What ever happened to guys like coach John Carver and his wild and wonderful speculation on the possibilities for specific players, star tandems, and absurd statements? Or first year coach Mo Johnston hyperbole building mountains from trickles of sand? There is a complete about face from the good old days around this TFC pre-season camp.
If there was one striking thing about Toronto’s training session in Oakville Thursday, it is the lack of media attention. Don't count the two outlets whose job is to build public interest – TFC’s in house media coverage and MLSE’s own GolTV – and local coverage by those whose task is to dig up items of interest was non-existent. It has, in fact, been that way through most of this pre-season.
Evidently, there isn’t a whole lot going on to report.
Unlike the swirling excitement which flys about the return home of other Toronto professional sport’s teams, with new acquisitions to watch and rookie sensations on which to speculate, TFC is back in town with sealed lips from management and lots of straight faces.
“I’d still like to know what I’m going to be doing”, Dwayne De Rosario told me when I commented on the lack of information for the press piranha to feed on.
Vincent Kayizzi, Martin Saric, and Dan Gargan are three trialists who got a good look in Florida and made a very positive contribution in the matches they played.
They’re not with the team for the current Toronto leg of pre-season and there isn’t any official word if they will re-surface in Charleston. “It’s like, what happened, where’d everybody go," commented DeRo first day back in his hometown.
The calendar might be ticking down to three weeks before the season opener in Columbus but Preki doesn’t seem to be concerned. The message is he knows what he is doing and how he wants to do it. That's for him to know. As said in previous reports, he keeps his mind to himself and he is smart. Preki is not budging.
As the coach told one reporter asking about a couple of specific "key players" in the media scrum following a training session this week, “There aren’t any key players on this team. We fit together as a unit out there so they’re all key players.”
Who would believe that? No key players should mean the whole team must receive equal pay right? Most answers are repetitive variations of similar vaguealities.
Might not be exciting, but the reasoning is clear. This coaches real opinion is not something for the spotlight. Individual player evaluation and decision on player assignments aren’t going to be made reading a barometer of public sentiment.
If something doesn't happen soon, even TFC’s own commentators won’t need to show up.
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