Herdman Here To Stay

Just as Toronto FC is going through another tumultuous management change, the Canadian Women’s National Team held a press conference to announce a friendly against Mexico on Sunday Nov. 24^th at BC Place.

But the bigger news was that the CSA has signed a contract extension with John Herdman coach of the CWNT that will have him remain the coach until 2020.  This will see him helm the Canadian team through the next two World Cups, Olympics, and the eventual retirement of Christine Sinclair. 

The last few months have been filled with speculation that he would take over the England Women’s National Team coach after former coach Hope Powell was fired. Herdman being from England was a top choice after the firing but with this contract extension the CSA has locked him up for the run into the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

With Herdman staying Canada still has a chance at getting deep into the knockout rounds of the tournament because without him the same last place performance in the 2011 World Cup would have been more likely.  Enough cannot be said about how much he has changed the program around with his focus on the mental attitude of the players and his focus on creating a national curriculum to development of the women’s game in Canada, and being able to get everything out of a certainly aging team at the 2012 London Olympics.

With his extension he will be able to implement and see the results of his plans, which along with the extra money the CSA probably threw at him is probably why he is sticking around.  With his home country calling, it had to take a lot not to go back, but in England only a head coaching job was available to him they will two people one as coach and the other as Technical Director of the Women’s  team in England.  Having both roles in the Canadian setup is probably why we still have a chance to reach that podium again in 2015, but after that it will be a whole new landscape for the Canadian Women’s National Team.

Here We Go Again

So the changing of the guard begins.  Kevin Payne has left/been fired after mutually agreeing with Tim Leiweke, President and CEO of MLSE, that it was the only option.  After promising throughout his whole tenure new signings would be coming and many did not come.  He needed time to solve the cap issues of the team, which were mostly solved by releasing key players on the team. And, in my opinion, the final straw was his interview during the AS Roma friendly, when fielding questions about unnecessary friendlies and the supporters’ mentality towards them, he literally said that the supporters would have to get used to it. 

Right then, I knew that he would not survive and was ready to go through another regime change.  Payne just does not know how to have success in this MLS 2.0 world, so the official reasoning of Payne and Leiweke having differing views on how to go forward with Toronto FC being the reason he was let go is truer than it seems.   In addition to Payne, Head Scout Pat Onstad and Director of Team and Player Operations Earl Cochrane will both be leaving the club.

Leiweke will now be able to bring his guy in to be President/General Manager of Toronto FC but has stated that whoever it is, Ryan Nelson is the coach of Toronto FC.  I hope this is just posturing for good relations for the rest of the season, because if one of the requirements of being the President of TFC is that you have to use this specific coach, the person they bring in will have no actual effect on this team and the exact same fucking thing will happen again.  Welcome to TFC Land, where you dreams are nightmares and the same one happens every night.

Oh wait the nightmare is getting worse, during the Leiweke conference call everything he was saying about the release of Kevin Payne and company was good until questions of the Argos were asked.  Leiweke did not immediately shut down the idea of the Argos moving to BMO Field which would also bring turf back, and changes to BMO Field stands.  If this comes to fruition it could be the end to the nightmare but in the sense that MLS soccer would no longer be in Toronto.  Furthermore, if turf is put in that would be the end of CMNT/CWNT games in Toronto.  Just as soccer is beginning to take off across the country, it will be dead in Toronto.  

Introduction to My Blog

Welcome to View From My Room, my foray as an university student and soccer fan into writing about Toronto FC, MLS, and the Canadian National Teams.  I’m the typical Canadian kid growing up in a small town playing hockey throughout my early childhood thinking soccer was only a sport that was played to stay active until hockey came back next fall.  But then one summer on July 11^th, 2009 I’m scrolling through the guide on my TV and see Toronto FC at San Jose Earthquakes.

The only previous experiences I had with the MLS were seeing the headlines back in 2007 about David Beckham signing with the LA Galaxy and playing something like FIFA 04 and saw a league based in the US and choose a random team to play as.  Even with so little experience with the league I decide to check it out mainly because I was so surprised that Toronto had a professional soccer team and had never heard of it before.

I tune in and within the first 5 minutes Chad Barrett scores on his way to a brace and a 3-1 win for Toronto FC.  I tune in the next week and the next following this new found team all the way until the last game of the season that was on GolTV, a channel that I did not have yet, so I turn on my radio and listen to the broadcast of the Toronto FC vs. New York Red Bulls game.  All TFC had to do was beat the last place team in the league and they would make the playoffs for the 1^st time in their 3 year existence.  But as we know TFC went on to lose 5-0 and still haven’t made the playoffs.  But I’m still here 3 1/2 seasons later having become a fan of the league and Canadian soccer overall,  starting this blog on the same day as four years ago when I watched my first TFC game.

Here on, View From My Room, I will be posting my thoughts about Toronto FC, MLS as a league overall, and the Canadian National Teams.  Each week on Tuesday I will post a standings update with an accompanying breakdown, and throughout the rest of the week I’ll write about other aspects of the North American game that interest me.

Thanks for checking this out, come back on Tuesday for my next post.