Anyone ever hear of an “IPP” as it relates to soccer? Neither had I, until today.
Toronto striker Jozy Altidore had an IPP during Wednesday’s training session by TFC. Sebastian Giovinco had one Thursday. As it turns out, an IPP is an Individual Personal Program.
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It’s not that big a deal as it turns out—just a day where a player doesn’t practise with his teammates, and instead watches and recharges in order take of their body. I’m not sure if Toronto coach Greg Vanney coined the phrase, but there it is. Maybe you’ll hear the term IPP from time to time, or maybe not.
Apart from that, everyone practised under a freezing bubble at the team’s KIA Training ground on Thursday. Not much left to do here before the team departs for Florida next week for the meat of the pre-season training camp. They’ll spend two weeks in the Sunshine States and play at least four games before returning to Toronto on March 1.
Then it’s a few days of final preparation before departing for Vancouver where they’ll face the Whitecaps in their regular season opener on March 7. Wow, does time fly.
Vanney will take a whopping 36 players to Florida next week. That’s the main roster and all the players on TFC 2, the team’s USL side. Vanney wants everyone in Florida to make sure they’re all on the same page when it comes to philosophy, systems and tactics.
Vanney on Thursday also addressed the captaincy issue in a minor way after first doing so on Wednesday. He let it be known he’s tired of talking about the topic and that everyone has moved past it.
One other theme became abundantly clear: Team unity. Without being prompted, he offered that this team is composed of players who want to be here. He spent a few minutes elaborating on that.
One could draw the conclusion that perhaps it wasn’t the case a year ago. In fact it seems more and more likely that the dressing room was an issue.
So it seems there’s no melodrama, at least at this point, and everyone is healthy. The season opener is still three weeks away but for now at least it appears as though this version of TFC will hit the ground running. Then we’ll see.