There was a line that Aron Winter slipped into his opening press conference that was not widely reported. Talking about how hard it would be to turn around a team that has, to put it charitably, struggled over its first four seasons of MLS he uttered something that might horrify a hardcore Reds’ fan.
He suggested that a multi-year plan would be in order. It wasn’t Mo Johnston’s infamous five year plan, but rather a three year journey that he suggested the club would take. In the meantime they had simpler goals: make the playoffs while completely overhauling the club.
No problem, eh?
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
In fairness, Winter gave the right answer (and the message was reiterated to me later by Paul Mariner when he told me that the “intelligent football answer” to whether TFC could turn things around in time for 2011 was “no.”). TFC fans should have been more worried if he brazenly suggested that Toronto should expect a treble in 2011. Having a little respect for the process isn’t a bad thing.
It’s unclear whether TFC fans will give Winter the three years. Always passionate, the Reds biggest supporters haven’t always been as, well, rational in recent days. It’s understandable. The fan base is just getting out of an abusive relationship with a Scottish snake oil salesman. They are a little on edge lately.
There is no reason that it should take the full three years to be competitive in MLS. The league is such that you can go from horrible to contending quickly. For an example look at Columbus in 2008, the Galaxy in 2009 and New York in 2010. There is no reason why Toronto can’t duplicate the success of those teams. Even the off-season purge isn’t evidence against a big turnaround. The 2010 Red Bulls were a much different bunch than the chumps that finished 2009 (by knocking TFC out of the playoffs in a 5-0 drubbing).
What Winter was really getting at was that it would take three years to convert Toronto into something that resembled the Total Football system that brought the Dutch and Ajax so much success over the years. Then again, most fans will take Winning Football over Total Football anyway (although both would be great), so, you know, whatever.
After hearing “this time is the time” five previous times, Reds’ fans can be forgiven for taking a wait and see attitude. Still, they may have finally gotten this right. There was an aura to Winter that exuded football intelligence. It’s hard to articulate it, but it was pretty clear that the man is slumming it here. That doesn’t mean he won’t fall on his face, but if initial impressions mean anything he’s going to have a long career managing somewhere.
It also appears that the team around him is far better than anything TFC has ever seen. Mariner brings the MLS experience (and success) and first assistant Bob De Klerk may be almost as important of a hire as Winter. The club continues to talk about building the academy into the best in MLS and De Klerk was front and centre in the running of one of the best academies in the world. Although he’s working with the first team here he told me that he’ll also spend a lot of time on the academy side of things.
Will the sixth time be a charm for TFC? Time will tell, but it’s hard to find fault with what we’ve seen so far. Of course the real work has just begun.