Former TFC coach Chris Cummins spills the beans

[Gian-Luca]

Not sure that Kristian Jack is Mo Johnston's favourite member of the media after the Gerba interview and now this one:

http://blogs.thescore.com/footyblog/2010/04/26/exclusive-interview-with-chris-cummins/

Some of the highlights:

- Cummins claims that Mo didn't provide enough support to him

- Mo apparently would interfere with team selection, stepping into the dressing room (Carver had kept him out - Cummins regrets not being strong enough to do so) to talk to players at the half, making "I can't believe you aren't playing" comments to players not scheduled to start during the warm-ups of games

- Nick Dasovic apparently thought he was going to be the Interim Coach, up to two hours before the press conference announcing that Cummins got it

- Division in the dressing room with the players was between US & Canadian players

- Confirms that Ali Gerba was injured the whole time in Toronto last year - they had to stop him from doing extra work out sessions because they thought it would make his injured knee worse

[yomurphy1]

^ That's ridiculous... Mo Must Go he's obviously a detriment to the team.

[nolando]

wow - that's quite the beans

from a v's perspective it's ridiculous that Gerba didn't have a single league game healthy to prove his worth

also it's encouraging that the canucks defended each other - they probably develop more comraderie during MNT camps than most of us would imagine

and what shaight treatment for dasovic - might he be another triano - waiting in the wings and regularly picked over

[Gian-Luca]

And Mo indicates that legal action will be taken in response. Not sure if this is against Cummins and/or The Score.

http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/story.html?id=2953874#ixzz0mFjIk3R7

[Mr.Impact]

[ag futbol]

What kind of a statement is that by Johnston....

I hope Cummins has a few former players come to his defense, because this is pretty low on the clubs part.

[Cheeta]

^ Echo that. I mean come on Johnston, don't like a bit of criticism? What are you, new?

Yeesh. Don't mention anything about the Americans on Inter-TFC. Bit of a hot wire that.

Boy, Jack has put two broadsides right into Trader Mo with the Gerba and Cummins interviews, you kind of wonder what else he's got up his sleeve.

[Cheeta]

P.S.

"What are you going to say? Lots of guys don't make teams," Anselmi said of Gerba. "If anything, that says the team is deeper and he wasn't good enough."

Is that the party line is it? That TFC's depth made Ali G redundent?

Oh look. Wagons are circling. Or are those vultures?

[ag futbol]

Yeah that stood out like a sore thumb as well. Does Anselmi actually think he`s qualified to comment on that sort of thing...

[loyola]

While I agree with everyone about Mo managerial skills, I'm wondering what would be his interest in the Gerba fiasco. He is the one who signed Gerba to a very generous contract, I would imagine he would've stand for Ali if Preki wanted him out. If Preki showed him the door, it at least shows who is in charge right now. If it's Mo, he really is stupid.

The Dasovic story is really weird to say the least. What happened to justify the last minute change and if it's true I'm surprise Nick sstayed there without saying a word.

BTW, Yallop is the first Canadian coach in MLS.

[Gian-Luca]

On a separate note (probably not worth starting a new thread over) the Score interview with Toronto mayor David Miller was quite fun to watch - a bit surreal to hear the City's mayor talk about players like Nana Attakora and Adrian Cann as though they are household names.

[Macksam]

Why was there a division between the Canadian and American players?

[Admin]

Why was there a division between the Canadian and American players?

That is what I am curious about.

Did it start with an argument over how to pronounce roof? Z? How to spell kolur?

WTF do they have to fight about?

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Who cares what they fought about? The youth coach who temporarily ran TFC on an interim basis after the head coach who appointed him went postal is back in England and there has been a massive clear out of last year's roster so it's time to move on and look forwards. It is Preki's team now and Preki is clearly calling the shots on who gets signed and who gets traded etc so Mo Johnston's continued presence is not necessarily that big a deal. Does anyone seriously believe that he is giving Preki a hard time about player selection issues on the Friday morning before a game?

