to $10 million on *any* players, including Americans. The result would effectively *quadruple* the current salary cap, and would result in massive wage inflation across the board as every team would be forced to spend more just to keep the players it has. The fact that the last $7 million would come out of an owner's pocket instead of the league's coffers does nothing to mask the massive increase in wages. Given the limited pool of American talent (and even more limited pool of Canadians), the league would not see a proportionate jump in the quality of play compared to the massive costs incurred.”
    That there’s a counter-argument. I see a disconnect in my argument now. I was hoping the salary jumps would be discretionary, on a team-by-team basis, as they are in the current Designated Player arrangement. Clearly, it’s not that simple, and the idea needs some tinkering.
    Rather than rush into that, let me offer a couple more thoughts for – I hope – the same sort of intelligent response:
    1) Can we at least eliminate the DP cap hit? Right now, DPs can sign for any amount of ownership dosh, but $400,000 counts against the cap. That’s a sixth of everything, minus whatever allocation deals have been wrought. Icing that little bit of bookkeeping frees up more money for everyone else. (Okay, not every team has a DP. But the ones that don’t already have access to that cash.)
    2) Can we pay MLS rookies a living wage? I made more writing about soccer for the Globe and Mail last season than some players got for playing the game. That was part-time money, and I am not a wealthy man. That $400,000 would come in very handy for keeping decent prospects from having to hot-plate hot dogs in shared college dorm rooms.
    3) If we’re not going to allow a soft salary cap, what about a second DP? Again, without a cap hit.
    The idea here is to try to end this endless parity. We’re not talking about enough cash to eliminate most teams from any chance of winning before the season starts. I deplore that everywhere else in the world. I certainly don’t want to see it in MLS.
    But we’re losing a lot of drama. This league needs a powerhouse team (or two, or three) everyone else can get angry about. The L.A. Galaxy would be there right now if landing David Beckham had translated into winning back-to-back MLS Cups.
    I’m not trying to destroy the league, people. At least Loney and Fake Sigi are making coherent arguments about the pitfalls in the two-tier plan, without feeling they have to recast the Addams Family with my friends.
    Okay! I don’t know the answer.
    But the questions are going to keep coming. I look forward to (almost) everyone’s response.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Putting it together

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    The DeGuzman has landed, and there’s five games to go.
    Here’s the problem with trying to analyze Major League Soccer. Toronto FC could easily miss the playoffs. They’re on the outside looking in, with tough road games coming right up in Los Angeles and Chicago. But if they do sneak in, they could also get hot for three weeks and win it all.
    When both those statements are true anyway, who the heck cares if they keep playing a slow, grounded Nick Garcia in the centre of defence against teams that know how to cross the ball high?
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    So let’s at least continue to delude ourselves that the best team with the best strategy wins up here, and take an honest poke at figuring out where to play Julian DeGuzman.
    In Spain, he was a superb defensive midfielder. In Toronto, he jumps to the head of a queue that already includes Carl Robinson, Amado Guevara, Sam Cronin, Amadou Sanyang and Adrian Serioux, were he ever allowed to play his natural position.
    The joke in the “It’s Called Football” studio on Monday was that Toronto will be playing a 1-8-1 formation the rest of the way.
    They won’t, of course, but they could. Practically everyone on the roster is a natural mid. And striker Chad Barrett – who isn’t – seems to play most effectively mucking out on the wings, far from the enemy area. No one needs him to be there, of course, but that’s Life With Chad (a zany new sit-com, debuting this fall).
    TFC’s best formation – consistently – is a 4-5-1. Two defensive midfielders, a rover in the middle, and two on the sides who can push forward, shifting easily into a 4-3-3. Attacking fullbacks on either side (Jim Brennan left, Marvell Wynne right) keep the ball moving forward, where Chad Barrett can easily … oh, right. He’s mucking out on the wings, far from the enemy area. No one needs him to be there, of course, but that’s Life With Chad (a zany new sit-com, debuting this fall).
    So let’s put DeGuzman at the back. Carl Robinson’s battling various injuries, so it seems an effortless fit. Put Cronin beside him, and turn Guevara loose in the middle. Dwayne DeRosario pushing high on the left, with the gorgeous, goalless feet of Pablo Vitti on the right.
    Drop Barrett and give Ali Gerba look at striker. Yeah, he’s a bit chunky, but he’s not afraid to shoot at an open net. (Life With Chad, zany new etcetera.)
    This is a team that can push forward all day. If they can keep it on the carpet and make darting runs off the ball, that should create chances – and reduce the number of open headers enemy target men sail over Garcia for.
    But DeGuzman has another string on his bow. For the Canadian national team, he plays a more forward, attacking role. Does it very well, too. Dude can shoot!
    So let’s bench Vitti and slip DeGuzman up in some combination with DeRo and Guevara. How’s that for a three-man set-up unit in MLS? Robinson, if he’s healthy, works very effectively with Cronin at the back. Sanyang’s not really ready yet, but he has been getting looks.
    Of course, there’s an argument for putting both Barrett and Gerba up front, in a 4-4-2. But Toronto has a chronic and famous shortage of effective wingers. Cronin has shown well on the right occasionally, and Brennan can always get crosses in from the left, but that’s not much and that’s about it.
    We’d likely be looking at a diamond midfield, with Cronin or Robinson back, Guevara or DeGuzman forward, and DeRo and whoever’s left down the sides. But this isolates and slows the back four, ends overlap possibilities on the sides, and leaves three talented attacking mids tripping over each other trying to feed two struggling strikers. (Ali Gerba guests on Life With Chad!)
    It doesn’t flow. 4-5-1 gives you options. 4-4-2 gives the other guys a roadmap and a red carpet to the TFC net.
    This is all speculative, of course, because if hated ex-TFC quit-jockey Jeff Cunningham can lead FC Bouncy Castle to a 6-3 win at LandyBeckhamCakes United, just how much good are tactics and preparation in the world’s most bafflingly random soccer league?
    Well, Beckham and Donovan are Julian DeGuzman’s problem this week. I’m sure we’ll all be staying up late Saturday night to see how this all plays out. Honestly, it’s getting so no one knows what it takes to win in this league. You just don’t want to get caught in the wrong formation if you lose.
    (And stay tuned, for an all-new episode of Life With Chad, right after the game!)
    Onward!
    Guest

    “Eye” ay ay!

