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Posted by
Steve Bottjer,
July 8, 2012 |
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Email Steve Bottjer
Twitter @BottjerRNO |
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With the news that World Cup and UEFA Champions League winner Alessandro Nesta has now officially signed with the Montreal Impact, Toronto FC have now been forced to look elsewhere for a seasoned defensive leader to shepherd their back line. Like his predecessor, Aron Winter, Toronto FC Head Coach Paul Mariner has been very candid about the huge need that TFC has for an experienced central defender and a leader at the back. Furthermore, he has also recently been quoted as saying he is looking specifically at ex-U.S. internationals and Canadian internationals now the transfer window is open.
With those parameters in mind, names such as Iain Hume, Nik Ledgerwood, David Edgar and Tosaint Ricketts have been bandied about by TFC and Canadian Men’s National Team supporters on discussion boards and forums. All of those players would be valuable additions to Canada’s original MLS club, but, if you are Paul Mariner and Earl Cochrane, there is really one main player you should be focusing your efforts on and that is central defender and Canadian Men’s National Team captain Kevin McKenna.
The Calgary native’s German club, FC Köln, has been relegated from the Bundesliga to the German second division and with only one year left on his contract in Germany, these variables just might be enough to convince the veteran defender that the time is now right for him to come back home to Canada. In these types of situations, club’s rarely stand in the way of a player’s desire to leave due to feeling homesick or for family reasons.
Make no mistake, while Cologne have already started divesting themselves of some high salaries such as that of striker Lukas Podolski, the Canadian International is exactly the type of player that the North Rhine-Westphalia-based club would love to hold onto as they enter a campaign in which they will attempt to earn promotion back to the German top flight.
As a rock solid professional with excellent leadership abilities and top of the line defensive qualities, McKenna is the type of veteran player who can not only lead the back line at a very high level on the pitch, but he is also an excellent mentor who can play a role in teaching and grooming young players for the highest levels of professional football.
To quantify McKenna’s value and experience, you only have look at the fact that he is the current Canadian National Team captain and has held this same role in the Bundesliga with FC Köln. With a fourteen year European career now under his belt since leaving Canada at eighteen year old, he is also one of a handful of recent North Americans who have scored 10+ goals in multiple seasons in European competition, which he did when playing as a striker with Scottish side Hearts in 2001/2002 and with Energie Cottbus in 2005/2006.
Those same qualities that make McKenna a big asset for Cologne also make him the ideal player to fill Toronto FC’s needs for a leader on the back line. He is a top notch central defender and is as tough a player as Canada has ever produced, so the physicality of the MLS certainly would not be any issue for him. At 32 years old, McKenna is very experienced and, based on his play in Canada’s three clean sheets in the national team’s two recent World Cup qualifiers and the Canadian Soccer Association’s centenary match in June against the United States, he is currently playing at the top of his game and leading with authority.
As many have pointed out previously throughout the last several years, Toronto FC have always struggled defensively throughout their years in the MLS and that is the prime reason the team is yet to make the playoffs through six years of competition. The Reds have undoubtedly fielded some excellent central defenders during their existence to date, with Adrian Cann, Nana Attakora and Adrian Serioux standing out as three Canadians who have had particularly good runs in front of the TFC net, even though injuries also took a toll on all three of those players at various points. Paul Mariner has been vocal in discussing the obvious talent and athleticism of the players that have made up Toronto’s back line in recent matches, but he has also qualified those types of statement by highlighting the relative youth and inexperience of defenders such as Ashtone Morgan, Doneil Henry, Logan Emory, Richard Eckersley and Jeremy Hall.
If you look back at all of the majority of the goals that Toronto have conceded over the last couple of years, they have not usually been instances of opposition attackers beating TFC defenders 1v1, they have very often been due solely to a lack of organization and cohesiveness in the team’s defensive shape. Furthermore, the team has leaked goals in the opening minutes of matches or right at the end of fixtures, causing the team to start a large number of matches behind the eight ball or seeing them unable to hold onto leads during the dying minutes. This very obvious deficiency has caused both Mariner and his predecessor, Aron Winter, to highlight the need for a back line leader to organize the defense and marshal not only the defenders, but also the midfielders in front of the back four.
Ecuadorian international Geovanny Caicedo was signed by TFC this past offseason to fill this particular void after impressing the TFC management team when he played against Canada at an International friendly in the summer of 2011. However, with Caicedo unable to adjust to the style of play in the MLS and not even making it through Toronto’s preseason training camp, it appears that TFC would have been better served by making a play for the big, experienced central defender who suited up for Canada in that match.
Toronto has continued to leak goals all season long this year, with too many of those goals coming in the final minutes of matches with vital points on the line. For that reason, Toronto FC supporters were initially jubilantly buoyed when what eventually turned out to be an unfounded rumour that Italian superstar defender Allesandro Nesta would sign with TFC first came to light. The Serie A veteran was always more likely to end up in Montreal and, thus, the search for a back line general now continues for the Reds.