[TFCRegina]

That is what I am curious about.

Did it start with an argument over how to pronounce roof? Z? How to spell kolur?

WTF do they have to fight about?

Maybe how ****ty Nick Garcia and Marvell Wynne was...

I could just imagine it now..."way to head the ball into our own net", "way to not cross the ball"

[Havoc88]

Who cares what they fought about? The youth coach who temporarily ran TFC on an interim basis after the head coach who appointed him went postal is back in England and there has been a massive clear out of last year's roster so it's time to move on and look forwards. It is Preki's team now and Preki is clearly calling the shots on who gets signed and who gets traded etc so Mo Johnston's continued presence is not necessarily that big a deal. Does anyone seriously believe that he is giving Preki a hard time about player selection issues on the Friday morning before a game?

I think going "postal" is a bit of a stretch. What is coming forward with this info is that MoJo has been or is nothing but a negative presence in the organization with the players, staff, signings etc ... - however, apparently Carver is on the Grill Room today so it will be interesting to see what he says and whether he corroborates this. With that being said (re Mo) - if Preki is in fact calling the shots on who gets signed and traded etc ... then really what purpose does Mo serve? To make jokes at press conferences? His presence is still felt on player deals such as Cann which nearly fell through because Mo didn't want to pay him but in the end had no choice.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

The purpose that Mo still serves at this point is to do the paperwork associated with contracts and make the phonecalls to deal with agents so Preki can concentrate on coaching the team. Preki not being involved in haggling over money is a good way to stop that side of things poisoning the relationship between the coach and the team. With a team operating under a salary cap there will always be attempts by management to sign players for as little as possible.

Really bizarre what's happening amongst TFC fans right now. For three years most of the vocal portion of the fanbase drank the proverbial kool aid where fieldturf was concerned and accepted the argument that the team couldn't attract enough good players because of it (meanwhile it didn't seem to stop the Sounders getting Ljunberg and qualifying for the playoffs in their year one) and seemed happy enough to wallow in mediocrity singing the Danny D song every 24th minute like they were at the Rocky Horror Picture Show or something. As long as the coach had an English accent and reeled out all the tired cliches you hear after a Premiership game TFC appeared to have some kind of strange street cred for some people while the rest of MLS was perceived as being crap and the refs were all biased etc etc. Now all of a sudden when there is finally grass in place, the DP roster spot has been used to sign Canada's best player and a coach is finally in place who actually knows what he is doing in MLS terms instead of looking forward to bigger and better things all some people want to talk about is Mo Johnston's role last season fully six months after he stopped calling the shots on the makeup of the roster. Holy delayed reaction, Batman!

The ideal window of opportunity for getting rid of Mo and going in a new direction was when Mo started using fieldturf as an excuse midway through the 2008 season after failing to sign either Dickov or Huckerby and the team failed to make the playoffs despite the great start to the season, which should have made it easy to get there. Over the next year to 18 months after that a lot of allocation money and draft picks were squandered that could have been put to better use by somebody else. Imagine what could have been if somebody like Bruce Arena could have been tempted to move to Toronto at that point, for example? There were no protests from the fanbase at that point though. Instead there was an "In Carver We Trust" banner despite Carver's embarrassing postgame press conferences and obvious cluelessness as to what tactics to use during a North American summer when the ambient temperature is somewhat higher than what is typically experienced during a winter on Tyneside. But hey he had that English accent that seems to equate with knowing what you're doing for a lot of people who have next to no knowledge of the game themselves.