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    If eyes truly be the window on the soul, Toronto FC has picked up a very significant character in Julian DeGuzman.
    I just couldn’t help noticing this at Friday’s presser at BMO Field, introducing the most talented member of Canada’s national team as TFC’s first Designated Player.
    The eyes:
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Toronto coach Chris Cummins sat to the right, looking sleepless. His eyes seemed very tired and flat. No particular attempt to engage the room.
    GM Mo Johnston (left) has eyes that look like the lights on a carnival midway game booth. Bright, flashy and welcoming – but you’ll never know what the odds really are.
    And then, in the middle ...
    Deep, thoughtful, cunning, calculating, relaxed yet edgy, comfortable yet ready to spring. Julian DeGuzman is an amazing soccer player, and very likely a deep and intriguing person, as well.
    I know, it’s a strange lead. But it’s true, and no one else is ever going to report it.
    Like the Dichio retirement presser on Wednesday, the DeGuzman event had its awkward moments. There’s no question the man is happy to be here – signing a non-specifically lucrative three-and-a-half year deal to be one of the very best players in all of MLS.
    But it’s also, in all likelihood, the death of DeGuzman’s European dream – one he’s been pursuing since he left Scarborough at age 16 to kick it around with Olympique Marseille.
    However difficult the decision was – having to sue former club Deportivo La Coruna for unpaid wages, and not being able to remain in La Liga – DeGuzman seems more than ready to accept the role as yet another hometown hero deepening a really quite dangerous lineup for Toronto FC.
    I’ll write more when I have more time.
    Onward!
    Guest

    In honour of Danny D

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    With thanks to the just-retired Danny Dichio for maybe the greatest moment I’ve ever had in a soccer stadium.
    As I reported, on Sportsnet.ca, back on May 15, 2007.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Thunder on the lakeshore
    —
    Here’s how it really feels to watch Toronto FC win at BMO Field.
    —
    Straight off the clipboard; right from the heart …
    as soon as i get to the pressbox, i don’t want to be in the pressbox … it’s a cool beautiful sunny day in toronto and the pressbox view is obstructed by window struts and a big freaking column that all but takes out the south goal … it’s also heated in there, which is pleasant, but the atmosphere’s about as authentic as watching the game on a black-and-white tv in a laundromat … no, i’m not going to keep complaining about this, because i’m about to abandon ship … alfons rubbens (publisher of insidesoccer magazine, a guy i’d always admired but never actually met) grabs me by the arm and hauls me (dude’s got a grip!) out into the corridor, past the rows of broadcast booths, through an unmarked blue door and out – onto the roof! … open flat metal floor, with railings, directly above the last row of seats in the main grandstand of bmo field … hit hard, almost immediately, by the noise of the crowd and the stunning deep gorgeous green of the pitch … the city skyline stops your breath from here … the cn tower and the skyscrapers rise above the east grandstand like it’s wearing a crown … behind me, the heart-soaring view cuts all the way down and across lake ontario … i can literally see the buildings of downtown hamilton!
    toronto fc and the chicago fire take the field … four games in and toronto’s never won, only lost … never scored a goal … i’m not much of an anthem guy but the anthems are thrilling today … i’m lustily singing loud, flat harmony by the end … as soon as they’re over the hardcore fans behind the south goal sing and stomp, and up comes a billowing plume of white smoke … two confetti cannons go boom, covering the southeast corner and the chicago goalmouth with tiny shreds of red, white, gray – the tfc colours … and here come the seat cushions! … it’s seat cushion day and every fan got a lightweight plastic-covered foam disc to sit on … but it turns out they’re vastly better for throwing … their perfect roundness, sharp edges and a pleasant lakeside following breeze are turning average non-athletic fans into major-league right fielders … hundreds of white inflatable frisbees land simultaneously – all over the pitch! … the fans are thoroughly and deliciously enjoying their seat cushions – which is good, because it will never be seat cushion day here again!
    irish midfielder ronnie o’brien is finally in the toronto lineup, and we’re eagerly hoping his smooth, veteran presence will actually produce a few usable forward passes … it does, but for twenty-four minutes the endless, aching pattern of not being able to get the ball from the wing into the enemy goalmouth continues … and then comes one more attack and one more soggy breakdown … except this time edson buddle gets a boot into a cross-goal pass, tfc striker danny dichio slips his defender, gets there – and buries the ball firmly, finally and historically in the back of the chicago fire net … goal! … GOAL!!!
    the explosion must have thundered up to bloor street … loudest sound i heard, at first, was my own ecstatic screaming … but then came the stomping … and the shaking … and here came the seat cushions! … the cheering, throwing and clean-up scramble continued unabated for five full minutes … i swear there were tfc officials in suits scurrying here and there on the pitch, bending, stooping and picking up seat cushions … the p.a. announcer announced the goal, but dichio’s name was lost on the breeze as the thunder swelled again … the announcer then warned fans they could be ejected for throwing missiles on the pitch … the sheer impossibility of the threat rendered the whole thing comic … this was spontaneous … this was real … this was toronto? … this was FUN!!!
    ah, but it could never be that simple … chicago equalized on thirty-six minutes … the pass to chris rolfe was perfect, and his shot arced high into the top left corner with utterly no opposition from the torontos … the crowd was quiet … for the only time all day.
    but they blew up again when the game blew up, just before halftime … dichio, playing aggressively with his back to goal, backs into chicago goalie matt pickens … looks for all the world like pickens kicks at him, then the scuffle breaks out, then the scuffle ends up in the chicago net with players pouring in from both teams and the hardcore fans screaming and the seat cushions flying and the referee steps in and sees it differently from everybody else and red cards dichio along with a chicago defender but takes no action against the goalie and the stomping and hooting crescendoes as the banished players leave … the game resumes, but the hardcore fans aren’t done … they bellow obscenities at pickens, who moves some twenty yards out from his goal and pretty much stays there for the dying moments of the first half … could have been amusing if a toronto player had lobbed the ball over him from midfield, but i don’t want to hear any of the red patch boys or u-sector lads boasting about the “family atmosphere.”
    at halftime, i feel like i’ve watched an entire game … two entire games … the squadron of bagpipes on the field seems about as raucous as a single classical violin … no second half could live up to what just happened.
    but this second half almost does … with dichio banished and alecko eskandarian hurt, the tfc scoring burden falls on the flashy inconsistency of edson buddle … unfortunately, the burden flattens him … four times toronto pumps the ball into the fire’s six-yard box in the moments after the restart, and all four times buddle is out of position – almost comically so … so it’s fitting that when the game-winning goal comes, it’s off the boot of a tfc defender … just like the first goal, a multi-pronged toronto attack breaks down, but this time the ball falls to a magically wide-open kevin goldthwaite, who has time to take a look and line it up before burying it … chicago can’t craft an answer good enough to beat greg sutton in the toronto net, and top draft pick maurice edu puts it away on seventy-five minutes.
    from then on, it’s just a matter of watching history get made … the songs thunder and the grandstands shake … two policemen are seen manhandling a fan out of the stadium … maybe they caught the guy who threw all those seat cushions!
    and then, the flag! … a giant white banner – i’m guessing eighty feet wide and maybe twenty-five high – slowly unfurls in the southwest corner … fully deployed, it is spectacular, but even better is that it is moving, passing from hand to hand, section to section, all across the rapid south-end supporters’ sections … it looks like that will be the end of it – until someone in the private boxes reaches down, gets hold of a corner, and passes the flag’s leading edge across the empty space and into the main grandstand … its journey extended, the banner has time to reach the other end of the field, arriving there just as the final whistle sounds.
    how do you catch your breath when your heart is pumping like that? … toronto fc wins for the very first time and it’s a great story, but on this day, the experience trumped the story … never – NEVER – have i seen a toronto sports crowd behave like this … this is different, folks … this has never happened here … the authentic soccer experience, transported here through the unlikliest pile-up of circumstances i ever expect to encounter, has produced an entirely new species of toronto sports fan – out of thin air … and if you haven’t seen it, get on down here … the tradition, hide-bound toronto idea that soccer is a boring sport where no one ever scores is being blown up – right in the shadows of old fort york – in a thunder of noise, passion, drama, confetti, cheering, singing and stomping you literally have to see to believe … it’s time to throw out all the old perceptions, forget the things you thought you knew, and get down to bmo field to be part of this … if you’re lucky enough to be able to get a ticket.
    onward!
    Guest

