TFC's roster and coaching staff--------by Section 112 Blizzard
Dec 8th 2006
Coaching staff
The coaching staff has finally been fully revealed after much speculation. Not
much more needs to be said about Bob Gansler and the wealth of experience he can
provide. The addition of Mike Matkovitch and Carmine Isacco, however, points to
a major emphasis being placed on the youth system that is now mandated by MLS
for all its franchises. Mike Matkovich has been involved with the Chicago Magic,
who have one of the top youth programs in the United States, while Carmine
Isacco has coached many Toronto Azzurri teams to national championships in
addition to his job as head coach of U of T's Varsity Blues men's team.
Head Coach - Mo Johnston
(New York Red Bulls) 1963
Assistant Coach - Bob
Gansler (Kansas City Wizards) 1941
Assistant Coach - Mike
Matkovich (Chicago Magic)
Goalkeeper Coach - Carmine
Isacco (U of T Varsity Blues, Toronto Azzurri) 1970
Canadian players
There will probably be a lull in activity now in terms of building the Toronto
FC roster until FIFA's January transfer window opens up and MLS holds its Super
and Supplemental Drafts on January 12th in Indianapolis. It is probably a good
time, then, to recap who has been hired, who is rumoured to be leaving or
arriving and how much money is left before a designated player will have to be
signed to squeeze in that one extra player that will hopefully take the team to
the next level this summer.
According to Richard Peddie in a recent interview on TSN's Off The Record, 8 or
9 Canadians will be on the senior roster of 18 players. Look for the Superdraft
and Supplemental draft to be used in this regard based on top NCAA graduates and
USL players. There are very few obvious targets now in terms of Canadian players
in Europe who are out of contract and therefore readily available on a Bosman
free transfer, that are good enough for MLS on the one hand but not good enough
that there is serious interest from top European clubs. Julian de Guzman appears
to be surplus to requirement at Deportivo La Coru�a, while Patrice Bernier is
out of contract at Troms� but neither would fill the main gap on the roster up
front so even if they are interested in coming home they might not necessarily
represent the best use of the available resources in terms of fielding a winning
team.
1. Jim
Brennan (Southampton) $US 300,000? (M) 1977 (43 Caps)
2. Adam
Braz (Montreal Impact) $US 100,000? (D) 1981 (9 Caps)
3. Chris
Pozniak (Haugesund) $US 100,000? (D) 1981 (16 Caps)
4. Marco
Reda (Sogndal) $US 100,000? (D) 1977 (6 Caps)
5. Greg
Sutton (Montreal Impact) (GK) 1977 (8 Caps)
non-Canadian players
The composition of the roster is still far from settled in terms of foreign
players because Mo Johnston has repeatedly made it clear that many of the
players picked up either directly from or via trades immediately after the
expansion draft may still move on either to other MLS clubs or overseas.
Probably only Ronnie O'Brien is a dead cert to start the season in Toronto.
6. Ronnie O'Brien
(FC Dallas) $US 168,750 REPUBLIC OF IRELAND 1979 (M) (0 caps)
7. Jose Cancela (New
England Revolution) $US 126,000 URUGUAY (M) 1976 (0 caps)
8. Ritchie Kotschau
(Columbus Crew) USA $US 70,050 (M) 1975 (1 cap USA)
9. Rod Dyachenko (D.C.
United) $US 16,500 USA/RUSSIA (M) 1983 (0 caps)
10. Paulo Nagamura
(Los Angeles Galaxy) $US 85,000 BRAZIL (M) 1983 (0 caps)
non-Canadian players rumoured to be leaving
Unfortunately the two players currently on the roster, who are most likely to
score goals are strongly rumoured to be going to Europe. TFC should receive
allocation money as compensation, however:-
11. Nate Jaqua (Chicago
Fire) $US 53,373 USA (F) 1983 (1 cap USA)
12. Edson Buddle (NYRB)
$US 110,625 USA (F) 1981 (1 cap USA)
non-Canadian players rumoured to be arriving
1. Mo Johnston in an AM 640 Mojo radio interview in shortly after the Expansion
Draft said that a left sided player who had played in three World Cups had
already been lined up. The latest theory on his identity is Teddy Lucic, a Swedish
international with Croatian and Finnish ancestry.
2. On ESPN 790 AM in Houston Mo told Glenn Davis that a UK based player was
already lined up for the same defensive midfield role as Paulo Nagamura making
it easy for him to trade Adrian Serioux to Dallas.
3. There has been talk in Toronto of a West African forward potentially signing
who Mo knows from his Metrostars / Red Bulls days.
Allocation Money
In one of my earlier articles entitled, Have the
best TFC players for 2007 season already arrived?, I speculated (based on
the salary numbers mentioned above, which are derived from a Washington Post
article) that the three major allocations (a major allocation is about $US 200k
that can be spent over and above the ca. $US 2.1m salary cap) and the partial
allocations received in the trades involving Jason Kreis (to Real Salt Lake) and
Will Hesmer and Danny O'Rourke (to Columbus Crew) would give 800k over and above
the salary cap, providing a potential salary of $266,666 per remaining player to
be signed if Nate Jaqua and Edson Buddle remained on board and 6 more players
were required to bring the senior roster up to 18.
Unfortunately I now suspect that was an overestimate as allocation money would
probably have to be used over the duration of the more expensive players'
multi-year contracts for the team to remain competitive and not just in the
first season.
Fortunately, Paul Beirne (mlsintoronto) has since made it clear on The Fan 590's
soccer show that the designated player rule (only 450k counts towards the league
salary cap and the franchise can spend as much as it wants over and above that
figure) may be used to help the team field a winning team. The bottom line is
that many of the key decisions have still to be made and that the Red Patch Boys
messageboard is the place to be to keep up to date with all the latest
developments.
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