It can often take a few days to recover from New Year's Eve, and with it taking place during the week, a few more before one can muster up the strength to make good on their resolutions for the upcoming year. The year that was in Canadian soccer has left plenty of room for growth and improvement. With really only one team standing out performance-wise, both senior national teams, and MLS sides could take a hard look at themselves and set forth resolutions for the new year.
The women have a task ahead of them to maintain their form and build off an inspiring bronze medal performance at the 2012 Olympic games. The men's side, without a coach, will need to find direction and a way to ensure 2013 is not about a holding pattern or staying in limbo like much of 2009 was after a failed World Cup qualifying campaign.
On the MLS front, Vancouver looked to be a real contender in the top half of the table, but stumbled to the finish line and were clearly the weakest side entering the playoffs. Montreal suffered from highs and lows and will need to be more consistent, while Toronto FC desperately just need to get on track.
Below we take a look at each of these teams and what we feel should be their resolutions for 2013.
Vancouver Whitecaps
I think the New Year’s resolution for the Vancouver Whitecaps should simply be to get back to playing the impressive type of soccer they displayed in the first half of the 2012 campaign. While the club became the first Canadian team to make the MLS Playoffs, the team did struggle massively down the stretch and looked a far cry from the club that appeared like it belonged within the top tier of Major League Soccer teams in the early months of last year’s campaign. For a stretch in 2012, Martin Rennie looked like an early candidate for the MLS Coach of the Year award.
It’s been stated many times already that Rennie tinkered with his roster too much over the course of the season and that lead to the problems that plagued the squad all the way through to the Whitecaps elimination from the playoffs at the hands of the eventual champions, the Los Angeles Galaxy. However, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Rennie learned a lot during his first year at the helm of an MLS club and the rough patch at the end of the 2012 season did not dampen the assessment of most pundits that the Scotsman as one of the best young coaches in North America.
With that in mind, it’s would not take a huge leap of faith to predict that Vancouver is a club that has an excellent chance of actually achieving such a New Year’s resolution. The team has an excellent defensive base to build on and the core of last year’s team is expected to be back when preseason kicks off shortly. That said, a big part of delivering high quality performances over the course of a full season will certainly require the Whitecaps to score goals more consistently. Vancouver scored just 35 goals last year, the lowest total of teams qualifying for the MLS Cup playoffs, and the same total the team scored last season.
– Steve Bottjer
Montreal Impact
As 2012 culminates and 2013 is around the corner, Joey Saputo and Nick De Santis should be thinking of their New Year’s resolutions for the Montreal Impact. Here are three that this fan hopes they’re considering carefully.
3. Win 2013 Voyageurs Cup – It is fair to say that the Voyageurs Cup has spent a long time away from Montreal. From 2002-2008, the Montreal Impact triumphed and became 7-time Voyageurs Cup Champions. Since 2009, Toronto FC is the 4-time reigning titleholder while the Impact cannot do better than coexist as Canada’s third best-ranked club.
Joey Saputo vision of winning has opened a revolving door of aged European players. Winning a Canadian Championship and playing against the likes of Santos Laguna, C.F. Monterrey, and Cruz Azul FC will open a new door to a CONCACAF talent pool and expand the Impact’s contact networks.
In the New Year, expect Joey Saputo and his organization to make a large emphasis on winning the 2013 Amway Canadian Championship. A championship win will bring the club credibility within other MLS markets; but essentially, if the Impact can qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League, the club will get more international recognition and enjoy a collection of contact networks within CONCACAF.
2. More Road Victories - Mathematics has revealed a flaw within Team Joey & Nick, our dynamic duo. The Montreal Impact finished their campaign with 42pts; securing 33pts (10-4-3) at home with just 9pts (2-12-3) on the road. In 17 games played away in 2012, the Impact tallied 14 goals (0.82 GPG) and scrapped a lead on 6 occurrences; not to mention 12 goals allowed in dying minutes on 9 occasions.
“Before our MLS adventure started, our goal was to be competitive and battle for a playoff spot,” said Saputo back in October in his 2012 post-mortem address. “I would like to say that I am pleased with things as we attained our objective of being a competitive team in our very first season, but at the same time, I am not satisfied because I felt that we are not a 7th place team. Our objective for 2013 is to qualify for the playoffs.”