    Perhaps a little too neat

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    All my work on the Danny Dichio story yesterday ended up here. I also have some opinions, better suited – as always – to some briskly banged-out backroom bloggery.
    They certainly tied a neat bow on it. Aging player, concerned about both his fitness and lack of playing time, accepts offer to join coaching staff -- now, instead of at the end of the season.
    And as I’ve no concrete proof Danny Dichio is retiring for any other reason, that’s where I’m going to have to leave it.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Just for the record, Dichio did not need to step aside to clear roster room for the possibly imminent Julian DeGuzman. Roster spots are already open.
    Mo Johnston said very little yesterday, but noted he feels he can clear salary cap space for “a couple of players we’re talking to” without needing to cut anyone.
    Whatever locker room tension the Dichio limbo was or wasn’t causing, presumably no longer exists.
    With Dichio gone and six games remaining in a dire-looking playoff hunt, Toronto FC now has exactly no one who can bend defences, hold up the ball and distribute like Danny Dichio. I’m sure, in his new assistant coaching role, he will have some thoughts on the subject to impart on the rest of the TFC strike crew. A shame he can’t give them heart transplants.
    This is now a weaker team – for at least as long as it takes to land DeGuzman. Who exactly ends up playing where once that deal goes down is subject for later speculation. Certainly a striker seems a bigger priority than yet another holding midfielder (Robinson, Cronin, Guevara, Sanyang), but landing perhaps the finest Canadian soccer player on the planet isn’t likely to hurt.
    To see a warrior like Danny Dichio led away was difficult. The reasons given – though understandable – are not completely satisfying.
    We’ll see what happens next.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Posh poutine?

