On the surface it might seem strange that Vancouver is the team that TFC is loaning Matias Laba to. The two sides are Canadian rivals with lots of banter commonly tossed between the two groups of fans.
However, it's a totally different thing at the management level. There, TFC and Vancouver have had a very good relationship dating back to the Caps first year in the league. There was a time when Vancouver was pretty much the only team willing to work with Toronto, actually.
So, it's not surprising that they would step up again today.
Make no mistake, Vancouver is doing Toronto a favour. The only way Toronto could protect the full value of the asset was to arrange an intra-league loan and no one else was prepared to do that for the Reds.
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Now, Laba gets to stay in the league (and, yes, for national team dreamers, the country), Toronto keeps his rights and gets a full year to evaluate whether they want to re-structure a non-DP contract in 2015 to keep him.
That gives Jonathan Osorio another year to develop, which might make Laba an unnecessary asset in a year's time. In that case, there is a sell-on clause in the loan deal, which would allow Toronto to get some money back for the player if he stays in Vancouver. If they had tried to trade him now, they would have been lucky to have gotten a late draft pick (I.e. nothing) for him since clubs understood that TFC had to move him.
So why would Vancouver do it?
Well, they get an above average player for a year for next to nothing (and possibly nothing at all). It's a low-risk, year-long trial. If he under performs they let him go back to Toronto. If he excels then they benefit from that directly and might be able to reach a deal to keep him.
It's cliche, but this is one of those "good for both teams" kind of moves.
Both clubs also further the relationship between each other. Fans may not appreciate the value in that, but make no mistake it's important. In many ways Toronto and Vancouver are alone in MLS as the only two English Canadian clubs. The Impact march to their own beat and, well, USA! USA! USA! is the call in the rest of MLS.
As fans, we should continue to take the piss out of each other -- sports without partisanship is just grown men in short pants chasing a ball -- but at an ownership level All for One needs to be Together for Canadian Issues.