TORONTO—Sebastian Giovinco hadn’t yet officially received the trophy recognizing him as Major League Soccer’s MVP for 2015, but the Toronto FC forward was already looking ahead to winning the honour again next season.
With his family and young son sitting in the front row, as well as his agent and top brass from Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the diminutive Giovinco managed a few words in English from the podium during a special ceremony at Air Canada Centre on Wednesday morning.
“I’m very, very happy for this award, and I would like to win more,” the humble Giovinco said just moments before accepting the trophy from Todd Durbin, the league’s executive VP of player relations.
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For the rest of the proceedings Giovinco answered questions in Italian that were translated for the benefit of reporters, but not before he added “maybe next year in English.”
He was joking, of course. With a few hundred people in attendance at Air Canada Centre, Giovinco took a brief moment to play to the audience.
Still, there was a trace of “mark my words” to Giovinco’s words—it wasn’t brash and cocky, but rather a matter of fact statement about his intentions to duplicate the MVP season he enjoyed this year.
Toronto FC could use as much as that bold attitude as it can get going forward, especially after the disappointing end to the 2015 campaign that saws the Reds lose its final two regular season games to slip to sixth place in the Eastern Conference before being embarrassed by the Montreal Impact in the first round of the playoffs.
If this past year was any indication Giovinco will be absolutely pivotal if TFC is to improve on its mediocre record and go on a lengthy run in the post-season. The Italian scored 22 goals (tied for the most in MLS) and tallied a league-leading 16 assists, numbers that are all the more impressive when you consider he had a hand in 38 of the team’s 58 goals, or 66 percent of the offensive production.
When TFC signed Giovinco they expected to him to score goals. But coach Greg Vanney admitted that even he was surprised by the former Juventus star’s scoring prowess.
“When we initially brought him in I thought he would be a little bit more of a playmaker… but he’s actually more of a goal scorer than I had anticipated. When we started the year we started him as an attacking midfielder in a diamond [formation] and we quickly adjusted that to put him up front because he felt more comfortable as a forward,” Vanney said.
“What we envisioned initially wasn’t exactly correct. He still made plays, he still created things, but he took to the goal scoring side probably in a more prominent fashion than I thought.”
General manager Tim Bezbatchenko was amazed at just how involved Giovinco was in TFC’s attack over the course of the campaign, calling it “unprecedented” in the history of MLS. The Italian’s durability—he played 33 of the 34 regular season games, 32 as a starter—also caught him by surprise.
It says a lot about the magnitude of season Giovinco enjoyed in MLS that a team the calibre of FC Barcelona has expressed an interest in signing the Italian, either on a loan or a permanent deal.
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If Giovinco continues to show incredible form for Toronto FC it will only be a matter of time before more big European teams take notice.
Can TFC reasonably expect Giovinco to see out the full length of his five-year contract? Will Toronto be in a position to turn down some of those tantalizing transfer offers that are bound to come in?
Bezbatchenko thinks so.
“We’re an ambitious club. We’re trying to be a club that’s contending for championships every year. In order to do that we need stars, we need players that will take the game on their back and score that game winning goal, and that for us is Sebastian Giovinco,” Bezbatchenko stated.
“It’s obviously flattering to know that one of the top clubs around the world, perhaps THE top club over the past 10 years, has an interest in Sebastian. It hasn’t been formalized. If something comes in, we will politely decline.
“But obviously it’s something I’ll have to share with the owners because they will want to know that their star player is recognized around the world as being a true star.”