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Well, we know the Mr. and Mrs. David Beckhams have a fondness for cosmopolitan world cities.
    Madrid? Check. Milan? Hi there. … Montreal?
    A New York Times report today suggests The Pop Star’s Husband is in talks with Joey Saputo et al to become a part owner of the Montreal Impact when they apparently join Major League Soccer, apparently in 2012.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Saputo, who has long been a big fish in a small French Canadian USL-1 pond, may be set to start trading butterfly strokes with MLS’s resident whale.
    This would do a few things. Right away, it would make Montreal a mortal lock for an expansion franchise. MLS commissioner Don Garber is quoted at the back end of the story, saying “It’s not happening in 2011. It’ll happen sometime after that, but I’d like to see three teams in Canada.”
    Everything still rests on the Quebec government’s pledge – as yet unfinanced – to pay for a healthy expansion of Stade Saputo. Big headlines like this aren’t going to hurt that process at all.
    Ah, but what of Beckham as an owner. It’s going to happen – somewhere. Becks has a deal with the league that he gets to own a team. In practice, that means he would smile and wave at some press conferences, and jet in occasionally for smoked meat. The real “ownership” would be done by his money, and whoever gets hired to do the actual nuts-and-bolts gig.
    Joey Saputo could actually be a pretty good fit. Yes, the Impact have been in an ongoing state of disintegration and free fall for most of this season, but some fairly strong business fundamentals are still in place. As a local frontman for Posh Cash? Yeah, that could go!
    And that lets MLS hold a major-money auction for the twentieth – and allegedly last – place in the league. St. Louis is eager, but can’t compete in an all-out cash clash. So maybe MLS relocates the gagging mess that is San Jose over there, and lets New York, Miami and Who Knows? (sit down, Carolina) outbid each other to join Montreal in 2012.
    In general, I’m a big fans of stories that tie lots of loose ends into an elegant bow. This one seems to pass that test. It should also help Vancouver relax a bit.
    Recent uncertainty over the future of BC Place stadium has led to occasional whispers that maybe Montreal would grab the Whitecaps’ spot if a $365-million hole isn’t put in the Vancouver stadium roof. (Montreal, of course, is a city famous for getting holes in stadium roofs for free.)
    All we need now is a trendy Posh Poutine © boutique and eatery on Crescent Street.
    Thoughts?
    Onward!
    Guest

    I’ve seen enough

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Six minutes into last night’s Toronto FC match in Denver against the Colorado Rapids, this reporter had seen … enough.
    You know, on election nights, when they interrupt the deeper analysis of the first two per-cent of the vote-count from East West Central Widgetville to tell you the Social Troglodyte party has won the election and will be doing any darn thing they want for the next four years?
    Here’s the election call, from the Onward! desk:
    Toronto FC will miss the MLS playoffs for the third consecutive season.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    This came clear to me -- as noted about – after just six minutes. Right around the time the TFC D hairballed up a completely optional loose ball that long-suffering goalie Stefan Frei was forced to the carpet to save.
    On a night when New England had lost to Kansas City, and DC United had been held to a draw by lowly Dallas, Toronto sent out a squad that included both Pablo Vitti and Chad Barrett in key attacking roles. No Ali Gerba, and of course no Danny Dichio.
    Vitti and Barrett filed absolutely typical, predictable nights at the office. Worked hard? Check. Occasionally created something? Sure. Neither one of them came even remotely close to scoring a goal? Yep, howdy.
    With the loss – because that’s what happens when three defenders stand around and watch league-leading goal scorer Connor Casey (ex-TFC, of course) rise for an uncontested header and the game’s only goal – Toronto remains in 11th place in MLS, looking up at a four-way log jam for the final two wildcard playoff spots. And two of the teams ahead of them – New England and Chivas USA – have two precious games in hand on Our Redcoats.
    You’re going to hear a lot about Toronto’s remaining schedule – how three home games against Colorado, San Jose and the Salt Lake Seagulls, plus an easy win at New York will give them all the points they need to extend their season to at least Hallowe’en.
    This is MLS, where parity reigns and even the best teams – the Houstons and Columbuses and Chicagos and … LA Galaxies? – don’t count on winning three home games in a row. Oh, and New York beat Columbus at the Meadowlands just last week.
    Ah, Ben, but what about – Julian DeGuzman?
    Sure! Bring in TFC’s first Designated Player with just six games to go. The only obstacle right now is salary cap room – which means dumping contracts. Oh, and then Toronto has to click on the field, which has rarely happened in 2009, even though some wonderful players have already been added to the roster.
    I can paint you a thrilling picture. DeGuzman instantly becomes one of the very best and most dangerous players in all of MLS. And a schedule of also-rans – except for road trips to Chicago and Beckhamburg – must be ripe for pillaging by maybe the best midfield in MLS history?
    DeGuzman, DeRosario, Guevara and Cronin.
    John, Paul, George … and Cronin.
    Terrifying, Weapon after weapon, and they can all play. Together, they can dominate. But other names will be gone. Popular ones. It’s going to be a lot for the rest of the roster to deal with, in a league that is already infuriatingly unpredictable.
    Those two red cards on Amadou Sanyang and Adrian Serioux, last night, just for example. The word “soft” comes to mind. Velvet soft. Marshmallow fluff soft. Seven baby kittens in a basket soft.
    I’ll spare you the “ref lost his mind” speech, at least until I’ve seen all the other MLS tape from this weekend. Some other well-meaning busload of boobs might have got treated worse by the officials, and I wouldn’t want to be the poor shlub screaming “fire” in an apocalypse.
    Did you see the look in Serioux’s eyes when the deal went down? Blazing, but also disbelieving. Trying to stay calm, and work through the question of how can any professional defender to his job if THAT is a red-card foul?
    The frustrated fan in me was almost hoping at that point that either Barrett or Vitti would run 30 yards and belt the ref right in the chops. I don’t advocate this, but the mind does strange, tortured things under pressure.
    This ridiculous call came just as so many TFC fans finally got what they’ve craved for weeks – Dichio and Gerba up front, together, at the same time. But with Toronto two men down, it came to nothing. This league just bugs all joy and life out of me sometimes.
    Can Toronto rally, earn a back-door wildcard, and get fed to Houston or Columbus or Chicago or Posh Spice on Hallowe’en weekend? Yes.
    Will they? No.
    Even with DeGuzman? Sorry.
    Between this team, its strategy, and the swirling oddities of a league with enforced parity and terrible refs, even if Toronto plays well enough to win all their remaining games, they won’t. And they’re not going to play that well, anyway, so – well …
    The Onward! election desk concedes. No playoffs again.
    And may the players, coaches and occasional general manager fall … where they may.
    Onward!
    Guest

    I won another Archer Award!