People often talk about the soccer naivety of MLSE management. Personally think it applies to a fair-sized portion of TFC's fan group culture and a lot of the people who make the most noise on fan group boards right now actually know the square root of bugger all about soccer. If they had a real appreciation for the sport they would be raving about the last 30 minutes of Sunday's game and would be looking forward with eager anticipation to the Montreal and RSL games to see whether Preki's revamped roster can keep that sort of standard of play going consistently. Fingers crossed on that one. Instead we get perpetual navel gazing about stuff that happened with players and interim coaches who are long gone now from TFC.[/rant]

[Havoc88]

if they had a real appreciation for the sport they would be raving about the last 30 minutes of sunday's game and would be looking forward with eager anticipation to the montreal and rsl games to see whether preki's revamped roster can keep the standard of play going consistently.

Exactly!

[Michael Crampton]

The ideal window of opportunity for getting rid of Mo and going in a new direction was when Mo started using fieldturf as an excuse midway through the 2008 season after failing to sign either Dickov or Huckerby and the team failed to make the playoffs despite the great start to the season, which should have made it easy to get there. Over the next year to 18 months after that a lot of allocation money and draft picks were squandered that could have been put to better use by somebody else. Imagine what could have been if somebody like Bruce Arena could have been tempted to move to Toronto at that point, for example? There were no protests from the fanbase at that point though. Instead there was an "In Carver We Trust" banner despite Carver's embarrassing postgame press conferences and obvious cluelessness as to what tactics to use during a North American summer when the ambient temperature is somewhat higher than what is typically experienced during a winter on Tyneside.

Unequivocally not true.

U-Sector had a "Fiar the Liar" banner draped on their capo stand back in late 2008 (that was criticized in many quarters.) NEE and (the now, to my knowledge, defunct) South Side Jumpers organized the often mocked "We Deserve Better" march banner for the last game of 2008. There were many anti-Mo chants before and during halftime of the NE home game (shortly after Edu's sale while we slumped away from the play-offs) coming from where I stand in mid-115. Further, the "In Carver We Trust" banner was just as mocked as it was supported.

BBtB you're a smart guy who follows the team closely but you've got an incredible ability to antagonize even the people who agree with you. Your whole "lonely voice of reason in a sea of emotional irrationality" stance is condescending and unnecessary. And conflating "the most vocal portion of the fanbase" with the RPB public forum gives them way too much credit and ignores broad swathes of the active fanbase.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

I'll concede that "no protests" should have been something closer to "only isolated protests" or some phrasing like that. Like it or loathe it, the RPB forum has the lion's share of the traffic these days. My wording in the last paragraph was "fair-sized portion" and "a lot of the people" because I'm well aware that there are people in all of the groups who know the sport inside out.

[Guest Ed]

I laughed at Anselmi's quote. Was that not 24 year old Chad Barrett, uber under-achiever still on the field last Sunday? My God, he went up for a bicycle kick and I was thinking that I, at 55 years old, have a better chance of making the mens' team than Chad's chances of scoring on that play.

Mind you, I have to take the article with a grain of salt as Cummings made Carver look like Toe Blake in terms of coaching ability.

[Gian-Luca]

Who cares what they fought about? The youth coach who temporarily ran TFC on an interim basis after the head coach who appointed him went postal is back in England and there has been a massive clear out of last year's roster so it's time to move on and look forwards.

I'm interested as well - this is a Canadian soccer forum and these are Canadian soccer players, some of whom are still with TFC and some of whom are still with the Canadian national team program - it's interesting to know what makes them tick, if this is a rivalry with the American players based on nationalities, envy or whatever the case may be, because that information might of relevance when "looking forward" at the rest of the season and future national team games. I'm not sure why you are seemingly so eager to curtail discussion on this subject, but too bad.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Not sure why people take anything Chris Cummins has to say at face value when he is clearly a deeply embittered man intent on gaining some kind of revenge against a number of people at TFC. MoJo was obviously target number one but he worked in small snippets that would be potentially awkward for other people as well primarily Nick Dasovic. If there was one simple and clear dividing line I suspect it was probably players with significant UK experience vs the NCAA graduates. The repeated references to Robinson, Serioux and Dichio would be to key figures on one side of that particular divide. Not something I'm likely to spend more than a few seconds contemplating though. It's Preki's team now and many/most of the players who would have been involved in that have moved on to pastures new.

