Bizarro World: MLS edition
Toronto and Vancouver flip their approach to DPs. Right call for both?
Football teams have certain behaviours baked into their DNA. That’s especially the case in the ways that they are run. It’s rare that a free spending team suddenly becomes frugal or that a Moneyball owner wakes up and says **** it, let’s back up the truck!
It’s not unheard of, however. Sometimes the moment demands some reflection and a change in how everything is supposed to be done. Without that flip of the switch, an opportunity may be lost, or a rebuild might end up taking longer than it should have.
That’s the position that English Canada’s two MLS teams found themselves in this week as they navigated the summer transfer window in search of a new DP. The moves that both Vancouver and Toronto made — The Whitecaps added Thomas Müller, a global superstar (who was born in the eighties), and Toronto opting for Djordje Mihailovic, a reliable, MLS-proven, player without significant name recognition—are especially interesting in that they are not just the opposite of what either usually does, but also a mirror of what you’d normally expect the opposite team to do.
The Whitecaps don’t buy name players who are old enough to remember the (first) Salt Lake City Olympics. That’s a Toronto thing. And the Reds? Well, they are the ones who roll the dice big (and, of late, usually throw those dice not just off the table, but somewhere into Lake Ontario, having missed the mark that badly).
But, here we are. Bizzaro World, MLS edition.
Truthfully, it’s hard to criticize either move.
Beyond pointing out that Müller made his professional debut the same year Toronto FC, the club itself, did, you’d be at a stretch to suggest that now isn’t the right time for Vancouver to finally take a modest risk to try and push a good team over the top.
The Whitecaps are a team built on MLS smarts. You have to tip your hat. They have found value in players that you might not have expected to find any in, and they have done it while remaining among the cheapest teams in the league. As a club, they fight like hell to maintain the abstract roster-building mechanisms in MLS and, to their credit, under CEO and Sporting Director Axel Schuster, they have used those same rules to put together a team that could win MLS Cup this year.
They have the second-best goal differential in the league and the fourth most wins. They are legit. Yet…
There’s nothing inherently scary about them. They don’t have that it factor that makes you believe they can run it in when the weather gets cold. Who will be their Jozy Altidore of 2017? I’m sorry, but Brian White doesn’t give off that vibe, as much as he continues to shut up critics like me by outperforming his underlying numbers each year.
They are a team that uses great defence to win. Despite what your drunk uncle insisted while watching Monday Night Football in 1980s (the decade of Müller’s birth), defence doesn’t win championships.
Goals do.
So, enter Müller, a guy who has scored a few of them. He’s a wildcard that suddenly makes the ‘Caps interesting — and not in the what-top-team-is-most-likely-to-get-upset-in-the-first-round way that some teams in MLS can sometimes be interesting.
The opportunity for winning can be small in MLS, especially when it comes to the cheap Moneyball teams. Bringing in an old German was the right thing to do.
Where it would have been a terrible idea is Toronto, where the Reds just got rid of a problem. They are not in a position now to bring in any kind of risk.
Many TFC fans want the Reds to puff their chest out and be the big dog chasing Euro stars. Here’s the thing, though. Doing that right now would be the equivalent of icing the box the cake came in. You need to bake the damn cake first. Or at least mix it in a bowl.
To do that, you need solid ingredients. Reliable pieces that you know are going to work. There is next to no risk with Mihailovic. He’s 26, in his peak, and he will do exactly what you expect him to do for the next 3-4 years, at least.
What that is, is an offensive player who puts DP numbers up. In 2025, he’s averaging 4.4 shots + key passes per 90 minutes. He is one of only nine players with more than 2 shots per 90 and 2 key passes per.
Although he can score — he has nine goals this year — he’s a better playmaker. His 2.4 key passes per game ranks him 10th in the league in 2025. Most impressive is that this isn’t an outlier season for him. His key pass per 90 numbers since 2021, the year he became a regular starter in MLS?
2021 — 2.3
2022 — 2.2
2024 — 2.5
2025 — 2.4
Excluding the year he wasn’t getting an opportunity to play in the Netherlands, this is a guy who just goes out and does the job you are paying him to do year after year, game after game. After the last three years, that’s something to celebrate in Toronto.
He’s not a sexy DP because he’s not arriving from Napoli (to pick a completely random European side…), but he is a DP.
Like Müller, Mihailovic is the exact right choice for the place that the club is.
And unlike Müller, Don't Wanna Lose You by Gloria Estefan, wasn’t the No . 1 song on the day he was born.
"Icing the box the cake came in". Very good.
Off topic, but are you raising money for 'Jack' this year?