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Ah, there’s nothing like getting ripped by the schoolyard bully. I used to dread moments like that – back in Grade 4 – but now I find it quite exhilarating.
    Bill Archer – of course – today on BigSoccer.com.
    Bill’s never forgiven me for a piece I wrote way back at the beginning of my Globe & Mail days. It chattily floated the hypothetical idea of a two-tier MLS structure, where ambitious teams could opt out of the salary cap, and take their chances on the free market. It was mostly a conversation starter – which is most of what I try to do up here.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Sure, it’s impractical – which is exactly why >>>I’ve never mentioned it since.<<<
    Nobody told the Great Man in Ohio, though. So here’s what I’m actually saying:
    The idea came last December, in a brilliant column by Richard Snowden on Soccer365.com. Snowden dared to suggest the MLS salary cap could actually stay right around where it is – and the ownership groups of the individual teams could be allowed to spend a few million of their own dollars on better players, so long as they didn’t exceed the MLS roster limit.
    This would ease the league’s relentless parity problems, and wouldn’t cost MLS a cent. Yes, there would now be “rich” teams and “poor” teams, but the spread (maybe $5 million, tops) would never be enough to keep the poorer teams from winning – particularly in the pinball free-for-all that is the MLS playoffs. (New York in the final?)
    This is completely different from the old Globe piece. Mine was a naïve, tentative thought. Snowden’s idea is brilliant.
    I’ve written about it a few times now, fully crediting and linking it each time. Maybe Archer, who boasted this week he’s installed a “crybaby” program on his computer to mock my colleague Duane Rollins, should put on another one to tell him I’ve moved on and he missed it.
    Nah. Never happen.
    In the meantime, I’m always delighted to win an Archer Award.
    Bill, do you really believe Don Garber’s cosy little financial straitjacket is the best American soccer can ever do? Yeah, we get it. It saved the league. I’ve acknowledged that many times, in many different forums.
    But it’s not good enough for down the road.
    This may surprise you, but Toronto FC might not join the free-spenders, even if they got the chance. TFC got into the league for a paltry $10-million, and didn’t have to pay for a stadium. I’ve been told from deep within that ownership loves MLS financial restrictions.
    Oh, and Bill? This isn’t a Canada thing. It’s a soccer thing.
    I don’t want to recklessly blow the whole of MLS up. Read Snowden. That ain’t demolition. But I certainly don’t want years and years of my soccer future lashed to Garber’s iron lung so poor widdle FC Dallas doesn’t go bouncy-castle up.
    If that infuriates you and yours, hallelujah and pass the clams!
    Everyone else – once again – go check out Richard Snowden.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Battle for the future

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    The USL story is exploding.
    First, the league is unexpectedly sold to someone other than the group that was undergoing due diligence after apparently having its purchase offer accepted.
    Now, several teams – Carolina, Minnesota, Miami and the suspended Atlanta franchise – are talking about walking … possibly even setting up a new division-one league to directly challenge Major League Soccer.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    This is far from a simple story. But the odds are almost hopelessly against them.
    Here’s a few key points:
    - MLS’s salary cap and roster restrictions hugely handcuff the league’s teams, but have also kept the league – and all its franchises – in business for a decade and a half, including through one of the worst recessions in a century.
    - The USL teams are not rich. Miami’s on life support and subject to an ongoing deathwatch. Atlanta doesn’t even have a team, and while the Carolina Railhawks are kicking butt up and down the continent, they simply cannot presently compete head-to-head financially with MLS teams.
    - There are many, many North American soccer fans – myself among them – who would love to see the pro game in Canada and the United States busted out of the MLS straitjacket.
    - The MLS collective bargaining agreement is expiring. Without a salary-cap increase – or a two-tier system where the league actually lets ownership groups pay extra money for players – we could be looking at years and years of continual bureaucratic life support and limitation.
    - If that happens, a rival league would be a very enticing possibility.
    Unfortunately, however odd and small MLS may be on the global soccer stage, it dwarfs and hugely outclasses the USL. USL’s biggest contribution to the world really isn’t its top division, USL-1. The real hook is the sprawling and pleasantly productive Player Development League, which is doing a vastly better job of finding talent, developing it, and selling it on down the line – quite often to Europe.
    So … we have MLS teams that are not able – or allowed – to compete for players with real soccer set-ups. And we have a battered, divided USL-1, continually losing top teams to MLS, where a lot of the owners are disgusted, and apparently want out.
    I would love – LOVE! – to see them start a new league, free of all financial restriction, and show MLS how it could be done. But I see no chance – NONE! – that meaningful competition can actually happen. Not now, and not like this.
    As much as they drive me crazy on a weekly basis, the MLS restrictions are still keeping Our Little League in business. Meanwhile, the present split in USL could be disastrous for the lower layers of the North American soccer pyramid – unless the PDL can find ways to stay alive and operating, all but on its own.
    Right now, the USL split is a boardroom stare-down, rather than a revolution. And it’s not the peg on which advocates for a free-market MLS can hang our hats. That’s a far bigger fight, for a much later date.
    (Darn and drat it all.)
    Onward!
    Guest