If the goal is playoff bound in 2013, the Montreal Impact will need more goals from their strikers, and better defending and cohesion in the final 10 minutes. If Saputo wants his team to taste playoffs in 2013, his players will need do better than 2 roads wins. You can’t get by the math.
1. Coach Please - Our next coach can be Italian, French, English, Dutch, Greek, Spanish, whatever, we need to know the identity of our next great general in command. Enough of the limbo because the longer the wait, the worse it is.
– George Chudobey
Toronto FC
American columnist Bill Vaughn once said, “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” There may not be another sports team on the planet with more reasons to welcome a fresh start than Toronto FC, as the club begins the long process of forgetting the dismal year that was 2012.
Here are my most important New Year’s resolutions for TFC, changes they must make to save the organisation from itself and turn “the worst team in the world” into contenders.
First, TFC as a club needs to have a realistic vision and long term plan that creates a stable working environment. New president Kevin Payne must set the course for the ship, and everybody needs to be on board. Hopefully we will see evidence of a clear vision this month at the MLS combine and SuperDraft, where TFC are dealing from a position of strength.
The second resolution for TFC is stopping the ludicrous turnover of players and coaching staff. Looking for the quick fix has doomed the club time and time again. This means not rushing to cut guys only to replace them with the same calibre of player, a bad habit that has plagued TFC for six seasons. It also means not grossly overpaying players who leave after disappointingly short tenures.
Finally and most importantly, TFC must resolve to treat its fans with respect. It’s a business, we get it, but for the past few seasons it has felt like the club is more focused on expanding the brand rather than retaining fan loyalty. The drop in season ticket prices was a good first step, but it can’t stop there. The club’s image has been hurt league wide and among its own supporters. It’s time to return BMO field to the edgy football environment that it was in those first years. It’s not just about bums in seats, it’s actually about bums out of seats: cheering, singing, heckling, throwing streamers – making it tough for the other team to play. This year, TFC must resolve to really make it All for One.
– Cormac McGee
Canadian Women's National Team
New Year’s Eve has come and gone, and 2013 is upon us. In a month of resolutions and fresh beginnings, what should the Canadian Women’s National Team be working on for the upcoming year? Will they aim to dominate upcoming tournaments such as the Four Nations Cup and the Cypress Cup? Will coach John Herdman recruit younger talent to an experienced but older team? Will their offensive strategy change to counter Olympic gold powerhouse USA?
While these are all good resolutions, patience should be the ultimate theme of 2013 for Team Canada. Herdman, the CWNT, and the Canadian public should put ego aside and look to the future – the 2015 World Cup and 2016 Rio Olympics. In an extremely successful year for women’s soccer in Canada, a gold medal in 2016 is certainly attainable and valued much more than short-term victories. Patience as a new team is fostered, tactics and strategies developed, (as well as perhaps immortalizing Canadian Press female athlete of the year Christine Sinclair), is a resolution worth making.
– Katelyn Verstraten
Canadian Men's National Team
For me, the New Year's resolution for the CMNT should be to continue and improve on being industrious. We saw an initiative at the start of Stephen Hart's tenure as Head Coach, and now is once again the the time to reassess the talent pool available and leave no stone unturned with regards to who is available to play for the National Team. The second part of this is ensuring the maximum number of games available to be played is pursued by the CSA.
One reason for this is that if there is no head coach in place for a significant portion of 2013, it would be wise to have a file of the new generation of senior team players on hand for whenever that person is appointed. If this person is put in place, then having their schedule filled with both competitive games (Gold Cup) and friendlies will be required for them to assess who they will be counting on for years to come. Now is also the year to bring up the younger players who have shown promise and already been, or should, have a look in the Senior National Team set-up.
The likes of Shaun Saiko and Jordan Webb should certainly be mature enough in terms of match experience to be worth a look. Samuel Piette, Kevin Aleman and Randy Edwini-Bonsu, while still young and available at U23 or even U20 levels, could benefit from the experience of stepping up and competing internationally. And finally players such as Mozzi Gyorio and Julian Uccello who are currently without clubs, could gain from call-ups and performances, to see good Canadian talent get potentially noticed by club teams.
We are unfortunately back to square one with the Senior Men's National Team and for 2013, one that is currently without a head coach in charge, to be used as a means for progress towards 2018, the CSA should aim to be busy in getting the calendar full and (re)expand the player pool as wide as possible.
– Ian Clarke
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