BY MICHAEL GARDNER – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
Want to know what’s wrong with Toronto FC? Why this heavily supported franchise and Major League Soccer’s Franchise of the Year (2008) has been unable to win… ever?
Surprisingly, I don’t think that the answer is a complex one. It’s not necessarily about tactics or philosophy. Given that we are now on to our seventh head coach in less than six seasons, it’s probably not about that either. It’s not about spending money. We have the third highest payroll in all of MLS. Those factors can’t be discounted but the biggest, most glaring reason for TFC’s failure is rooted in something that every fantasy league player knows. You have to know the rules of your league and select your players wisely.
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When it comes to rating TFC’s apparent understanding of MLS Roster Rules, I believe the kids would call it an “Epic Fail” in this regard.
MLS Rules State that you must build your team with up to 22 Domestic Players, eight International Players and of those, three can be Designated Players (give or take given that some slots are tradable). It further states that Canadian teams must have a minimum of three Canadians on their rosters. For the Canadian teams, players are considered “Domestic” if they are American or Canadian. For the US teams, Canadians count as International.
Those are the rules. We are always asking how come we haven’t been able to get results. It’s time we ask some hard questions about the composition of our roster from an objective perspective.
Let’s look at the Domestic make-up of our roster using MLS rules. TFC must take three Canadian players. I’m going to pick three from our current roster that have played the most minutes/make the most impact.
1. Julian De Guzman
2. Adrian Cann
3. Ashtone Morgan
We have 13 Remaining Domestic slots given trades for International slots. In no particular order, these are the players and their nationalities that we have elected to fill those Domestic slots:
4. Dunfield (Canadian)
5. Henry (Canadian)
6. Stinson (Canadian)
7. Cordon (Canadian)
8. Lindsay (Canadian)
9. Makubuya (Canadian)
10. Roberts (Canadian)
11. Avila (USA)
12. Emory (USA)
13. Hall (USA)
14. Harden (USA)
15. Maund (USA)
16. Silva (USA)
Given that these 13 players can come from either the US or Canada, we have effectively said that players numbered 4 – 10 are better than any available US option. Therein lies the problem. This is clearly not true. Henry maybe. The rest? Putting the Canadian flag aside, probably not.
Now let’s look at the use of the USA portion of that domestic rule. Avila, Hall and Silva are arguably the best out of that bunch. Are they the best USA players available?
Hard to say since multiple sources have indicated that the US scouting network is barely as large as the local scouting department for Ontario. One former North American scout indicated that he was more of a frequent flyer than a scout.
Scouting aside, for comparative purposes, look at Houston’s roster since they play them next. One glance through their domestic roster and you’ll see names like Bruin, Davis, Ching and many more. With all due respect to Avila, Silva, Maund, Harden, Hall and Emory, I think they can be great players one day. They are not going to beat Houston’s US contingent with their skill at this stage of their careers.
Another interesting name on the Houston roster is their one and only Canadian, Andre Hainault. He is arguably better than any of our Canucks. And he better be because he counts as an International slot.
This leads me to my next point. The fact that Canadians count as an International roster spot on US based MLS teams makes stockpiling Canadian assets, given the roster rules, a curious and risky move. TFC has made close to 70 roster moves (trades, releasing players, etc) since they began. Of those, only six moves involved a Canadian being moved to a team south of the border. In fact, of the 16 MLS USA based teams in the league only eight Canadians in total are employed.
That means that based on the way we opted to build our roster, we only have a few tradable assets. Hall, Harden, Emory, Avila, Maund, Silva are potentially tradable since they don’t take up an international slot. If we were to then examine our Canadians, who is good enough to take a job away from an International player? Morgan. Perhaps. Cann? Perhaps. Henry? Perhaps. So, being generous we have nine tradable assets out of 16 Domestic players. Do any of those nine players listed fetch you anything of significance to re-build your roster? No.
Set aside the Domestic rule, look at TFC’s three Designated Players. Are they the best use of that slot?
I’d argue that a healthy Frings and a healthy Koevermans are indeed amongst the best DPs in the MLS. However, a big part of that argument relies on their health and they haven’t been healthy. Frings has just 40 minutes more than Aceval and Terry Dunfield has over 100 more minutes than Koevermans. Ryan Johnson has more minutes than both of our DPs combined.
I won’t even touch the use of the DP slot on Julian De Guzman. Hasn’t worked out.
On the International front, they do ok here. Johnson (Jamaica), Plata (Ecuador), Soolsma (Netherlands) and perhaps Eckersley (England) have been solid contributors.
From where I sit, building a roster is as compartmental process. TFC is failing at the Domestic compartment. This is scary since it is a Domestic league and this component weighs heavily in team building. I would love for someone to convince me that the third most expensive roster is effectively managed considering Domestic and International rules. Convince me that we have flexibility to move forward and bring in new assets via trade and player identification. Convince me that our scouting department is bigger in the entire US than it is in the GTA. Convince me that while other MLS teams belong to wyscout.com (along with big name International Teams) we have decided not to be a part of that International network because we have a better way to identify international players. Convince me that when our three DPs leave in two years or retire earlier due to injury, we have a backup plan in place.
And if none of that exists, convince me why TFC’s leader, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Anselmi should stay in charge of this team. Why should it take him more than six years to figure out what a Fantasy League player can grasp in the span of minutes? Roster rules are the defining feature of competition and understanding and ultimately leveraging them to your advantage is key to winning. Ideally, if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to be convinced before I renew my season tickets.
Follow me on twitter @GardnerFanFuel
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