    Goalless in Seattle

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Wasted opportunities and a fortunate escape. That’s the oddly unsurprising tale of Toronto FC’s 0-0 saw-off in Seattle.
    Anyone who still thinks scoreless soccer is uneventful obviously missed this one. The Torontos, weakened by yellow-card suspensions to both holding midfielder Carl Robinson and back-line hard man Adrian Serioux, clearly took the field believing that a rampant offence could at least be an adequate defence.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    Almost immediately, Dwayne DeRosario rounded Sounders’ netkeep Casey Kellar, but was left so cross-footed that his tough-angle right-footer at a gaping empty goal actually went wide after smacking into his own left foot.
    Then DeRo hooked an utterly gorgeous outswinging cross perfectly to the head of a diving Chad Barrett – who missed.
    Next thing you know, Amado Guevara rockets one off the crossbar, and it’s all Toronto and the shell-shocked Sounders are lucky not be down at least a pair. CBC commentators Nigel Reed and Jason DeVos actually said the Redcoats were “in ascendency” three times in under two minutes.
    Ah, but that which ascends ….
    Seattle managed to get the game on a more even footing by halftime, and always seemed the more likely side to break through after the break.
    Same old script, right? Miss after miss after TFC miss. But then – thank some combination of luck, mercy and one other thing – the game deviated from the script. Toronto FC did not – did NOT – give up a late howler to lose the game.
    Oh, they tried. Huge breakdowns and some pretty nifty MicroStarSoftBucks passing sent the Seattles home-free a couple of times. But rookie goalie Stefan Frei was crucially and clinically there, and the three points that should have been, were safely coalesced into one point that could easily have been lost.
    Is that a satisfying result? I … guess. Turns out Seattle is many times worse at scoring in the last 10 minutes than TFC is at hairballing up gift goals.
    I’m not going to knock DeRo for missing that sitter, because he’s contributed enough this season to convince me that was a very tough chance. But how many more sitters does Chad Barrett get to miss?
    Okay, a full-on diving header is probably never easy. But the cross was astonishing, folks. No Sounder – including their magnificent goaltender – had any chance at all to keep it from reaching the perfect set-up spot. And Barrett was there! The dive looked perfect! The ball … just kinda glanced off the wrong side of his forehead, and nestled into touch well wide of the near left post.
    See, there’s a reason the press went to bat for Danny Dichio this past week. We’ve just pretty much all noticed that Toronto FC creates more – and scores pretty well – when the allegedly half-crippled, too-battered, too-old, defence-distorting human mayhem machine is on the pitch. Now I can’t honestly say Dichio – who didn’t play but at least, after all that, made the trip – would have won this game. But I’d have liked to see him try. Ali Gerba, too, who relieved Barrett an hour in, but then undercut the argument by not being any kind of factor.
    I don’t know what either of them would do – but I do know what Chad Barrett does, and he did it again today. Okay, at least this one didn’t fly harmlessly into the goalie’s arms, but only because it was nodded hopelessly wide.
    Frustration like I’m feeling isn’t born out of one game, folks – and pretty much every Toronto FC fan is nodding their heads as they read that. You can never say an early miss cost anyone a win. But way too many people are thinking it anyway.
    < /dead horse >
    TFC coach Chris Cummins did make a couple of nervy line-up decisions in this one, and they’re worth a look. With no Robinson, it made perfect sense to put impressive rookie Sam Cronin in the main holding spot. But alongside him, Cummins called 18-year-old Gambian rookie Amadou Sanyang – to face down Freddies Montero and Ljungberg in a shifting and dangerous Seattle attack. This, instead of slotting Guevara back there, and letting Pablo Vitti run pointless and pretty.
    It actually worked out fairly well. Toronto’s attacking start eased the pressure for most of the opening half. Meanwhile, young defenders Nana Attakora and Emmanuel Gomez continued their steady play, allowing Marvell Wynne to prowl the right wing, where his speed caused a couple of bad headaches for the home side.
    So – a draw, which should have been a win, which could have been a loss. Been a few of those lately, huh?
    Onward!
    Guest

    Dichio’s descent

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    John Molinaro, over at cbcsports.ca, wrote a fine impassioned piece this morning about Toronto FC striker Danny Dichio, and the odd – even disrespectful – treatment he is getting from coach Chris Cummins.
    Dichio – the team’s first hero for scoring its first goal – can’t get in a game. Cummins says he is too injured even to fly to the west coast for road games. No, I’ve never heard that one before.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    This seems odd because, on the rare moments when Dichio does get into a game, he is second only to the rampant Dwayne DeRosario as the team’s most dangerous and creative attacker this season. If he’s so seriously hurt, why does he look so good – and produce so much?
    Cummins said earlier in the year he wanted to ration Dichio’s minutes a bit, to make sure he gets the best of the 35-year-old veteran holding striker when he really needs him.
    But when is that? Two goalless CONCACAF Champions League fold jobs against Puerto Rico? The entire team producing zero shots on goal at Chivas USA last Saturday?
    Molinaro gave the cage a good rattle this morning, and I hope we’ll learn a lot more in the aftermath. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (TFC’s owners) do make it very hard to access the players at times. We may have to go another route.
    How about a major outpouring of fan support? The fans already sing Dichio’s name during the 24th minute of every game. Maybe it’s time to step that up.
    A banner. More songs. Everyone wear the number 9. Put on a bald wig or something. Pressure on the media sites. Pressure on the fan boards.
    We’re not just talking about respect for a distinguished warrior at the end of his career. We have a desperate need playing time for a guy who has done nothing all season but create wonderful chances for his teammates to score.
    What are we going to do? Lose? Pretty-Boy Vitti and Chunk Barrett are going to create more singing set-ups than Dichio? Even with strict playing-time restrictions, Dichio has them both beat on the season.
    This doesn’t read like an injury story. It feels far more like a back-room bust-up. Let’s pressure both Cummins and Dichio to speak up, and then shine a thoughtful, careful light on whatever they have to say.
    Dichio is a hero in these parts, after all. And there is the small matter of a playoff spot.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Canada III – Passport problems

