TFC - 2023 Season Thread

[narduch]

Petretta is the highest paid LB in the league. LMFAO

[BearcatSA]

5 hours ago, El Hombre said:

Problem is that they average $608K across Diomande, Sapong and Akinola.  $1.8M for a return of 1 goal is a little rough.  

Ouch!

At least two of these guys will be out of this league when their contracts end or perhaps even sooner.

Combined with the still seriously overpaid Insigne and Bernadeschi, this must be the most overpaid foward group in this league.  Shaquiri makes over $8 mil but I don't know about his attacking mates.

Edited May 16, 2023 by BearcatSA

[jonovision]

4 hours ago, El Hombre said:

I was going to come on here and make a similar comment about TFC spending crazily and "not getting value like team X with player Y" when I really couldn't find a good example.  VWFC have some pretty rough contracts as well with Cordova on $1M, Alexandre at $500K and Laborda at $760K and CFM with Toye on $550K, Lappalainen on $630K and Wanyama at $1.4M.  Takaoka is a steal ($179K).  So is Choiniere ($250K). But after that, the pickings are slim in terms of value.  Nothing like Mo Farsi at $67K.  Hopefully he gets a raise.

If you take out Insigne and Bernadeschi, the average wage comes out to $401K per player which falls between VWFC and CFM so it's not a completely lost cause.  Problem is that they average $608K across Diomande, Sapong and Akinola.  $1.8M for a return of 1 goal is a little rough.  

I'd argue that Wanyama and even Lappalainen are pretty fair value with those numbers. As for the highlighted comparison, of course they'll be similar as that's how a capped league works. If you're looking for Farsi-like value, I'd suggest a starting keeper on 4 straight clean sheets at $85k, or a creative midfielder at the level of Rea at the same number are good deals. Thorkelsson also seems like good value and Duke could turn out to be a real steal, salary-wise.

TFC have three main roster construction issues:

1. Way too old, which leads to injuries.

2. The capped portion of their roster is not providing good value.

3. The two players who make up well over half of the player budget are not producing to anywhere near their level of compensation.

One or even two of these errors is survivable, but not all three at once. 

[BearcatSA]

Back at the beginning of this year, I posted on here that with two of the top four league salary earners on their roster, a massive team payroll as a by-product, older signings added to veteran incumbents with some question marks surrounding health, this is essentially a one year window team, but the construct of the squad (just summarized skillfully by @jonovision) would lead to more negative drama than positive excitement from play on the field.

Sad (but not surprised) to see this happening.  Hopefully they can turn this 🎶sh*t show🎶 around.  It is MLS, after all, where any team can become a one eyed king.

[Gian-Luca]

4 hours ago, narduch said:

Petretta is the highest paid LB in the league. LMFAO

Which is seriously absurd if that's the case. I'm not sure that he's even the best left back on the team.

 

[Gian-Luca]

56 minutes ago, jonovision said:

3. The two players who make up well over half of the player budget are not producing to anywhere near their level of compensation.

 

And as long as TFC's midfield and #9 position remain the way it currently is, that will continue to be the case. Now that teams have scouted the two star Italians more closely, it is more difficult for them to beat three or four opposition players by themselves. And that's almost always what they have to do once they get the ball, since they are not being placed in dangerous positions and rarely have the midfield or wingers put set them up to do more damage - other than the occasional time with Bernadeschi & Laryea combining. When Osorio is there, the problem is not as bad, but I think he & Insigne have been on the field for the same time for maybe 150 minutes this year. And there is still the issue that they don't have much of a #9 to play off of - Sappong looks fairly slow out there and I'm not sure really should be starting either, although nobody else has fit the bill either.

[narduch]

End is probably near for the management team when the media outlets start writing pieces like this. Sorry its behind a paywall. 

https://www.thestar.com/sports/tfc/opinion/2023/05/16/with-insigne-looking-lost-and-bradleys-tfc-an-embarrassment-its-panic-time-for-mlse.html

[SoCalTransport]

13 minutes ago, narduch said:

End is probably near for the management team when the media outlets start writing pieces like this. Sorry its behind a paywall. 

https://www.thestar.com/sports/tfc/opinion/2023/05/16/with-insigne-looking-lost-and-bradleys-tfc-an-embarrassment-its-panic-time-for-mlse.html

For Bradley Sr., when LAFC won the championship right after he left, and seeing the results he had with TFC. A lot of hype, but not enough substance from him.

