In the span of one disappointing year a pair of Toronto FC coaches flew home in a hurry while the mastermind reaped its reward.
Even if my Flashforward showed me writing a second Toronto FC coaching obit in six months I would have a hard time believing it was real.
But on Tuesday, Toronto Director of Soccer Mo Johnston made the announcement that Chris Cummins was going home to England, thus ending his brief -- but tumultuous -- tour of duty. It was the second time Johnston addressed the media under the same circumstances this season.
When John Carver (2009 TFC coach No. 1) abruptly left in April he was given a bad rap in the wake. The decision was absurd to most: How could a coach with the support of fans and management leave what was widely perceived as a plum gig?
Apparently Carver saw it differently, and within a week he was 8,500km from a club he wore the badge of for over a year. Since his departure, he has yet to resume working or spoken a word of what went wrong.
And by the time you finish the previous sentence, Cummins will be back in England, too.
As unfair as the words directed at Carver were, on Tuesday Cummins trumped the reasoning of J.C. by confirming that he was not even interested in coaching a wildly popular yet underachieving MLS team. Considering the purpose of any coach is to rise through the ranks and stay at the top long enough to boast the fruits of his/her labour, Cummins' shrug of the shoulders while saying his goodbyes was shocking.
He admitted to being homesick and out of options over bringing his wife and five kids to Canada, but I refuse to believe that every foreign coach in North America is here without his loved ones. Again, I don't know the intricacies of our immigration policies, but Danny Dichio jumped through every hurdle along the way to becoming Canadian.
So with Carver and Cummins doing their best to erase the past and Johnston announcing he and MLSE were in the final stages of a new two-year contract, one can infer that the red herring in the ranks is not the rumoured bad characters in the locker room, but rather a red-faced Scotsman with an affinity for meddling.
Problem is; until the Jaap Stam in the ranks comes out and pens a tell-all book, inference is all we have to go on.
I suppose the story will be told in the coming months when the newly-minted Mo tries to lure a coach of note to a coaching vacancy twice left way behind by men who know the game. The Reds' hockey kin, the Maple Leafs Sports, struggled to find good help when every applicant knew that the executive sitting directly to the left already know about the plan to become 'custodian of the keys'
(4:50 mark of the video)
It's frightening.
Carver, Cummins and Johnston all reverted to diplomatic mode when faced with the direct line of questioning over whether or not each liked the other, preferring to speak in vagaries and cite examples of how every vocation has its adversaries.
But the only time there was harmony on the field and in the front office was back in the summer of 2007, when Johnston was both coach and director. Now, faced with the task of re-inventing the wheel for the third time, it might take the services of eHarmony to restore that order and find the Reds a mate.