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    We are, of course, a nation of immigrants. There’s a metric honkload of Canadians who have parents or grandparents from somewhere else.
    And that causes some serious headaches – and setbacks – for Canada’s national soccer teams.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    FIFA rules allow such players to play their international soccer for other nations. And the better they are as players, the more likely it is they’ll decamp. It hurts the program, and enrages Canada fans beyond endurance.
    And I want to talk about all of it.
    Back in 2001, of course, young Owen Hargreaves – a Calgary lad, with Welsh/English parents, who’d been played years in Germany for Bayern Munich – chose to trot out for England in the closing moments of their ringing 5-1 triumph over the Germans, three days before September 11.
    Huge numbers of Canada fans still consider this an unforgivable betrayal. “Traitor,” “Whore” and “Judas” are the three most common epithets. The lad’s been called “Whoregreaves” more than Hargreaves in this parts in all the years that have followed.
    A still-bitter fan actually said to me, in a soccer bar the other day, that Hargreaves would have had a better career if he’d chosen to play for Canada.
    Hmm. Two starts in UEFA Champions League finals, winning both. Several seasons (until he was badly injured) as first-call holding midfielder for Manchester United – winners of the last three English Premier League titles on the trot. Oh, and internationally, likely England’s best player in the 2006 World Cup.
    I fail to see how posing for Holger Osieck coaching rants on a Canada team that – despite winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2000 – wasn’t going anywhere was going to add to Hargreaves’ accomplishments.
    To be fair, it was a hugely unpopular decision, and Hargreaves himself didn’t handle it well – particularly when he boarded that final airplane out of Canada while a room full of press (which he, himself, had summoned) stood around waiting for him at a still-famous Calgary press conference that didn’t happen.
    I, too, have lamented his loss. Where I differ with most of his critics, though, is on whether he had the right to do it. Canada, in 2001, was years away from another shot at World Cup qualifying. Coach Osieck was publicly dismissing them as “a bunch of second-division players,” and chronic dysfunction at the Canadian Soccer Association was making bad situations worse by the minute.
    One of the biggest questions was whether Hargreaves could even get on the field for England, let alone succeed. The answer to that one turned out – ringingly – to be “yes.”
    FIFA rules say players are eligible to play for the country they hold a passport for. And, if their parents or grandparents hold different citizenship, those are possible destinations as well. In Hargreaves’s case, he had lived and worked in Germany long enough to be eligible there, as well.
    Two sides to this coin:
    Heads – It would be great if it were as simple as you play for the country you were born in. Okay, that’s a bit hard on refugees, but no one ever called Owen Hargreaves that. Fans the world over burn with this belief, and that’s mostly where the hatred originates.
    Tails – The rules say it’s legal, and what’s more Canadian than going wherever you have the best chance to get the absolute most from your talent and opportunities?
    In my case, my bloodlines all originate in the British Iles. But not for five or six generations. But my mom’s mom was born in Montana. So if FIFA rules applied to writing, I could represent either Canada or the United States, and that’s it. I would have no trouble picking Canada.
    But if my forebearers had been a bit slower highsailing it out of Old Countries (England, Scotland and Ireland), I might have had a bigger choice. And while I’m happily and hopelessly Canadian, that larger pallet of possibilities might at least – intrigue.
    No, I wouldn’t leave. But if a bunch of writing fans started loudly calling me names for even thinking about it in the first place – well, it wouldn’t be enough to push me out the door, but I know I wouldn’t feel good about it.
    I fully understand the fan frustration. Great Canadian soccer players are rare, and the World Cup dream needs all the miracles it can get. In Hargreaves’s case, though, I still feel he would not have made a decisive difference for Canada – and that most of the fans who rip him for choosing England would be up in arms, pitchforks and torches if any government anywhere tried to slap the same working restrictions on them.
    This entire debate took an infuriating new twist in recent times, with the case of young Jonathan DeGuzman. Even I’m bugged about this one – and that’s where we’re going next.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Hi from my life

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Hey all!
    Just taking a few quick days to play some shows, pay some bills and recharge the batteries.
    Three things:
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    1) The L.A. Galaxy could now accidentally win the MLS championship.
    2) Toronto FC’s five straight games against the west division are all head-to-head playoff-position fights.
    3) It’s time to name names and take numbers in the CSA reform fight.
    I’ll be wrapping the current “whither Canada?” series in the next few days. The real work will be commencing soon after that.
    Grab some pitchforks and a torch. I’ll meet you in the hills.
    Onward!
    Guest

