With their defeat to the New York Red Bulls on Saturday evening, it is now apparent that Toronto FC will finish their 2014 campaign in the same position in which they have all of their previous seasons in Major League Soccer – outside of a playoff spot and wondering went wrong.
While the Reds started their MLS campaign brightly and looking very much like a more than solid bet to qualify the postseason for the first time in the club’s history, Toronto struggled more and more as the season progressed and Reds supporters are now witnessing their team limping badly towards the finish line.
Plenty will be written about the current iteration’s failure during a year in which MLSE CEO Tim Leiweke promised the team would make the playoffs and the organization spent bucket loads of money to bring in marquee talent (Jermain Defoe, Michael Bradley, Gilberto) towards achieving that goal.
Ultimately, Toronto FC’s failure this season comes down to something that will be a familiar story for Toronto sports fans: the organization spent plenty of money but did not spend its resources wisely while failing to address weaknesses which should have been apparent.
With all of that in mind, here are five main reasons why Toronto FC have missed the MLS Cup Playoffs for a record eighth consecutive season.
1) DP Strikers did not work out – For a guy who has never played and never coached, Tim Leiweke sounded awfully confident at the tail end of last season that he was right that the only thing TFC were missing was a couple of high priced strikers to put the ball in the back of the net. Or was that confidence just the prelude to the big marketing splash that followed several months later?
In any case, Toronto did not get the required amount of mileage and success out of Jermain Defoe and Gilberto. The two players never looked like they were capable of playing with each other and both always looked better paired up with Luke Moore. In the end, more often than not Gilberto struggled to score goals and Defoe struggled to stay fit. It doesn’t need to be stated that it is a waste of resources when you can’t field two of your three DPs together when both are fit.
Ultimately, while the duo was good for the club’s season’s tickets sales drive, their acquisitions look in hindsight like the type of signings made by a brass that did not have it all together in terms of putting together a functional team.
Furthermore, while no one can debate that Defoe delivered goals when he was fit and healthy, there is no way to gauge the psychological damage that the drama surrounding his near leaving during the summer transfer window did to his teammates. When compared to the best DP forward signings made by other teams in the league (Thierry Henry, Robbie Keane), Defoe and Gilberto were certainly less than ideal signings both as difference makers and as ambassadors.
2) Matias Laba Trade – Michael Bradley is undoubtedly a great player. However, just from a team balance and continuity standpoint, you have to wonder if Toronto wouldn’t have been better off just keeping Laba and passing on Bradley. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Vancouver is likely going to the playoffs and Toronto are not.
Many will consider it sacrilegious to state that TFC should have kept Laba over Bradley, but football club’s require balance to be successful and Laba would probably have given the Reds better balance overall. Of course, the biggest tragedy for many TFC supporters is that they will probably never be able to see how good their squad could have been if the team had in some way been able to keep Laba and sign Bradley.
Toronto leaked goals at the worst of times this season and a true top defensive midfielder to sit in front of the back four probably would have done wonders for the squad’s defensive performances and balance. At a salary of $6.5 million, Bradley was expected and under pressure to push forward and be a key part of the team’s offense and that often left a big hole in front of the TFC back line. It was hole that opposition team’s took advantage of again and again.
3) Midfield Carousel – Like many North American soccer fans, I like Michael Bradley a lot. He is a player with an enticing mix of skill, athleticism, intelligence, character and work ethic. All of that said, I also started to get a bit tired of narrative surrounding him as the season progressed.
In plain terms, when the theme of the season should have been around qualifying for the playoffs, it always seemed to be more about getting the most out of Michael Bradley and finding the perfect player to partner with him in the middle of the pitch.
Toronto started off well at the beginning of the year with Jonathan Osorio playing beside Bradley as a double pivot, but the message that emanated from the club was that the team could do even better with Bradley in a more advanced role while playing beside a more stay at home central midfielder.
Ultimately, whether he played with Collen Warner, Kyle Bekker or Warren Creavalle, TFC never found that perfect partner for Bradley and they never found a better partner than Osorio. The team should have stayed with what worked early on in the season when Bradley looked like a force of nature in the middle of the pitch. Who cares if he didn’t racks up goals and assists if the team was winning games? Toronto tinkered way too much with Bradley when they should have just let him play to his strengths.
