Winter, Mariner and de Klerk On Board For TFC

By: Sairax | January 6th, 2011

new team

It’s official now. MLSE and TFC held a press conference today to confirm that Aron Winter, Paul Mariner, and Bob de Klerk will be joining Toronto FC. In a nutshell, here is what our staff will look like for the new season:

Aron Winter

Paul Mariner

Bob de Klerk

Earl Cochrane

Stu Neely

Nick Dasovic

Jim Brennan

Danny Dichio

Basically, Winter is our main man. He’ll be coaching the first team and directing our style of play. His right hand man on the pitch will be de Klerk, while Mariner will deal more with player scouting and other behind-the-scenes duties. While Winter settles in and gets to know Toronto, the city and the club, and the whole MLS structure, Mariner will be there to help guide him using his previous experience with New England Revolution. Cochrane will have a role more on the administrative side and I’m sure Brennan will be helping him in that area, though his particular role has not been defined as of yet. Dichio will most likely have a role as an ambassador and he and Dasovic have roles with the youth system, but that has not been clarified as of yet.

All in all, a very good day for Toronto FC. The press conference was very well attended by various media, so at least the club is getting some positive attention. Hopefully these new appointments can get fans, old and new, to get excited again about soccer in this city. It’s going to take time though, obviously. Change can be slow. The important thing is that we’re on the right track. We have a good core group of people working together to make the club more successful than it has been in the past. Mariner has previous MLS experience and Winter and de Klerk have worked a lot with the Ajax system and will bring a lot of good knowledge that we can apply to our team and style of play.

Many people have been mentioning “Total Football”. Of course, we all hope to see that kind of soccer in Toronto, but we need to be realistic. I expect Winter knows this as well and his first priority will be to get the basics right and the players working for the team. From there we can build on an individual identity and our style of play. It will be a process that will take place over the whole season. Hopefully it will end up paying dividends and TFC can finally find a place in the playoffs for the first time ever.

Before I get too far ahead, I should mention that the MLS Combine will be taking place this coming weekend in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. This is a chance for clubs to see the players in action that will be available for the SuperDraft, which takes place on January 13, 2011. Most scouts have already been tracking the players that will be on display, but this is a chance for teams to take the information they’ve gathered on the draft players and see what they are like in person on the pitch. The full roster list can be found here.

With the Combine and the SuperDraft coming up, we could be seeing some new players coming into the team soon. At the end of January the squad will be coming together to begin preseason training. It was stated during the press conference today that DeRo will be back at the end of the month to join the rest of the team. Anselmi said that there was just a bit of confusion over some paperwork regarding DeRo’s trial with Celtic. The whole DeRo situation has rubbed many people the wrong way, including me. We won’t know the complete story until DeRo himself gets to explain his side. What is becoming more clear, however, is that DeRo’s place within the team is in question. He is our captain, and his conduct has been questionable, from the cheque-signing celebration, to the recent Celtic debacle. If he is to stay with the club, I’m not sure that he deserves the upgrade in salary that would take him into DP territory. I was ok with the idea a few months back, but really his behaviour has been quite selfish and I don’t think he should remain as the team captain. TFC is finally moving in a new and positive direction. To have DeRo as a DP would just be taking a very valuable DP slot away from the team, and we’d be paying a player on the wrong side of 30 a hell of a lot of money that no other club would even consider paying him. I am interested to see how this pans out, but this is far from over.

Finally, Toronto FC have announced that our team will be facing Partizan Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb, as well as one other club yet to be named, in 3 preseason matches. These games will be held in Turkey on February 2, 6, and 10. It’s exciting that we will be playing some European opposition and this will be a great way to prepare for the 2011 season. There’s going to be a lot happening in the weeks to come and I for one am anxious to get going with yet another (5th time’s the charm!) rebuild of TFC. Come on you Reds!