When reviewing Toronto FC’s season you can spend all day debating the minutiae of what went right and what went wrong – and we did just that in part I and II of CSN’s TFC season wrap-up – but the reality is that there was one major decision the club made that affected everything else.
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Namely, it decided to throw the season before it started. Not in a fix-the-games or finish-last-to-get-best-draft-pick sort of way, but rather by giving Aron Winter and his staff a wink-wink acknowledgement that anything positive from 2011 would be a bonus. TFC upper management knew that the plan Winter and Co. were implementing was very, very unlikely to lead to a playoff berth.
One needed only to listen carefully to the way Winter talked to the media all year. He was clear that it was a multi-year project, that they players he inherited were lacking and that it would take time for him to fully understand what type of players were needed to be successful in MLS.
Winter is often accused of not saying much – and he does enjoy a good cliché – but he was clear that his was a three year plan and he expected to win the MLS Cup in 2013. Making the playoffs in 2011? Meh.
It begs a question – did it need to be this way? Could TFC have not started a re-building process without stripping the club down to its core? The Reds were close to an expansion team in the early days of the season and the results showed that. One of the biggest reasons for those struggles is that Toronto didn’t bring in a lot of players that could be called “MLSers” – the grinders and plumbers that form the core of most MLS teams. Instead, TFC focused on finding skilled players that could play a possession based game.
The approach has rarely been tried and has been successful even less often. On Winter’s initial moves, only Nick Soolsma sorta, kinda panned out. Although Paul Mariner’s magic managed to bring in some players that fit the mould Winter was looking for, but who also were a bit better suited for MLS, it was all a bit hit and miss. Ultimately, the club was essentially re-built in mid-season.
Although the second half of the season did show promise, TFC fans would be forgiven for wondering why they had to wait until August to start to see results. If it was because Winter needed time to learn the league? If so, then why did
they wait until January to hire him.
It would be less frustrating if TFC didn’t have a history of procrastination in building the team in the off-season. Mo Johnston used to wait to April to bring in a fill line-up, so what’s a few more months.
The idea, of course, is that Winter’s approach will give Toronto a club that is superior club, not just a run of the mill 7th place club.
Only time will tell. However, what we don’t need time to know is what the plan meant for 2011. It was a disaster. So, the biggest mistake TFC made in 2011 might end up being the most important thing it ever did.
Or, it might just be a waste of time. We really don’t know which.