We’ll soon find out what kind of deal money, hype bring
MLSE boss Tim Leiweke has spent millions to get Toronto FC to the playoffs for the first time, but getting there is just the start
Toronto FC faces more than a playoff debut Thursday, with Sebastian Giovinco and Didier Drogba sharing top billing on the marquee: it’s the final exam, and almost certainly the curtain coming down on Tim Leiweke’s bigticket brand of team-building here in Toronto.
As the MLSE president inches closer to the exit, TFC’s unprecedented outlay of tens of millions of dollars during his tenure is on trial as much as the XI that takes to the Stade Saputo pitch.
After all, spending big on players has never been a part of the Leafs’ organizational DNA (or even Toronto’s, for that matter) starting with founder Conn Smythe and his lick-’em-in-the-alley ethos, through the lunacy of the Ballard years and the ensuing group’s disinterest in acquiring a willing Wayne Gretzky, and finally into the pension plan-led era’s ROI-driven approach.
Shot through it all has been Toronto’s distrust, even outright disdain for incandescent individual talent — it’s no surprise that the Leafs’ historic heroes are celebrated for their everyman’s elbow grease moreso than attacking nous — and give Leiweke credit for recognizing that there’s no surer route these days to sporting irrelevance, if not mediocrity.
Or is there? Two-plus years into the reign of the most football-friendly big boss TFC could ever hope for, and a one-and-out playoff baptism would leave this season as mere smoke and mirrors, albeit with that playoff duck finally put to bed.
The irony is that for Leiweke’s methodology to work, TFC will have to go fundamental and mitigate their tendency to forget about defending and switch off, as they did in yielding the winning goal in Sunday’s unofficial first round of this away-and-away, on an Impact set piece that came straight out of the film room via the training ground to the still-lively feet of Drogba.
They certainly can’t expect to leave it to Giovinco alone.
His 22 goals and 16 assists collectively amount to almost two-thirds of their 58-goal output. But oneman teams tend to be grounded in this cruelest of games, where your best player’s highlight-reel goal can be cancelled by one breakdown from your weakest link.
Giovinco’s league MVP case is overwhelming; it’s hard to imagine where this team would be if he hadn’t made a leap of faith and the Atlantic Ocean back in January, arriving for his first training session in Downsview and promptly leaving his new teammates goggle-eyed at the skills he brought.
Such a two-footed combination of subtle touches and knockout blows has not gone unnoticed beyond, of course, and Giovinco’s recent reunion with the Azzurri for a pair of Euro 2016 qualifiers prompted rumours of a return to Europe’s bright lights. There’s nothing to suggest such speculation is in imminent danger of graduating to reality, but this is global football, where deals are made to be bought out and torn up.
As it stands, Giovinco and fellow designated players Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore represent the highest-priced trio this league has ever had. From the perspective of opposing hardcore fans, the $22 million in player payroll was assessed most succintly in a tifo display in Columbus comparing the Crew’s modus operandi way back on the second weekend of the season: “Built, not bought.”
Leiweke’s way is more direct. When he was in Los Angeles, he rocked the MLS and indeed the world by bringing David Beckham to the Galaxy and kicking off a new phase of growth for the league.
Reports now have him headed next to join Becks’ ownership group in a new Miami franchise, so expect parade plans and maybe Cristiano Ronaldo or Leo Messi on South Beach some day soon.
Meantime, it’s left to this TFC team, his TFC team with its so not-Toronto designer labels, to do two things it’s never had to do before: win a game that really counts, and vindicate a philosophy. Because if a .500 regular season and one measly road playoff game amounts to the high-water payoff for all the hype, there’s a phrase for that: No big deal. No big deal at all.