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The start to the 2013 season has witnessed a clash between the Vancouver Whitecaps and Toronto FC already but the match that many Canadian supporters have been looking forward to is the famed St. Lawrence/Hwy 401 Derby. The nature of the Major League Soccer schedule and the Canadian Championship will lead to no fewer than five matchups between the two clubs.
With the St Lawrence Derby in the spotlight this weekend, Frédérick Jean-François and I will be discussing differences between the two clubs and also our predictions for the final result of the match on Saturday.
All pleasantries aside...
Q1: Toronto FC and L’impact de Montréal have embarked on vastly different paths to team development, from the top person in the organization (Payne and Saputo, respectively) down to the types of players they have acquired. Which side has the advantage with respect to club development?
Lars:
Toronto and Montreal are two fundamentally different clubs. At the top of Montreal’s structure is the all-mighty Joey Saputo, overlord and demi-god of the Impact organization. In some sense this has been a major advantage over the structure which Toronto FC has adopted over its full life time.
Toronto, until this most recent season, has avoided any sort of soccer intelligence in the upper echelons of the club, where the business decisions are made. Because of this, the club has suffered from chronic poor decision making, with little to no long term strategy.
Montreal, in comparison, has an educated “dictator” who can select a path he intends to go down, follow it through (for better or for worse), and implement his plan or strategy. Saputo’s method has been fairly simple. Bring in quality, albeit aging players (a fair number from Italy) to provide key support to the club in the most important areas. And build the team around these areas with cheaper alternatives.
However, Toronto’s approach to the long term development of the club has been, for several years, to groom young Canadian talent to fill gaps in the club through the Academy. And with the recent additions Kevin Payne to the President position (adding that muchly needed soccer IQ to the upper echelons of the firm), Ryan Nelsen, and a host of players from England, it may become possible for Toronto to quickly turn what has been a failed organization (in non-financial terms) into a playoff worthy/ready/capable team.
In contrast, Joey Saputo’s approach may not necessarily lead to this. The approach he has taken is one that has been utilized before, not just in MLS, but all over the world, with mixed results. On top of that, Montreal seems to have less of a commitment to developing younger Canadian players, more content with holding onto Bernier as a serviceable, quality midfielder and filling out the rest of the quota with youngsters who will almost never see playing time. This approach works well, provided you never have a rebuilding year, luck is always on your side, injuries never happen and everything you touch turns to gold.
In long term club development, I actually give the edge to Toronto (something they never would have won prior to this year), but over the short to mid term, with an intense soccer owner like Joey Saputo, the edge lies with Montreal which has quality throughout the lineup and few questions about the squad. I fully expect Montreal to make playoffs and be competitive in the playoff race.
Fred:
Montreal has chosen a way to bring veteran players who played in the top competitions from around the world. Those players are older, but they were brought in to pay soccer, and they are sharing their wisdom to the younger players like the 4 homegrown players that team has signed. The team will develop players by given them minutes and we have seen that Maxim Tissot has the talent to start at left back at the end of the year. Players who are signed to an Homegrown contract know that they will get playing time, whether it is playing against MLS teams, MLS reserve league teams or whoever the Academy plays next year. The Impact may not have as of now a player like Ashtone Morgan, but the team did not have an Academy that runs as deep as it does now. It does take time to built a club culture, but it is being done now. The top Academy players have played a fair amount of minutes with the reserve league team and were even given a better opportunity than players drafted. The Impact firmly believe in the structure they have put in place and it will pay dividends in less than 3 years. The question with their Academy is if their players will get their shots or not. It`s too early to tell as of today, but people expect to start their young players when they will be ready.
On the other hand, Toronto is a team hard to understand. I will not be able to tell what Kevin Payne will do with its Academy players. While Toronto signed a lot of Academy players in the Winter era, a lot of them did not feature much and Paul Mariner did not like them them that he thought it was better to not include an Academy player on the bench pretexting that they were not good enough. Ashtone Morgan has been a great story, the nasty left back has shown that he will be able to play, but Toronto had a bad team and did not have a proper left back which helped the transition. He got burned on multiple occasions, but he got up and continued and did not give up. However, the team gave up on many players like Oscar Cordon, Nicholas Lindsay and Keith Makubuya to name a few. Those players did not get their chance with the senior team and they were not playing enough time either with the Academy or the Reserve League team.
It`s difficult to say as of today which team has the best. I do think that Toronto can develop players with higher-end talent, but Montreal will probably develop a bigger number of quality players because they will not stop once the player has signed a professional contract, and believe that they have to do what is best for the player.
Q2: If you had to choose one thing from the other club, what would it be?
Fred:
It is a hard question to look at everything that Toronto has. I do envy Toronto FC for having the national stadium in their backyard and the ridiculous contract between MLSE and the CSA made it the de facto stadium. It would be nice to have the national stadium, but it`s not going to happen. So, I would choose something much smaller and it is an Academy Complex like Toronto has with the Kia Training Ground. Montreal has facilities, whether it is at Marie-Victorin or at the Claude-robillard, but they do not have a big training place where they can practice, have the Academy kids study and practice. It would help the team and they would have a central location where everything related football would be in that specific place.
Lars:
The defensive mindset of every Montreal player.
I have made a special point of watching as many games as possible in Major League Soccer. This year, I have (despite being a TFC fan) watched Montreal in both their games (and will watch every game they play this year) because I was impressed with the way they had built their team.
But more impressive than just the back four (five if you include keeper - Troy Perkins) is that the entire Montreal squad plays strong defensive football. If you are a Toronto FC supporter/fan/whatever you call yourself, I highly suggest checking out a few Montreal games this year. Every player pitches in on the defence when the ball is in the hands (at the feet?) of the other team.
This has been consistent through the first two road matches which Montreal has put in, and will prove to be very difficult for Toronto FC and other squads to break down if the theme continues throughout the season.
So overall, while Toronto FC may have better facilities for training, the on pitch product matters more to me, and the so-called “Italian” mindset of defence first is what I would take from Montreal and instil that into TFC if I could, because Montreal is vastly superior on that front.
Q3: What are your predictions for the game and score?
Lars:
Montreal has been consistent...consistently awesome...in their last two matches. They’ve been together for some time (the Mickey Mouse Cup, I believe) and they have a veteran squad. The side looks like a serious contender for playoffs and perhaps the MLS Cup. Of note, as mentioned previously, is their defensive mindset.
Toronto, in comparison, is still in rebuilding mode, and despite the amazing result against Sporting Kansas last week, they likely will not be able to overcome Montreal when Montreal is playing in their home opener.
However, there are a number intangibles. An estimated 5,000 Toronto supporters are thought to be making the trip up the highway to Montreal and Toronto FC has a weird sort of dynamism at the moment with their new signings.
Virtually anything could happen.
However, I am a man of odds and stats and I just see this as a probable Montreal victory. I’ll say 2-0 for Montreal in this.
Fred:
It will be a fairly disputed game, the game will be played on a different turf than last year. I expect Montreal to win because the team was assembled since they came to Orlando to play the Walt Disney Pro Soccer Classic. The season will be in its 3rd week once they kick off and many of the Toronto players are adjusting to the system. Montreal is ready for the big derby match. I think that the Royal Blues win 2-0 thanks to a big game from young Brazilian Felipe/
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