    Rockin’ rookies

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    Way, way back in the misty early days of 2009, Toronto FC entered the MLS Super Draft © ® TM with three first-round draft picks, and a toxic waste crater in the centre of defence.
    Draft picks are always a gamble, so it was clear that one or two needed to be dealt to FC Bouncy Castle for Canadian international defender Adrian Serioux.
    But TFC square-dance caller Mo Johnston didn’t get an offer he liked, so he went ahead and made three picks. Understand, the NCAA is not a world-class football factory. It reliably serves up players who can fill out MLS rosters, but that’s not exactly a ringing recommendation.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    And just because a player is a prospect doesn’t mean the prospect will ever become a player. All three top picks usually gives you is a reasonable certainty one of them will start for you for five years. Most won’t.
    What Mo did next – startled people. He grabbed a midfielder (Sam Cronin) and a badly injured striker (O’Brian White). He then got luckier than even luck would feel comfortable with when “one-in-a-generation” goaltender Stefan Frei plummeted all the way to the 13 spot.
    Three picks – and no central defender. It was about the sixth of a continuing series of last straws for Johnston’s vocal legion of critics.
    So much has happened … since then.
    For starters, suddenly flushed with young talent, Mo immediately dealt a low-priority 2010 draft pick – to FC Bouncy Castle – for Adrian Serioux. Then it turned out Frei and Cronin were the goods. Frei seems certain to have Europe in his future, while Cronin looks like he can play productively in MLS for a decade.
    None of this looked good for O’Brian White. Even though the kid could flat-out score and was a lock for the pros, he decided to play his senior season at the University of Connecticut. Then, one of his major knee ligaments got connected with and cut.
    He’s been healing, rehabbing and working out ever since. He got his first look at the field in the TFC-River Plate friendly. Tons of energy. He runs funny. Injury damage? Just a quirk?
    Cut to this past Saturday, and TFC’s vital home fixture against the swirling dark-winged menace that is DC United. Love him or loathe him, Trader Mo sure looked like a genius in this one.
    Cronin: All over the field. Great vision. Good patience. Puts in a gorgeous cross for Dwayne DeRosario’s opening goal.
    Frei: Not needed much, but makes a hugely brave and perfectly timed slide run outside his box to deny DC the kind of clean, unnecessary breakaway that has, so often, been Toronto’s downfall.
    White: The ball comes to him, late, on the edge of the DC area. The situation matters, and the play is breaking down. Like his flashy South American teammate Pablo Vitti, White creates room for himself with a good little stutter step. Unlike Vitti – he scores!
    O’Brian White’s first pro marker is a pure goal-scorer’s goal. Create the space, and hit a magnificent out-swinger that eludes all opposition and nestles into the netting just a fraction inside the far post.
    Can Johnston really have gone three-for-three? Out of a globally weak talent pool?
    And – if you order in the next twenty minutes (‘cause you know we can’t do this all day!):
    Emmanuel Gomez: Young Gambian defender. Has this great trick. Puts his foot down. Ball stops dead on his foot. He did it over and over against DC – just as he had against Real Freakin’ Madrid.
    Amadou Sanyang: Young Gambian midfielder. Just days older than the legal MLS limit. Got the start and did just fine. Ate turf three times late though. Hope it was cramp, and not some West African version of the Hated Honduran Hula Dance.
    Nana Attakora: Young Canadian defender. TFC player of the month for June. Huge composure. Sealed the back on at least three dangerous DC strike-bids.
    Basically, the kids killed. Gomez and Attakora look like they could bolster a good professional back line for years. Cronin and Frei have to be on anybody’s all-rookie team, and White quite deliberately scored a top-drawer professional goal.
    It’s getting harder and harder to be a Mo Johnston hater in this town. Knowing Mo – and this team – the chance will come again … soon. But for now, soccer fans:
    How ‘bout them TFC kids?
    Onward!
    Guest

    Canada II – CSA reform?

    By Guest, in Onward Soccer,

    With the Gold Cup over, we have entered a deeply quiet period in Canadian soccer. No games, no news.
    The late stages of 2008 brought something rare to those of us who keenly and critically follow the doings (and undoings) of the Canadian Soccer Association:
    Optimism.
    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
    With Peter Montopoli installed as general secretary, the CSA made a series of solid decisions. Stephen Hart as technical director. The same Stephen Hart as interim coach of the senior men’s national team. Carolina Morace as head coach and uberboss of the women’s national program.
    Traditionally, there have been two glaring weaknesses with our soccer bureaucrats: corporate structure and funding. As 2009 dawned, it looked as though the bureaucracy was under control, and new sources of funding were imminent.
    Have you ever waited a bit too long for a bus? Got to that point where you legitimately wonder if the bus is even coming? That’s about where things stand today.
    For decades, the CSA board has needed pruning. An antiquated, obsolete system gives votes to every province, and at least some of the territories. Consensus is difficult, doubly so because not all of these local reps have any blessed clue about the realities of contemporary world soccer.
    I would expect things to be quiet during a time of reform, hoping that everyone’s huddling to make the deals necessary to trim at least eight heads off this dragon. But there’s quiet – and then there’s silence.
    Getting details on the CSA used to literally be as easy as turning on my computer. Not now. This suggests strongly that Montopoli has rightly explained to these folks that, from a corporate integrity point of view, all the leaks weren’t helping.
    But anyone who’s ever played this game knows there would almost certainly be leaks all over the place if anything big were actually imminent. If eight provincial reps knew they were getting axed, or having their influence drastically reduced, I would be hearing cries and whimpers from all sorts of odd angles. I’m not.
    All right, maybe that’s not a problem. If Montopoli could get the CSA to accept Morace, maybe he’s just found ways to work effectively with the existing board. Miracles do happen sometimes. But if that’s so, where are all the funding announcements?
    The CSA has an annual budget of about $13-million. Only a million of that comes from the federal government. Most of the rest dribbles in from amateur player registration fees. The CSA made a big play last fall for a $5-per-head increase. It was almost universally rejected – primarily because the proposal was pitched too late in the year, when most of Canada’s amateur soccer clubs had already drawn up their 2009 operating budgets.
    (Yes, you read all of that correctly.)
    There is no sane, successful soccer nation on this planet that funds its World Cup dreams that way. Generally, pro clubs run things, and Canada has only three of those, and by global standards, they are three very small fish.
    But bless Montopoli, he knows fee hikes alone cannot be the answer. He has said publicly – to me, directly, down the phone at a press conference a few months back – that corporate partnerships “are the goal, and have always been the goal.”
    Good!
    Now – where are they?
    Oh, it’s a wreck of a recession out there, but the markets have had four winning months on the trot, and stock prices have recovered something like 40 per cent of their pre-crash value. The trough is shallowing. Opportunities are out there.
    The CSA seemed ready to ramp things up when they officially shifted their primary focus to the women’s team. More successful, guaranteed World Cup participants. But – where are the sponsors?
    I’ll admit, I don’t get sponsorship leaks nearly often or as easily as other CSA stuff. They’ve been careful not to blab about possible bucks, even since the spectacular chain-reaction gaffe-tastrophe that was the Canadian United Soccer League plan.
    But any serious reform of Canada’s woefully inadequate player development system needs serious financing. Ultimately, this is where Montopoli succeeds of fails. Right now, there is still no news.
    I would really love to see Montopoli score right now. The entire program is in the doldrums, and directionlessness seems all too comfortably in place.
    We need a full and thorough progress report. Something that proves the bureaucracy’s been tamed, and massive new funding has been found.
    This deep ongoing silence is actually encouraging – in some ways. But it doesn’t solve the problems, and the problems still get bigger by the day.
    Onward!
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