[TheKottonmouthed1555362307]

Not sure why people take anything Chris Cummins has to say at face value when he is clearly a deeply embittered man intent on gaining some kind of revenge against a number of people at TFC. MoJo was obviously target number one but he worked in small snippets that would be potentially awkward for other people as well primarily Nick Dasovic. If there was one simple and clear dividing line I suspect it was probably players with significant UK experience vs the NCAA graduates. The repeated references to Robinson, Serioux and Dichio would be to key figures on one side of that particular divide. Not something I'm likely to spend more than a few seconds contemplating though. It's Preki's team now and many/most of the players who would have been involved in that have moved on to pastures new.

Uh? did you listen to the same interview. Nothing he said was malicious or anything, I think it's a bit much to say he's an embittered man. If he wanted to be cut throat about it he would of done it to Mo's face at his departure press conference. Plus I highly doubt it was Cummins or Gerba busting at the seams to spills their guts; rather than KJ prying away at castoffs of TFC to get Mo fired. Jack is Mo's problem not Cummins. Chris was just a willing participant. You need to get your off the Mo bandwagon, I'm all for supporting your club, but Mo is the problem, how many times and how many people have to say and show it before you stop thinking it's just the world is against Mo and people just need to leave him alone as yeah he maybe on the payroll and the GM, but don't worry he's not making any decisions anymore, you actually believe that?

I have no idea why you always back Mo, he's the one reason TFC is being held back, he needs to be fired and Preki needs to be given complete control.

I can't see how it's Preki's team when MoJo still is the guy all Preki's idea pass through, GM is higher than Coach. I feel cutting ties to Mo is necessary to complete the transition and satisfy fans to no degree.

[Macksam]

People often talk about the soccer naivety of MLSE management. Personally think it applies to a fair-sized portion of TFC's fan group culture and a lot of the people who make the most noise on fan group boards right now actually know the square root of bugger all about soccer. If they had a real appreciation for the sport they would be raving about the last 30 minutes of Sunday's game and would be looking forward with eager anticipation to the Montreal and RSL games to see whether Preki's revamped roster can keep that sort of standard of play going consistently. Fingers crossed on that one. Instead we get perpetual navel gazing about stuff that happened with players and interim coaches who are long gone now from TFC.[/rant]

While you make some great points, I just want to point out that I am excited about how we played our last game and I am looking forward to our next couple of matches. However, I'm still curious on what the rift between Canadian and American players was all bout. It has nothing to do with caring about old interim coaches or any of that nonesense. I just want to know the reasons for the tension between players considering a lot of our Canadian and American players from last season are still on this year's team.

I'm interested as well - this is a Canadian soccer forum and these are Canadian soccer players, some of whom are still with TFC and some of whom are still with the Canadian national team program - it's interesting to know what makes them tick, if this is a rivalry with the American players based on nationalities, envy or whatever the case may be, because that information might of relevance when "looking forward" at the rest of the season and future national team games. I'm not sure why you are seemingly so eager to curtail discussion on this subject, but too bad.

I agree, why else would we come here if not for intriguing sh*t like this.

Not sure why people take anything Chris Cummins has to say at face value when he is clearly a deeply embittered man intent on gaining some kind of revenge against a number of people at TFC. MoJo was obviously target number one but he worked in small snippets that would be potentially awkward for other people as well primarily Nick Dasovic. If there was one simple and clear dividing line I suspect it was probably players with significant UK experience vs the NCAA graduates. The repeated references to Robinson, Serioux and Dichio would be to key figures on one side of that particular divide. Not something I'm likely to spend more than a few seconds contemplating though. It's Preki's team now and many/most of the players who would have been involved in that have moved on to pastures new.

Sure, he might be, but why would he make up some imaginary tension between Canadian and American players?