Toronto FC finally got their man, just not the one it originally wanted.
After a deal to procure Swedish veteran Olof Mellberg recently fell through, the Reds bolstered their back line Friday by announcing the signing of Irish international defender Darren O’Dea.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a team official confirmed to sportsnet.ca that the Irishman was not signed to a designated player contract.
O’Dea will not be available to play for TFC in Saturday’s road game against the Chicago Fire, as the 25-year-old central defender is waiting on his international transfer certificate before he can suit up in Major League Soccer.
The club had been tracking O’Dea for some time, and flew him into town last week to begin contract talks. O’Dea then returned home and after speaking to LA Galaxy forward and fellow Irishman Robbie Keane about MLS, he decided to ink the deal with Toronto.
“We’re really happy with Darren. We think we have a very good leader at the back for the next couple of years,” Earl Cochrane, director of team and player operations for Toronto FC, told sportsnet.ca.
Cochrane said O’Dea ticked all the boxes of the type of player the club wanted.
“Experience, leadership, ability to organize and command the back four,” Cochrane said. “We’ve got a really young back four, so we needed a (player) who had a little bit of experience and a little bit of leadership to be able to guide those guys over the next couple of years.”
Team management had been furiously working the phones over the past several weeks, trying to add an experienced defender to help its beleaguered defence. With the Reds’ back line conceding 38 goals this season (the second-worst defensive record in the league), coach Paul Mariner publically stated that the club needed to go out and land someone who can anchor the defence.
TFC had come to terms with Mellberg before the all-star break, but the league did not give its approval on the deal. With the Swedish player having slipped through the Reds’ clutches, the club continued its search for a new signing.
Defence has been a major problem area since Toronto entered MLS in 2007. It routinely has ranked among the worst defensive teams in the league each season. Fans and media alike continuously pointed out that Toronto needed to sign an experienced and commanding centre back in order to address its long-standing defensive issues.
It’s clear that Cochrane believes O’Dea fits the bill.
“He’s certainly a no-nonsense guy. Our league is a very athletic one, a very demanding one, so his young legs are going to come into play. He’s good in the air, and he’s going to be able to sort things out on set pieces,” Cochrane said. “We’ve had some struggles closing out games, and when teams throw everything at us we’ve buckled a little bit. We hope the addition of Darren will help us in that regard.”
A native of Dublin, O’Dea was a youth product of Celtic and he made his senior team debut for the Glasgow outfit in 2006. He made 46 appearances and won two Scottish league titles in six seasons with Celtic.
Celtic loaned out O’Dea to English clubs Reading and Ipswich Town, and most recently the Irishman spent time with Leeds United on loan.
O’Dea has earned 14 caps for Ireland since making his national team debut in a 2009 friendly against South Africa. He was named to Ireland’s Euro 2012 squad, but he did not dress for any of the team’s three group-stage matches in Poland.
Although he didn’t feature at Euro 2012, O’Dea is still in the frame for the Irish national team and will continue to represent his country. This will cause problems for TFC, who will be deprived of his services when he’s called to play for Ireland. O’Dea will make his MLS debut against Columbus on Aug. 11 and then jet off to Europe so he can play for Ireland in a friendly against Serbia on Aug. 15, the same day TFC hosts Portland.
The fact that O’Dea is committed to playing for his country was not a major concern for Toronto when they were pursuing the Irishman.
“A couple of years ago we probably would have thought about it far more. But the league has grown to understand those international breaks and losing players in our league for those games is probably to our detriment. MLS has stretched the season to accommodate those breaks, so that made us not to have to worry about it too much,” Cochrane said.