Toronto FC Director of Soccer Mo Johnston showed MLSE newbie Brian Burke how to satisfy its fans during the holiday season.
Trader Mo struck again on Friday while the Maple Leafs sat cozy in Day 3 of Burke's self-imposed holiday moratorium on personnel moves. It's a noble practice by Burke to hand out peace of mind as jobs are slashed everywhere else, but try to convince anyone that new TFC player and local boy Dwayne De Rosario is upset over a new area code in December.
Now excuse the hyperbolzing (as I am struggling to be objective here) but the move by Johnston to bring DeRo to BMO is a story fit for the season.
It starts with responsible parent Scrooge McMLSE dropping hints here and there that acquiring the much-anticipated designated player is not a given this winter as the economy is snowed under. Then the children (played by local TFC supporters) half-heartedly celebrate the news of another successful season ticket renewal campaign as the TFC bean counters reveal Saturday afternoon ducats will once again be hard to come by this summer. Finally, as Christmas teeters on being ruined, the collective 'Where's Our Good News?' grumblings are silenced when Trader Mo drops down the chimney with soccer's version of the Red Rider BB Gun to put under the tree.
Go ahead, shoot your eye out in excitement. De Rosario in a TFC strip is worth the pain.
In fact, it will re-direct the pain felt during All-Star week in Toronto when DeRo gave umpteen bottled answers on the possibility of playing in front of his family and friends in the future. De Rosario desperately wanted to confirm what everyone was asking, but tampering is a hefty fine. Thankfully those bottled answered days are gone; and a player who is no stranger to being critical can say now whatever he wants in a place where a minimum of 16,000 ears will listen.
(Next up is convincing Tyrone Marshall to get in on the holiday spirit and offer up the No. 14 shirt.)
Of course the flip side to the excitment is precisely what I dismissed earlier: Julius James will have a busier holiday than usual. The MLS SuperDraft first-round draft pick may have made himself expendable with a series of injuries in his professional debut. Or it might have been the sketchy decion-making late in games. But in his defence the Trinidad & Tobago international has a huge upside (literally, he has a freakish vertical leap) and is only 24-years old, so it is no stretch to see why he was the name needed to save Christmas in Toronto.