A player of McKenna’s caliber would perfectly fill the void that Toronto has on their roster. While Dwayne De Rosario and Julian de Guzman are arguably the two most visible Canadian National Team players to the general public in Canada and Atiba Hutchinson is essentially the unquestioned lynchpin of the Canadian attack, Kevin McKenna is arguably the team’s most important player. Furthermore, should Canada qualify for Brazil 2014 and make their first appearance at a World Cup since 1986, it would certainly be a great advertisement for Toronto FC to have one of their players captaining Canada’s team on the World’s greatest stage.
With a win and a draw to their credit in the third round of World Cup qualifying, Canada is off to their best start in years in the round of qualifying that has been the stumbling block for previous iterations of the national team. The Canadian team earned two clean sheets against Cuba and Honduras in June qualifiers and a strong team defense and a very well organized team in general have been the hallmarks of the success that the team has enjoyed thus far. As Canada’s team captain and unquestioned leader on the pitch, McKenna has been central to that success, bringing the exact qualities and leadership to the back line that TFC have lacked over the last several years.
Toronto FC supporters have already seen the impact that a seasoned Bundesliga veteran like Torsten Frings has been able to bring to Toronto’s passing game and overall team play. McKenna is three years younger than Frings and plays central defender as his primary position. Similar to Frings, McKenna would enter the MLS with 10 years and over 200 games of experience in the German Bunedesliga, which is one of the top leagues in the world. He is a consummate professional and would bring genuine passion, a very high level pedigree, intangibles on and off the pitch and a winning desire to Toronto. Add in the role that McKenna could play as a mentor and teacher to young players like Ashtone Morgan and Doneil Henry, as well as the players in the TFC Academy, and you have a player who checks off all the boxes in terms of what Toronto needs.
Furthermore, as a Canadian, McKenna would grant TFC further roster flexibility in that he would not take up an International spot and he would enhance Toronto’s reputation as a team that plays and develops Canadian players.
While not a primary concern for Paul Mariner, there would also be some tangible benefits for the Canadian National Team as well, as McKenna could meet and communicate with national team head coach Stephen Hart more regularly. He could also work with young Canadian players like Ashtone Morgan and Doneil Henry day in, day out and he would be playing regularly and developing an even more telepathic rapport with central midfielders like Julian de Guzman and Terry Dunfield.
As is always the case in a salary cap league such as the MLS, McKenna’s salary expectations and the room that Toronto has under the salary cap would play a role in any possible move. However, Major League Soccer is a league that will often bend the rules or work with other clubs to make these very types of moves in which a quality player wants to return home to a particular club happen.
So there is no reason to believe that a financial solution could not be found that would be amenable to both parties. It was previously suggested that had Toronto signed Nesta this summer, the deal that would have been put in place would have been such that the Italian would have received a smaller salary for the remainder of 2012 and then been rewarded with a much high salary in 2013 when the salaries of other players on the roster would come off the overall budget. Certainly, a similar type of deal could be struck with McKenna.
Now it is still pure speculation as to whether or not McKenna would even be interested in leaving Germany at this time, but with FC Köln’s relegation and McKenna still playing in his prime, having him come over now to get acclimated to MLS and the TFC organization during this summer window would be a fit for all parties involved. Realistically, Kevin McKenna to Toronto FC would be a slam dunk on so many levels, so there is no reason for Earl Cochrane and Paul Mariner to not to pick up the phone and at least gauge the interest of the player. And with Mariner’s comments about looking into Canadian Internationals, maybe the ball has already started rolling in this regard. If that is the case, Toronto would have until July 27th to strike a deal with McKenna and FC Köln and to clear it with the league.
Toronto spent the majority of their offseason financial resources on resigning Richard Eckersely and Joao Plata, who are both fine players and fan favourites. However, neither addressed Toronto’s most fundamental and lingering need and the 2011 offseason now looks like it was one that was mismanaged. Toronto FC now has less than a month to rectify that missed opportunity and Cologne’s relegation now presents the club with a prime opportunity to sign McKenna.
Kevin McKenna has already looked fantastic when wearing red fifty-nine times for Canada, so it is a slam dunk that he would excel wearing TFC red every week playing for Canada’s most quintessentially Canadian MLS club. And with BMO Field still having decent crowds, but no longer experiencing the types of sellouts that used to be the norm when the club was the hottest ticket in Toronto, TFC management could send a strong message to fans by bringing McKenna home and establishing a rock solid foundation for the back line for years to come, not to mention enhancing the team’s chances of finishing 2012 with a strong run and delivering a message of hope for better things to come in 2013.
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