Thursday, September 12, 2013

TFC Road, the street under permanent construction?



TFC fandom has always been a hard road to travel. Recent weeks have continued that bleak tradition. Every day I think I have some comment worth sharing. Every day a new event seems to arrive to shake your confidence and makes you rethink blogging.

So here is my attempt at describing where we have been and opinions I have arrived at.

- I think that enough criticism was aimed at Kevin Payne that I slowly came to the view that he was not the right person to be president of TFC. His firing was a surprise at first. Payne might have been caught bullshitting too many times, did not seem to have enough soccer sense and promised changes that he seemed unable to deliver. There has been little consideration from MLSE and boss Tim on how fans who felt some loyalty to Payne's leadership could be expected to jump onto the "win with Tim" bandwagon. I still feel that having a TFC president is a good thing. The suggestion that the next GM will not be a president type, but a number crunching capologist who defers to Tim when it is Designated Player signing time, seems a recipe for disaster.


- I am not convinced at all that Tim Leiweke is the leader that TFC needs. I think that to lead TFC you have to be a bit of a dreamer, you have to be willing to swim against the tide and want to establish soccer as a big time sport in a market that has neglected it for some time. I am not thrilled with the LA Galaxy story. I spend time in Los Angeles almost every year. LA this summer is in love with the Dodgers. Leiweke may have been part of signing Beckham and hiring Arena, but soccer is still an afterthought in LA.
Face it, if Tim Leiweke provides MLSE with Stanley Cup wins, NBA Finals appearances and lands Toronto with an NFL franchise, do you think he would be fired for mishandling TFC? I don't think I am the only TFC fan who dreams of some billionaire buying TFC from MLSE.

- Trading Urutti for Dike. Another shocker, made me shake my head at all the time I spent this summer following rumours and searching for clues in the TFC search for international talent. I think the trading deadline is at some point on Friday. I am prepared.





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