Homegrown hits and (mostly) misses

The best news in week one is...

Photo by Pedram Raz on Unsplash

All things considered, TFC’s 19th season opener went better than most of them have in the past. They didn’t lose. On the road, even!

The 2-2 draw with DC United had a lot to like, actually. They were a lively bunch, creating a lot of chances. On another night, they might have emerged from DC with all three points.

Sure, they also could have easily left with none, but considering that there was more than one expert picking them as Wooden Spoon contenders heading into the season, no one should be complaining about road points.

A less celebrated factor in the opener would be the start of new homegrown player Markus Cimermancic.

Unless you were a serious TFC 2 nerd, you probably didn’t have Cimermancic on your radar until recently. And since it’s next to impossible to follow a MLS pre-season in any meaningful way, most probably didn’t have him on their radar at all until the starting line-up was announced and they turned to the person beside them and said ‘who?’

Despite talking a big game when it comes to its academy — and legitimately sitting on a goldmine of talent — TFC has not really shown much success in translating academy talent into first team impact. In fact, the only homegrown success story of note in TFC’s history is the season’s opening goal scorer and club legend Jonathan Osorio. The problem with that is that his academy status is mostly a cheat. Oso developed at Nacional. MLS gifted TFC his homegrown status in 2013 because TFC needed a lot of help in 2013. He was only in the TFC Academy for about a month.

So, in truth, TFC has never really produced anyone who has made a significant and impactful contribution for TFC at the MLS level.

The first 90 minutes from Cimermancic didn’t suggest that he’s going to be the player to break that record of futility, but it also didn’t suggest that he is going to spend the year making 87th minute substitutions, as most academy grads do.

The lack of academy impact was mostly ok for much of TFC’s history. They have money, after all. ownership is willing to spend it, more importantly and in the latter part of the teens, that was all you needed to be a successful MLS team. Clubs that relied on the academy players were mostly in the second tier. They were taking that route because they couldn’t keep up with the big spending teams.

That changed sometime around 2020. More collective money got added to the cap which took the big DP spenders advantages down a notch. Eventually, that model of building around a big 3 became outdated and to be successful you needed to build depth. The most cost effective way to do that was to produce quality — MLS starting quality — from your academy that you then supplemented with your DPs.

Aside: Or you signed Lionel Messi and all his friends, but that’s a fully different conversation.

This is where TFC has failed. They have produced talent, but that talent has often not shown its best while still in Toronto. For many, that’s because they simply never get a chance to show themself for the Reds. That, obviously, frustrates TFC fans. It also frustrates those in Ontario soccer circles who want to see Ontario kids get a fair look.

That lack of trust might have been behind the decision of 16-year-old Shola Jimoh to sign with the CanPL’s York United rather than try to break through in MLS. By all accounts, TFC isn’t happy that they lost Jimoh, who is arguably the biggest 2008 prospect in Canada (in so far as a fully professional player can still be called a prospect).

Whether the sting of seeing him walk to York was behind a recent decision to remove CanPL scouts from a showcase event at the TFC training grounds is up for speculation, but it doesn’t seem that farfetched.

All of this is part of the context that Cimermancic steps into. In that context, it can only be seen as a positive that he was able to earn the start in week one. The bottom line is that the best news of week one is that Robin Fraser is open to playing the homegrowns in a significant way.

Let’s hope this is the start of a new way of thinking for TFC when it comes to its own players. If they are to ever get back to the top of MLS they will need to do much, much better at mining the GTA for talent.