Furthermore, the constant search for his perfect partner played a big role in Toronto rarely trotting out a consistent starting eleven that had developed chemistry from playing together week in, week out. With this in mind, it isn’t a big surprise that TFC actually had a better record when Bradley was out of the lineup than when he was in it.
4) Back line woes – While issues in the midfield often lead to defensive breakdowns quite often for Toronto, it didn’t take long for it to become apparent that the team’s greatest Achilles heel was a lack of experience among the back line corps.
There is a lot to like about the potential of young defenders Doneil Henry and Nick Hagglund, but they certainly should not have played as many games together as they did. With the TFC brass focused on bringing in attacking talent over the offseason, they did not address one of the squad’s biggest needs in another veteran central defender who could play alongside team captain Steven Caldwell or step into his spot as the vocal leader on the back line when Caldwell was injured.
While Bradley, Defoe and Gilberto made all the headlines over the offseason, Caldwell was still the key player for Toronto FC. When he missed matches due to injury or suspension, his absence was glaring. Henry and Hagglund made the types of mistakes that young central defenders often do and even a relatively consistent player such as Mark Bloom did not look like quite as good when Caldwell was out of the lineup and not there to bark instructions at him. Defense wins championships, right?
5) Ryan Nelsen – Ultimately, while the Toronto roster had its issues (some of which are outlined above), realistically on paper Toronto had the talent and depth to qualify for at least the 5th spot in the Eastern Conference. However, as the summer progressed it soon became clear that former Head Coach Ryan Nelsen did not have the experience or acumen to guide a winning team at the MLS level. While it would be hard to debate that the former New Zealand International did indeed have the squad looking more organized defensively overall during much of his tenure, it also became clear that he did not have much more to offer from a tactical standpoint.
While Toronto looked like a club with plenty of winning potential in the early part of the season, it also quickly became apparent as the summer progressed that not only had other team’s figured out TFC and how to defeat them, it also become obvious that Nelsen did not possess the flexibility to adapt his approach in order to adjust to how opposition teams were playing against his side.
Under Nelsen’s stewardship, Toronto were the most predictable team in the league from a tactical standpoint. Once the former EPL stalwart was let go, new Head Coach Greg Vanney immediately tried to rectify TFC’s lack of flexibility and complete predictability. However, as Vanney and TFC fans discovered, it isn’t easy for a squad to change its approach at the tail end of the season while the players are under immense pressure to produce results.
Ultimately, the most important move the team should have made over the offseason would have been to jettison Nelsen and instead spend some of those millions bringing in a qualified coach with a proven track record and actual training as a professional coach.
So where does TFC go from here? In the past, disappointing seasons such this one have been immediately followed by a complete rebuild and change of direction. Toronto FC supporters can only hope that will not be the case this offseason.
It is very difficult to gauge currently whether Greg Vanney is the man for the job of getting the Reds over the hump and into the playoffs next year, given that he was put into a near impossible position at the tail end of the current campaign. That said, even though TFC did not achieve winning results under his leadership over the course of the last several weeks, Vanney has come across in interviews as an astute football mind, he holds a USSF “A” Coaching License and he has a strong understanding of Major League Soccer and the North American soccer environment.
From a roster standpoint, Toronto look like a club who are missing a few pieces, but who legitimately have a quality group of players to build upon with players like Bradley, Jonathan Osorio, Justin Morrow, Steven Caldwell, Luke Moore and Joe Bendik, just to name a few. Looking at a player like Gilberto in particular, the Brazilian showed plenty of qualities that would suggest that he will be a much better player in his second season and that he is exactly the type of player that the team should not give up on in the desire to add a bigger marquee name in his place over the offseason.
While things undoubtedly feel bleak for many Reds supporters due to the manner in which the 2014 season has unfolded, Toronto actually looks to be on the right track for the first time in its history. If the team can bring in the right additional pieces over the offseason and get the coaching situation sorted with the right person, whether it be Vanney or someone else, then there is no reason TFC can’t still turn things around once and for all next season.
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