[canuckgbp]

I’d love to see someone like Bobby S. at the helm with TFC’s resources. Not sure something like that would ever happen with this mgmt though. 

[Bison44]

21 minutes ago, canuckgbp said:

I’d love to see someone like Bobby S. at the helm with TFC’s resources. Not sure something like that would ever happen with this mgmt though. 

As much as I respect Bobby S., do you think he would be suited to bringing in top stars from europe/world and scouring MLS for bargain talent and melding it all into a winning team??  If it was easy everyone would be doing it eh?? 

[canuckgbp]

35 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

As much as I respect Bobby S., do you think he would be suited to bringing in top stars from europe/world and scouring MLS for bargain talent and melding it all into a winning team??  If it was easy everyone would be doing it eh?? 

Let a GM and MLSE do that part. Vanney didn’t have much of a management resume when he took over. Bobby has way more experience compared to Vanney at the time. 
 

Long-shot and doesn’t seem to be in managements DNA. I’m curious how it would work tho.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

[narduch]

 

 

[narduch]

 

 

[phresh]

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

You shouldn't even need to read between the lines to any huge extent to grasp that what he is really saying with that is that we need a new coach.

[narduch]

Pretty sure Criscito left because he saw through Bradley's bs.

But Bernardeschi and Insigne have much more money at stake. It's a lot harder for them to pull out of this mess.

[Gian-Luca]

That tweet doesn't even have the most damning comments IMO. From the full article:

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/federico-bernardeschi-vents-about-toronto-fc-maybe-we-need-to-change-something

"We don't have a construction in the game. When the player has the ball, we don't know how to pass the ball. This is the real problem, because we don't train about that"

"We lose every game. We tie, we lose, we tie, we lose. Sometimes we win. But I can't believe this sincerely. This is no good for the young players. They need to get better, no? And grow up with an idea of football, and the players with personality, they need to help, help us to understand and follow the idea of football. But we need the idea of football. This is the real situation.”

[BrennanFan]

Bob Bradley built a team that had to rely on a top 9 to create space and opportunities for our wingers.  With MLSE not allowing the 3rd DP, the entire project has been destroyed.  Bradley is now stuck with players who are best deployed in a system he can't score with because Diomande, Sapong and Akinola are terrible and not even on the same planet as the Italians. 

When you have a wingback like Laryea, a 5-3-2 is an option, but then you have to play Insigne and Bernadeschi out of position as the 2 top strikers.  Perhaps this is the way forward but I'm not sure Bradley is ready to change his entire vision for the team.  There is simply no ideal solution. 

Honestly, I think Cavallini would be a hell of an addition to the team.  He'd add leadership, personality and fight and character to a team sorely lacking in all of that.    

[Bison44]

Would Jimenez have fit better.  I know he tailed off, but maybe with an offseason to work on it, he could have been better than what we ended up getting??  

[jonovision]

4 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

"We lose every game. We tie, we lose, we tie, we lose. Sometimes we win. 

Second language and all, but this series of three sentences is hilarious.

[SoCalTransport]

8 hours ago, BrennanFan said:

Honestly, I think Cavallini would be a hell of an addition to the team.  He'd add leadership, personality and fight and character to a team sorely lacking in all of that.    

I've been calling for that, since he was released from Vancouver. It would of been a perfect fit.

Bradley has got to go, he's lost the confidence of the players.

Edited May 22, 2023 by SoCalTransport

[BearcatSA]

MLSE look to be in a firing mood (Dubas), so maybe the hits will keep on coming in this other arm of their sports empire.

[Kingston]

I'm not a person who's quick to call for a coach to be fired, but there is too much individual talent on TFC for the team to be performing this badly.  It has also been long enough that it isn't just a case of someone being injured for a couple of games, or an unlucky goal, or a bad penalty call that cost us points one time.  Bradley just isn't cutting it.

[BearcatSA]

32 minutes ago, Kingston said:

I'm not a person who's quick to call for a coach to be fired, but there is too much individual talent on TFC for the team to be performing this badly.  It has also been long enough that it isn't just a case of someone being injured for a couple of games, or an unlucky goal, or a bad penalty call that cost us points one time.  Bradley just isn't cutting it.

The team wasn't cutting it during the playoff push at the end of last season and performed like  disjointed individuals playing out the final string of matches.  

Not suprised at all regarding the current situation.